Something evil.
He had been there at the beginning. Was he now witnessing the end?
“What’s in the box?”
“We haven’t opened it yet,” Nash replied. “But I think you know.”
The package was small. Approximately four inches square and three inches high. Like the others. Wrapped in white paper and secured with black string. The address label was handwritten in careful script. There wouldn’t be any prints, never were. The stamps were self-adhesive—they wouldn’t find saliva.
He glanced back at the body bag. “Do you really think it’s him? Do you have a name?”
Nash shook his head. “No wallet or ID on him. He left his face on the pavement and in the bus’s grill. We ran his prints but couldn’t find a match. He’s a nobody.”
“Oh, he’s somebody,” Porter said. “Do you have any gloves?”
Nash pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and handed them to Porter. Porter slipped them on and nodded toward the box. “Do you mind?”
“We waited for you,” Nash said. “This is your case, Sam. Always was.”
When Porter crouched and reached for the box, one of the crime-scene techs rushed over, fumbling with a small video camera. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have orders to document this.”
“It’s fine, son. Only you, though. Are you ready?”
A red light on the front of the camera blinked to life, and the tech nodded. “Go ahead, sir.”
Porter turned the box so he could read the address label, carefully avoiding the droplets of crimson. “Arthur Talbot, 1547 Dearborn Parkway.”
Nash whistled. “Ritzy neighborhood. Old money. I don’t recognize the name, though.”
“Talbot’s an investment banker,” the CSI tech replied. “Heavy into real estate too. Lately he’s been converting warehouses near the lakefront into lofts—doing his part to force out low-income families and replace them with people who can afford the high rent and Starbucks grandes on the regular.”
Porter knew exactly who Arthur Talbot was. He looked up at the tech. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Paul Watson, sir.”
Porter couldn’t help but grin. “You’ll make an excellent detective one day, Dr. Watson.”
“I’m not a doctor, sir. I’m working on my thesis, but I’ve got at least two more years to go.”
Porter chuckled. “Doesn’t anyone read anymore?”
“Sam, the box?”
“Right. The box.”
He tugged at the string and watched as the knot unraveled and came apart. The white paper beneath had been neatly folded over the corners, ending in perfect little triangles. Like a gift. He wrapped it like a gift. The paper came away easily, revealing a black box. Porter set the paper and string aside, glanced at Nash and Watson, then slowly lifted the lid.
The ear had been washed clean of blood and rested on a blanket of cotton. Just like the others.
4
Porter
Day 1 ? 7:05 a.m.
“I need to see his body.”
Nash glanced nervously at the growing crowd. “Are you sure you want to do that here? There are a lot of eyes on you right now.”
“Let’s get a tent up.”
Nash signaled to one of the officers.
Fifteen minutes later, much to the dismay of oncoming traffic, a twelve-by-twelve tent stood on Fifty-Fifth Street, blocking one of the two eastbound lanes. Nash and Porter slipped through the flap, followed closely by Eisley and Watson. A uniformed guard took up position at the door in case someone snuck past the barricades at the scene perimeter and tried to get in.
Six 1,200-watt halogen floodlights stood on yellow metal tripods in a semicircle around the body, filling the small space with sharp, bright light.
Eisley reached down and peeled back the top flap of the bag.
Porter knelt. “Has he been moved at all?”
Eisley shook his head. “We photographed him, and then I got him covered as quickly as I could. That’s how he landed.”
He was facedown on the blacktop. There was a small pool of blood near his head with a streak leading toward the edge of the tent. His dark hair was close-cropped, sprinkled with gray.
Porter donned another pair of latex gloves from a box at his left and gently lifted the man’s head. It pulled away from the cold asphalt with a slurp not unlike Fruit Roll-Ups as they’re peeled from the plastic. His stomach grumbled, and he realized he hadn’t eaten yet. Probably a good thing. “Can you help me turn him over?”
Eisley took the man’s shoulder, and Nash positioned himself at his feet.
“On three. One, two . . .”
It was too soon for rigor to set in; the body was loose. It looked like the right leg was broken in at least three spots; the left arm too, probably more.
“Oh, God. That’s nasty.” Nash’s eyes were fixed on the man’s face. More accurately, where his face should have been. His cheeks were gone, only torn flaps remaining. His jawbone was clearly visible but broken—his mouth gaped open as if someone had gripped both halves of his jaw and pulled them apart like a bear trap. One eye was ruptured, oozing vitreous fluid. The other stared blindly up at them, green in the bright light.
Porter leaned in closer. “Do you think you can reconstruct this?”
Eisley nodded. “I’ll get somebody on it as soon as we get him back to my lab.”
“Tough to say, but based on his build and the slight graying in the hair, I’d guess he’s late forties, early fifties, at the most.”
“I should be able to get you a more precise age too,” Eisley said. He was examining the man’s eyes with a penlight. “The cornea is still intact.”
Porter knew they were able to able to estimate age through the carbon dating of material in the eyes; it was called the Lynnerup method. The process could narrow the age down to within a year or two.
The man wore a navy pinstripe suit. The left sleeve was shredded; a jagged bone poked out near the elbow.
“Did someone find his other shoe?” The right was missing. His dark sock was damp with blood.
“A uniform picked it up. It’s on that table over there.” Nash pointed to the far right. “He was wearing a fedora too.”
“A fedora? Are those making a comeback?”
“Only in the movies.”
“There’s something in this pocket.” Watson was pointing at the right breast pocket of the man’s jacket. “It’s square. Another box?”
“No, too thin.” Porter carefully unbuttoned the jacket and reached inside, retrieving a small Tops composition book, like the ones students carried prior to tablets and smartphones: 4?" x 3?" with a black and white cover and college-ruled pages. It was nearly full, each page covered in handwriting so small and precise that two lines of text filled the space normally occupied by one. “This could be something. Looks like some kind of diary. Good catch, Doc.”
“I’m not a—”
Porter waved a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah.” He turned back to Nash. “I thought you said you checked his pockets?”
“We only searched the pants for a wallet. I wanted to wait for you to process the body.”