CHAPTER 2
Matt sat down at his desk in the penthouse offices of Houston Investigations. After opening his laptop and finding the lecture that he needed to watch for his fire investigation class, he popped in his earbuds and pulled out a notebook. Ten minutes into the lecture his cell phone rang. He looked at the caller ID as he paused the lecture. "Hey Lee, what's up?"
"Weird stuff." The police detective looked around and lowered his voice. "You aren't going to believe this but it looks like somebody has taken some bodies from the morgue."
"As in the county morgue?" Matt closed the laptop.
"The very same. You and I both know that there have been a lot of problems with that department in the last year or so and this just ices the cake."
"Or drives a nail in the coffin…sorry, automatic reaction." He heard the cop try to stifle a snicker on the other end of the line.
"Anyway, the chief wants you to come down and take a look if you would. I know you're trying to work on your class stuff."
"That's okay; you've definitely got my attention. Be there in a few." He hung up and locked up the door to his private office, walking across to CJ's office where she was at work on some legal documents for a friend. Looking up, she gave him the raised eyebrow look.
"Don't tell me you're going somewhere – you just got started on your school work."
"Yep." He related the phone call from Lee Jennings.
"Ooookay. Well, don't guess I can blame you." She shook her head and laughed. "Be careful."
"I will." He leaned across the desk and stroked her cheek before kissing her. "Love you."
"Love you, Cowboy. Now go find the corpse rustler."
"I'll be sure to tell Lee that one." He chuckled as he went down the steps to the outer office and boarded the elevator. Turning right out of the parking garage, Matt hit the Harbor Freeway north to the 101 and then took the North Mission Road exit. Although the parking lot at the facility was usually busy, today was a nightmare: TV news trucks were parked in the lot along with a few LAPD vehicles. "Great. Parking lot gridlock." He groaned as he pulled into the parking lot and was stopped by a young police officer. He flashed his LAPD consultant ID and managed to wedge the truck into a spot at the far end of the lot. As he approached the front door, a news crew from one of the local stations spotted him. The reporter, Tamara Placer, made a beeline for him. "Damn." Under his breath he said a few more colorful phrases.
"Mr. Houston, can you tell us about what's going on inside?" The blonde reporter was about to stumble over her high heels as she tried to keep up with him.
"Haven't been inside yet."
"But the LAPD called you in on the case didn't they? Mr. Houston?" She popped her hands on her hips as Matt was let into the building by Sgt. Gabriella Giovanni.
"Congrats – I heard you made detective." Matt flashed a smile.
"Thanks. I start in about a month. I've got two weeks of vacation and I'm taking them before I transfer. Congrats on getting past the bimbo. I'll give you five points for that one."
"Much appreciated." The PI looked up and spied Lee Jennings talking to one of the morgue employees and made his way over.
"Thanks for coming, man." The cop nodded in the direction of another employee who was leaning against the wall several feet away looking up at the ceiling as if bored. A uniformed officer was standing next to him. "Think you could interview that guy? We've got three others. I've kept them separated." He gestured down the hallway where other officers were making sure that they weren't talking to each other.
"No problem." Matt pulled the ever-present notebook out of his back pocket as well as a pen and moved down the hall to the bored-looking man of about 23. "So what can you tell me?"
"That I don't appreciate being held hostage here by a bunch of Nazi cops. Or being treated like a suspect. I see how you're keeping us separated; I watch TV; I know what you're up to." He gave Matt a scathing look.
Matt looked around and then back at the man and motioned him closer. Lowering his voice he whispered conspiratorially. "Wanna know a secret?" That got the man's attention.
"What?"
He gave the man a stern look and his tone dropped. "I'm not a cop. Now tell me what you know."
After giving a big sigh, the man shrugged. "I don't know anything about any bodies missing. I've spent most of the night cleaning."
"Did you see anyone that shouldn't have been here?"
"No."
"Hear anything unusual?"
"No." The man grinned and pulled a pair of earbuds out of his pocket.
"How long have you been working here?" Matt continued questioning him, asking everything from his contact information to when he had taken his last break.
"Can I leave now?"
"You can leave when that guy says you can." He pointed at Lee who had moved on down to the next employee.
Matt went on down the hall and began talking to the next worker, a scared looking young woman. "What can you tell me about what happened?" Matt flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. In a very thick accent, she began trying to tell him but kept stumbling over her words. "eyHey, Rick – could you grab us a chair, please?" He asked the young officer who was assigned to keep an eye on the woman. "Thanks, bud." He motioned the young woman into the chair and when he spoke next it was in Spanish. "Have a seat. Now take a big breath. What's your name?" The young woman looked surprised.
"Silvia Nereida."
"Okay, now? Alright. Did you see or hear anything unusual tonight?" Matt knelt down in front of her.
"No, I was working on the laundry. The machines are very noisy and it's hard to hear anything. But I did see a man…well, I think I did."
"Can you explain?"
"It was so fast, I wasn't sure that I actually saw anyone. This place gives me the creeps." She looked down at her hands and then back up at the PI. "I know that sounds silly, like a child, but if I could find another job I would leave here this minute."
"It's kind of a creepy place. So who did you think you saw?"
"It was an older man – maybe fifty or so, with gray hair, kind of long. About shoulder length. He was about average height. I was pulling sheets out of one of the dryers and put them on the table. As I turned back to the machine I caught sight of him – out of the corner of my eye. I think he was watching me. When I looked again he was gone. I thought maybe someone was just lost."
"Can you show me where you were when you saw him?" He stood back up and followed her down the hall and to a room on the left hand side of the hallway. The laundry equipment was in use and she had been right – it was noisy. "Where were you standing?" He stayed in the doorway as she approached one of the dryers. "And he was standing here?"
"Yes sir, right where you are, but kind of more hidden by the doorway. That's it."
Matt had backed up a step and was peeking around the corner. "Okay, so was he heading on down the hall this way?" He pointed in the direction away from the others who were gathered in the hallway.
"Yes." She came back out. "Maybe I should have told someone but people get confused and lost in here quite often." She watched as he looked up and made note of the security cameras that were installed in the hallway.
"Did anything else happen?"
"No sir. It was just like any other night except for that."
After taking down the rest of her information, he thanked her for her help and the two walked back up toward Lee who had just finished with the last employee. "Can she leave now?"
"Sure, as long as you've got her information."
Once again he spoke in Spanish. "Thanks again for your help. We might be calling you." Matt gave her a smile and she nodded shyly and went on down the hallway. "She says she saw a man." He led Lee down the hallway and showed him exactly where she had been standing and gave him the description. "We need to look at the video from the security cameras."
"Huh, wish we could. They weren't working." The cop had a disgusted look on his face.
"Why?"
"I'm not sure. Want to take a look?"
"Why not?" Matt followed the cop to the security office. Sitting behind a desk was a young man who looked ready to pull his hair out.
"Houston, this is Joey Candless. He was one of four guards working the night shift. The other three are in there." He pointed to a glassed in office where Carl Trenton was talking to the three uniformed guards. "Joey here was in charge of the video surveillance."
"So what happened to the cameras?"
"I don't know, sir. When I clocked in last night at 11:00 they were fine."
"Mind if I take a look?"
"No sir." The young man got up and moved aside as Matt came around the desk.
The PI got a smirk on his face as he sat down. "When did this equipment get installed, Joey?"
"About two weeks ago." Matt nodded and slid the keyboard over, flipped it over and hit something on the underside, then set it back down on the desk. After punching several keys, all of the monitors turned blue for a minute and then came to life. "How did you do that?"
Matt remained quiet as he punched more keys and brought up the feed from the previous night. He fast-forwarded until 3:00AM. "Bingo." He rewound a little and then played the feed at normal speed. A man that matched the description given by Silvia Nereida was clearly visible moving around in the building and loading four bodies into a delivery-type truck. "He looks right at the cameras – didn't try to cover his face or anything." Looking up at the young man, he cocked his head. "You were assigned to this station all night?"
"Yes sir." Joey looked down at his shoes.
"Uh huh." Matt turned back and began punching keys. The kid leaned over and looked at the screen in first amazement and then embarrassment.
"Joey, somehow I don't think watching is in your job description." He punched a couple of other keys and the printer came to life. Matt stared at the young man and picked up the four pages and read through them. "How long have you been working here?"
"Six months."
"You might want to use a computer to find job listings – instead of porn." Matt slipped a flash drive into a USB port and downloaded the video of their suspect. "Go have a seat over there." He picked up the papers and the flash drive and headed to the office where Trenton was interviewing the other guards. He walked in and leaned against the wall on the right-hand side of the office and listened as one of the guards, a man of about forty with a gray ring of fringe around a mostly bald head was sweating buckets as he tried to explain that he hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary all night long. The nameplate on his chest read "Hall".
"Mr. Hall, you didn't happen to see anyone at about 3:00AM did you?"
"No. No I was up on the second floor making my rounds."
"Sure about that, are you?" The look Matt gave the man made him stop and reconsider.
"Well, I was in the security office for a while, uh, maybe it was, well yeah, I guess it was about then."
"What about the rest of y'all?" Matt looked at the other two guards, one of them a little older than Joey and one who appeared to be about sixty.
"We were taking a break then, too, come to think of it." The oldest guard, Morgan according to his nametag nodded his agreement and looked at the other guard who nodded as well.
"Uh huh." Matt looked at Trenton and spoke again. "Let's make a trip out here, gents." He turned and went out to the bank of computer monitors and sat down in the chair. After consulting the print out he had made earlier he punched some keys and a porn website flashed on all of the monitors. He then shut it off. "I'm gonna make a guess here, fellas. I'm guessing that about 2:30 this morning y'all were kinda bored and Joey here knew how to liven things up in the morgue, am I right?" There was absolute silence. "Then about 3:30 the monitors went to snow and young Joey here has been furiously pounding the keyboard ever since trying to straighten the situation out." More silence.
Lee spoke up. "Carl, let's give these guys a ride down to the station. And tell the guys from the dayshift that they can come in here now." The four guards shuffled out with Carl and Lee managed not to laugh until they were gone. "Damn! How did you do that?"
"I helped to design the system with Derwin Dunlap." Matt chuckled and shook his head. "A lot of the porn sites are great places to pick up a computer virus. When one hits off of one of those sites, the monitors will go to snow – sure to catch someone's attention – hopefully the boss, who is supposed to be the only one to know about the reset button under the keyboard."
"So the virus triggers a shutdown of the system to protect it?"
"Yep – and it also alerts the boss to wasted man hours if you will." Matt grinned.
"That's good…sneaky, but good." He blew out a breath. "Okay, so now we have video of the guy snagging the bodies."
"Do we know who he took?"
"Yeah, although for the life of me…" He looked at Matt who was smirking again. "Let me rephrase that. I don't why in the hell someone would steal a dead body – let alone four of them." Reaching into his shirt pocket, Lee removed a list and handed it to Matt.
"Have these folks already been posted?" He looked down the list, recognizing one of the names.
"No."
"So maybe somebody is trying to cover up something – like maybe an unnatural death. We need to pull whatever records they have on these folks and see what we can find out about them."
"Okay, I guess the receptionist would be the best place to start." They headed down the hall to find two women sitting in the reception office. "Good morning, ladies. Det. Lee Jennings." He flashed his badge. "We need all the information you have on these four names here." Handing the paper over to the older lady, he gave the younger one a smile that was returned with interest. Matt looked between the two. Lee seemed to have frozen in place with the smile on his face and had no idea that the older lady had printed out the information and was trying to hand it to him. Trying to help the cop out, Matt gave the lady a smile as he reached for the papers.
"Thank you, ma'am." He looked at Lee who was still looking at the young lady. "Det. Jennings?" He punched the cop in the ribs.
"Huh?"
"I think you might need to get some information from the young lady." Matt gave the cop a grin as the gears in his head finally came back to life.
"Uh yeah, better do that. Miss, would you mind stepping over here, please?" He walked a few feet away and the woman gladly went to speak to him.
Matt and the older lady exchanged a look and a smile. He gave a chuckle and began reading through the list which was in chronological order according to when the bodies had been brought in to the morgue. First on the list was Michael Allen Griesman, age 52, who had been brought in at 11:27PM. According to the file it appeared that Mr. Griesman had suffered a heart attack while shopping in a local grocery store at about 10:15.
Sneaking a look over at Lee, who was deep in conversation with the young woman, Matt shook his head and went back to the list. The second person that was brought in was Monica Ashley Carter, age 20, brought in at 1:05AM. She was found in an alley that ran between East Second Street and East Third Street off of South St. Louis Street and South Chicago Street. There was no apparent cause of death. Third on the list was Mario Luis Santiago, age 19, who had apparently been killed by a blow to the head. He was found lying in the middle of the Long Beach Freeway not far from where Monica Carter had been found in East LA. He had been brought in at 1:34AM.
The PI looked up to see that Lee was wrapping up his conversation with the young lady and she, blushing, was headed back behind the counter as her older counterpart winked at Matt who smiled. Looking back down at the list, he read about the fourth body that was brought in, Mario Gianfranco Concetto. That got Matt's attention. Concetto had been in the spotlight a few years earlier during a trial involving prostitution and drug distribution. He had been a mid-level employee of one of the reputed crime families and had supposedly turned state's evidence. The trial was a flop: the DA had withdrawn the charges because witnesses kept disappearing and the rumor on the street was that Concetto had played the DA's office and had never really turned into an informant. Matt had figured that the fact that the man was still alive a few years after the trial was proof that the street theory was true. Mob informants as a whole generally tended to have a short shelf life and the fact that Mario Concetto had never left town seemed to reinforce that theory. He was considered to be an unofficial restaurant critic in the city and had the waistline to prove it. Concetto had been brought in at 2:00AM.
"Anything interesting?" Lee looked like he was in shock.
"I could ask you the same thing." The pair walked toward the front doors.
"You could say that." The cop was smiling from ear to ear.
"So when are you going out?" Matt cut his eyes over at Lee.
"I didn't ask her out yet." He stopped and turned back to look at Houston who had stopped and was standing in the lobby looking at him like he had lost his mind.
"We need a copy of this list." He turned Lee around by his shoulders and handed him the papers. "Get your ass back over there and ask her out while they're printing. I'll pick up the tab." Giving the cop a shove he winked at the older lady who quickly left the counter. He watched from the corner of his eye as Lee handed the young lady the papers and apparently asked the question: her face turned bright red and so did his ears. Matt chuckled and looked back out the front door. Lee returned momentarily and once again looked like he was in shock but also wore a goofy grin. "So she said yes. When is it?"
"Tonight at 7:00. Ricardo's." Lee looked at Matt as they headed outside. "Why did you do that?"
"Because it's a sin to waste time, bud. I did enough of that for everybody and I'm not going to let you do that. You're going to marry that girl, mark my words."
"What?!"
"Betcha ten bucks. Now gimme a copy of the list. I'm going to go see what I can get from BABY and you see what you can come up with on criminal records and facial recognition of the guy that swiped the cadavers. Here, don't lose it." He tossed the flash drive to the astounded cop. "Call you later." He headed for his truck, grateful that the blonde bimbo was gone from the parking lot. Looking back over his shoulder at Lee he yelled out, "And wear another tie – that one sucks."
