were told with no questions asked. In less than three hours, they had flown in to Louisville, rented a car, driven to the client’s location, and sent him on his way before they cleansed the scene of evidence.
She wasn’t happy that her crew had made personal contact with the client, but she needed someone to verify his condition, see if he could be trusted not to talk to anybody. Considering the tasks that were required of them, she’d had doubts they could pull it off.
Unfortunately, she was right. They’d been sloppy in the method of disposal of the first woman’s body. They had deviated from her plan, and now she would have to make changes. Well, it couldn’t be helped.
She sighed, picked up her glass of sparkling water, and added a twist of lime. When she reported the cock-up to her superiors, it would start a shit storm. They, too, were expecting a simple acknowledgment that the task was completed, and they were disturbed enough by the client’s actions. Not to mention he had called them using his personal cell phone. If someone was tracing phone records, things could get messy.
She took a sip of the water and watched out the window the dark, streamlined forms of cormorants as they swooped down into the sea, then lifted back into the sky. Sometimes they would have a fish in their grasp, sometimes nothing. The symbolism wasn’t lost on her. Life was like that. Sometimes you were the hunter, sometimes the prey. She’d been on both sides, and had fought for her position in the food chain. A mistake could cost her everything.
She began to run down a mental list of contractors who she trusted to take care of this botched job if it came to that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jack asked Detective Larry Jansen for the second time, “What are you doing here?”
Jack and Liddell had been waiting for Lilly to finish a phone call at the morgue when Jansen showed up in his scuffed lace-up shoes and permanently wrinkled trench coat.
Lilly had turned the air-conditioning down to subzero, and while Liddell and Jack were freezing their butts off, Jansen was sweating bullets. Jack, knowing Jansen had a heart attack not too long ago, asked him, “Are you okay?”
Jansen ran a hand through his greasy mop of hair. “I’m okay, Jack. Are you okay?” He looked offended. “I’m the missing persons detective, remember? I’m doing my job.”
“So who’s missing?” Liddell asked. “I mean besides missing a head and an arm.”
Jack knew Jansen wasn’t going to tell them anything. He was jealous of his cases to the point of leaving them unsolved rather than letting another detective get involved. He figured Jansen knew something they didn’t and was waiting for that “aha!” moment to tell them. That’s the way the man was wired.
Lilly came back in the room, poured her second cup of coffee, and added three heaping teaspoons of sugar. “That was your chief on the phone,” she said to the three men. “Better put on your big-boy pants. He’s on his way here.”
“That was the chief?” Liddell asked.
She gave Liddell what passed for a smile, then blew across the top of the steaming mug and took a sip. “I told him this wasn’t a pizza delivery joint. If he wants to view the remains, he has to come here, just like anyone else. Besides, I don’t know where our digital camera is to take a picture. Maybe it’s been sold to pay the electric bill.”
Jack knew the coroner’s office was struggling with the budget cuts, just like every other agency, but he also knew that it wasn’t like Lilly to piss off the chief of police. She must be in a mood.
“Did you hear about the mayor signing a sweetheart deal with one of his buddies?” Liddell asked.
Jack had heard the scuttlebutt. The city was leasing two buildings from the mayor’s brother at a cost of over one hundred fifty thousand a year, plus a hundred grand for the improvements needed to run computer and phone lines. The rumor was the mayor was taking the cost out of the police department’s manpower and equipment budget.
“Things are tough all over, Bigfoot,” Jack said. “Better drop it.”
A buzzer sounded from the front door of the building.
“I’ll have the receptionist get that,” Lilly said, and then threw her hands in the air. “Oh, I forgot. We don’t have a receptionist.”
Jansen hurried toward the back door that led to the garage.
“Tell us how you really feel, Lilly,”