Intersecting Lines Book 3

54 Some Assembly Required

Los Angeles LAPD Medical Examiner's Office

Maura's viewpoint

Several hours after my sudden influx of forensics specialists and I was walking through the morgue's workspaces, overseeing their activities.

Doctor's Brennan, Danville and Cavanagh were conducting the autopsy on the first victim, an Anthony Kelly. Preliminary investigations by Major Crimes had determined that he was a farm machinery salesman from Idaho who was in town for a sales conference and had been assigned to Lieutenant Caine's room; that unfortunate and as yet unexplained mix-up regrettably costing him his life. As I watched Doctor Brennan leaned back and indicated something within the 'Y' incision to Jordan Cavanagh who nodded eagerly. It was obvious Jordan had been more than serious about looking to learn from the plethora of experts working on this case, as Jo Danville looked up and saw me.

Choosing not to interrupt Doctor Brennan's teaching moment I quietly nodded to Jo and kept walking on into the second autopsy room to find our Philadelphia contingent, Doctors Hunt and Murphy, conducting the autopsy on Herve Villegra, the unfortunate staff member who had opened the door to Doctor Langstrom's room. Seeing them not engaged inside the cadaver I walked over.

"Good morning doctors" They both looked up and nodded as I moved closer. Megan spoke first.

"The initial determination of blunt trauma as the cause of death was correct Maura" Kate looked from her colleague to me.

"I agree; we haven't found anything beyond the obvious serious but non-immediately lethal shrapnel wounds" She shrugged before continuing. "The deceased had signs of latent cardiac issues, mostly a build-up of cholesterol in their arteries, but it was not yet at a level that would be life-threatening" I nodded, the victim was somewhat overweight after all so it was unlikely that anything else was in play but still…

"Did the toxicology screen show any medication, alcohol or other irregularities?" Kate shook her head.

"No, no alcohol, no medication either so we can assume his cholesterol hadn't been detected yet" Megan jumped back in.

"We did find the remains of his last dinner, he had what looks like two hamburger and fries washed down with cola so we know where the cholesterol likely came from" I nodded.

"Heart disease, often exacerbated by obesity, is a primary cause of death amongst adult Americans" I noted.

"Yeah, and so easily preventable" At Megan's words I nodded, remembering that she had previously been a surgeon and doctor before taking up her new career as a Medical Examiner.

"Regrettably yes" I looked from Megan to Kate and back. "Once you are complete, could I ask you to write up your findings then join me as we discuss the case?" I got nods and smiles in response and I smiled before leaving them to continue and going in search of the others, finding them in the chemical lab. Ray Langstrom, Catherine Willows and Mac Taylor were standing around a bench, looking at a printout in front of them.

"Good morning" I got greetings from them as I approached, as Catherine held up the printout for my attention.

"Analysis of the chemical residue in the hotel rooms and on the victims determined that the explosive was a high-grade commercially-manufactured product, one used by the US military in fact, though it does have some civilian applications" I nodded as I responded.

"Have we heard from the bomb squad on the success or otherwise of their attempts to disarm the remaining device?" I glanced amongst them. "It would be extremely helpful to have physical examples as well as trace evidence" I got head shakes before Lieutenant Taylor spoke.

"Last I heard talking to Major Crimes the EOD guys were still looking for a way to disarm it" He grimaced. "Apparently it's got anti-tamper gear on it" I nodded once at him.

"Interesting, let us hope they are successful then" Looking at Catherine Willows I queried her previous comment. "You stated that it was a military compound, could you be more specific?" She laid the printout down on the bench and pointed to it as the others moved back to make room.

"The analysis says it's a hexahydro-1,3,5-triazine derivative" She glanced my way. "That's normally manufactured for the military and a few selected civilian demolition applications as CycloTrimethyleneTriNitramine" Taylor nodded and backed her up.

"It's better known as RDX. It's a pretty common military high explosive, they use it because it's not only stable, when exploded in air it's about 1.5 times the explosive power of TNT per unit weight" I glanced at him.

"That was very precise Lieutenant, have you had prior exposure to RDX?" He nodded and gave me a slight smile.

"You could say that, I did some time in the Army so I got to know all about its applications there" I nodded again.

"Very helpful" I thought for a moment. "Could I then ask you to follow up on where this particular batch might have originated from?" He looked off into space for a few seconds then replied.

"There should be some chemical traces the manufacturer includes to trace the batches" He looked my way and nodded. "I know we have those details back in New York so I'll get onto the lab there to chase it up"

"Please, that would be quite helpful" I said then looked at our two Las Vegas visitors. "I have asked Doctors Murphy and Hunt to write up their conclusions on the Villegra autopsy and will request the same from Doctors Brennan and Cavanagh on their subject, Mister Kelly" I consulted my watch. "I expect they will both be complete within the hour so I would suggest we reconvene at 11.30 to discuss their findings" I got nods from them both. "In the meantime, could I ask you to review the imagery of each the victims and the crime scenes for any issues that may have been overlooked?"

I did not think there would be anything, but I had an excess of qualified medical examiners and not really enough for all of this early in the investigation. Fortunately I got a pair of nods as Lieutenant Taylor spoke up.

"I'll give the lab back home a call now and get them moving" I smiled.

"Thank you Lieutenant, that would be greatly appreciated"

With the case's forensics in good hands I strolled upstairs to touch base with Brenda, to see how that aspect of the case was progressing. Exiting the lift and walking down the corridor was altogether normal, what greeted me however was not. The room was full of people all industriously working away.

Every desk had someone working at it, as I watched I saw Detective Kahn moving from one desk to another, helping our new arrivals get logged onto the system and showing them where they could find information. Over by the whiteboard I saw Kate Beckett standing with Detective Duquesne and Lieutenant Caine, they watched and occasionally made comments as Kate made notes on the board in a neat script, adding to a rapidly growing collection.

My eyes sought out Jane, seeing her standing at her desk with a series of papers laid across it, engrossed in a discussion with Agent Booth and Mikki Mendoza, all three looking at a sheet Mikki was tapping. I smiled to myself for a moment at seeing Jane concentrating so hard to the exclusion of all around her. Shaking my head I made my way through the room, getting nods and welcomes from many of the detectives before I arrived at the door to Brenda's office. Tapping on the door jamb she looked up and gave me a slightly harried smile.

"Good morning Doctor Isles" Returning the smile I walked in.

"Good morning Chief, I came up to pass on the preliminary results from the team" I got a twisted smile.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I had my office full of people this morning, all wanting in on the case" She shrugged. I told the officers could be part of my team but the forensics people had to ask you" She gave me a small shrug. "They then left and headed your way, looking very determined, so sorry 'bout that" I waved her apology away.

"That is unnecessary, the additional resources that have augmented the Medical Examiner's office have allowed for a much faster processing of the victims" I got a nod and a question in return.

"Anything out of the ordinary?" I shook my head.

"While the autopsies are still underway, the preliminary conclusions support the hypothesis that both victims died as a result of the trauma received as a direct result of the explosion" I sat back in the chair. "You should have the full results before 1 PM today" Brenda nodded.

"Quick work, please thank your new and improved team for me" She also sat back and regarded me for a moment before continuing. "I know its early days but how is your impromptu team gelling?" I pursed my lips before replying.

"It is of course too early to say with any certainty, but I did make it clear that participation in this investigation was dependent on their working together as a single team, without seniority or egos" Brenda nodded.

"Very wise, we have rank structures and such for that but it's a bit different for your people, if you need me to speak to anyone, let me know" I assured her that I would if it became necessary and we chatted for a few minutes before I left her, knowing that her day was going to be particularly hectic.

Giving my team a little space to complete their tasks without feeling pressured I visited Natalie and we chatted for a while on the investigation before taking my leave and heading downstairs. I returned in time to convene a meeting of my investigation team, as expected both victim's autopsies had discovered nothing that was not consistent with the nature of their passing, something I would highlight in my report to Brenda. That done, and following reports from Catherine Willows and Ray Langstrom that nothing unusual had appeared in the visual records, I looked to Lieutenant Taylor who related what had so far been determined from the explosives traces.

"The explosive we're looking at was manufactured by Mil-Spec Industries Corp, they're located in Glen Cove New York, out on the western end of Long Island" He glanced around the Forensics team meeting room table we were sitting at, most cradling coffees, before continuing. "They manufacture for both military and civil uses, but this batch is military standard, it has a slightly higher level of Hexamine, which is typical of military-grade explosive" He passed across a printout which I scanned, the conclusions were sound, looking up I smiled.

"Please pass on my gratitude for some very quick work Lieutenant" I flicked across the page and looked up again, summarising for the group. "Their conclusion is that the presence of wax in the residue suggests this is Composition A3, which is military use only" I raised an eyebrow. "The availability of military grade explosive in this case is a matter of some concern"

"That's one way to describe it" Megan commented, her voice dry. I looked to Lieutenant Taylor.

"What is the next step Lieutenant, given your experience with this product?" The Lieutenant looked into space for a few second before coming back to me and replying.

"If we contact the company we should be able to determine the precise batch, when it was made and who it was for" I nodded gratefully as I handed back the report.

"If you would be so kind as to organise that Lieutenant Taylor, I would be grateful" He gathered up the paperwork and gave me a quick nod.

"I'll get on it as soon as we finish up here"

Los Angeles LAPD Major Crimes

Brenda's viewpoint

I have to say having so many extra, experienced officers added to my team was both a boon and a challenge. A boon in that once given something to do they set to it quickly and efficiently, bringing their long years of expertise to bear, the challenge was to find enough to keep everyone gainfully occupied as leads were examined and exhausted. To that end I had taken to regularly circling the Murder Room, keeping myself appraised of where everyone was at their respective tasks and reassigning people as new leads became available.

The hotel's security camera footage had proven no real help. Oh, they'd gotten footage of our perpetrator all right, a tall, well-built black man in slacks, a windcheater and carrying a large sports bag; but he'd worn a long billed Yankee's cap and had consciously manoeuvred to keep his face hidden from the camera's, he'd obviously known where they were. We were certain it was him though; he'd visited all three of our would-be victim's rooms, the only person to do so, as we'd already ascertained that different hotel cleaning staff worked different floors, none of them covered all three of the floors in question.

We'd recovered no fingerprints from Lieutenant Taylor's door, the only one still intact; it appeared our suspect was either wearing gloves, though they weren't visible in the camera footage, or had surreptitiously wiped the door handle down when he pulled it shut. The upshot was we'd found no prints anywhere that didn't belong to either the hotel's cleaning person or Taylor. The same was true in both Langstrom's room and the one belonging to our deceased salesman. With that a dead end we'd turned our attention elsewhere, something I was following up on now.

"Detectives, where are we on the booking mix-up and the access keys to each of the three rooms?" Jane turned round to face me, backed by Olivia and Kate Beckett.

"The room allocated to Caine was supposed to go to him, it's just the previous tenant spilled coffee on the mattress at breakfast before check out that morning and it soaked through" I nodded as she continued. "Caine arrived early and they were still replacing the mattress in that room, so they switched his booking with that of Kelly's, given he wasn't due in until later that afternoon, as it turned out Kelly didn't actually check in until after seven that night" I nodded then pressed her.

"I know it's unlikely but we've found nothing on Kelly, nothing to suggest he, as dubious as it might seem, may have been one of the targets?" I got a shake of her head.

"His life, according to Boise police, was almost textbook normal" Jane consulted her notes, reading off it. "The usual parking and speeding tickets, more than the average given he was a salesperson, on the road every day but I suppose that's part of the job" I nodded as she continued. "A couple of old drunk and disorderly citations from back when he was at college, he has an ex-wife; they divorced about six years ago and he has two school age daughters he shares custody with" She looked up, cutting me off. "The divorce seems as amicable as you could hope for, there are no police records of anything related to that" I nodded and she pressed on. "He was in town for his companies national sales conference, it's been planned for over six months" I nodded, mentally moving that lead into the 'unlikely' box and refocussing elsewhere.

"Who knew about the switch and when did they know it took place?" Olivia took that.

"Anyone who looked at the booking system from the moment of the switch over, practically the entire hotel staff has access to that database" I pulled a face at that piece of unwelcome news as she continued on. "Given that we know that the spare key cards to the three rooms were obtained prior to that time, otherwise they would have got the right vic…" She trailed off as I nodded.

"Yes, do we know how the access cards were obtained?" Beckett handled that.

"According to the hotel's staff the individual room access cards are printed at two locations; though the primary is at the reception desk, there's a back-up machine in an area nearby in case anything happens with the main machine" She too checked her notes. "According to the hotel's computer systems all three key cards were created the day before Caine and the others arrived, printed off at the back-up access card machine" She shrugged. "We're looking into how many people have access to it, but it's in an unlocked room behind the reception area" Before I could speak she continued. "That said we have a time for when they were created and I have asked Khan to sweep the closest cameras to see who was in the vicinity" I smiled, pleased at her initiative.

"Excellent, how soon should he have that footage?" Kate checked her watch then looked up.

"Pretty soon, he's back at the Sheraton now and has the hotel's head of security with him, so they should be able to identify anyone in the area around that time pretty quickly" I nodded.

"Once we get that information we need to talk to anyone identified as soon as possible please detectives" All three nodded as Jane responded.

"On it Chief" I thought about it for a few seconds then spoke up.

"So if I have this correct, someone knew that our three potential victims were coming and which rooms were assigned to them and printed off access cards to each room, but did so early enough that they were not aware of the room change?" I got three nods at my quick summary. "Why not a single card for all three rooms as the staff use, I wonder?" Kate answered that.

"Yeah, I wondered about that too, but apparently those cards are issued in HR to staff directly and only a couple of people can do it" She shook her head. "I checked and none of those employee cards were issued during the 72 hours prior to Caine's check in" I smiled, pleased to be working with people who weren't afraid to show initiative, something that I had worked hard to encourage in my team but something not always on display elsewhere, and spoke.

"Excellent work detectives, please keep at it and let me know if anything turns up about that other card machine" With that I smiled and moved on to my next group of investigators. Lieutenants Caine and Taylor were looking into the bombs that had been used.

"Gentlemen, has there been any progress on the bombs?" Taylor looked up.

"The bomb squad's still trying to defuse the one they recovered" He pulled a face. "I passed on that it had probably been armed via a cell call and they're looking into that" I nodded; the surveillance footage had suggested that was how they had been armed. "We're waiting on a call back from the company that makes the explosive to see which batch it came from and who it was sold to" Caine nodded.

"It could have possibly come from any number of sources given it's sold to both the military and civilian users, mostly construction and mining companies but apparently it's not the right version for civilian use, so almost certainly a military source" He shrugged. "We should know soon enough"

"We've ascertained that the explosive is a batch of RDX, in particular Composition 3 which is a military-specific explosive. We're attempting to get a lock on where it was delivered too" Taylor stated. I thought about that for a second.

"They can trace it to a specific batch?" I asked, getting nods from both.

"Yeah, minute trace elements that they include during production allow them to determine individual batches and who they were supplied to. It's a quality control tool" I nodded as Taylor continued. "We've sent them our analysis and should hear back soon, maybe today, tomorrow at the latest" I smiled.

"Excellent work gentlemen" I got nods from them both. "Please let me know when you find anything further" With that I moved on to the next group.

Lieutenant Bonasera was working with Detectives Mendoza, Hoyt and Duquesne as they went through witness statements, however nothing of any consequence had turned up so far, that said I gave them some encouragement at what could be a thankless grind before heading back to my desk. I didn't get far though.

Lieutenant's Flynn and Provenza were conducting a database search, cross-referencing hotel employees, looking for any with a criminal record, time-consuming but necessary.

"This would go a lot faster if we had Khan here Chief" Provenza noted. I nodded, not unsympathetically, as I answered.

"I understand and agree Lieutenant, he is currently at the hotel obtaining surveillance footage but I will assign him to assist you as soon as he returns"

"Thanks Chief" he said and Andy Flynn smiled, while both were excellent detectives, neither was anywhere near as capable of interrogating computer databases as quickly and thoroughly as Khan, he really had a gift for it. Leaving them I checked in on Buzz, he was compiling the footage he and Colin Hurt had taken into coherent files for case review and, hopefully, use at the trial of the people responsible, before heading back to my office.

"Chief!" It was Olivia Benson; she ended her phone call and turned to face me as I made my way over.

"Yes Sergeant Benson?" I got a nod as she answered.

"Khan's identified someone of interest that he thinks used the key card machine" I nodded and beckoned for her to continue. "It's a senior cleaner, Chen Hui-Lee, it's not normally his job to use the machine, though he has used it from time to time, but he was spotted on the surveillance tape in the area during the time in question and unlike everyone else in the vicinity, he had no reason to be there" I smiled, finally…

"Quick work Sergeant, very quick in fact. Let us get Mister Hui-Lee in and have a chat to him then" Surprisingly Liv shook her head.

"He apparently showed up for work first thing today then completely vanished, no one's seen him since around nine this morning" I frowned…

"And no one thought this was at all suspicious?" Olivia shook her head.

"Apparently not" I rolled my eyes for a moment…lordy lordy…

"I sincerely hope that the hotel has a home address for him?" She nodded and brandished her notepad.

"Yeah, it just came through" I nodded once.

"Take Detectives Rizzoli and Beckett with you, meet up with a couple of uniformed officers there and bring Mister Hui-Lee in if he is in fact there, get a warrant and search it if he is not, though I do hope he is, I feel we need to have a chat about his recent activities" I got a nod and an acknowledgement and she was gone, collecting Jane and Kate on the way as I turned back to my office and the rapidly accumulating number of voicemail and email messages, all marked urgent and all needing a response.

An hour later and we had nothing, our suspect's apartment was empty, Alex had obtained a rapid warrant to grant access and the team were now searching his premises, I'd despatched Buzz to join them to record everything, but it was not looking good. I'd recalled Khanj to help out here while Mendoza and Bonasera had been despatched back to the Sheraton to talk to his supervisor and colleagues, looking for something we could use there.

I sat there for a few minutes, thinking things through, before my eyes fell onto Caine, Langstrom and Taylor as they chatted out in the Murder Room. I thought about them and this case that had dropped in my lap as I came to decision, it was past time that everyone knew what we were up against.

Los Angeles Norwalk

Simmonds walked away from the burning laundry van and retrieved his rental car, the nondescript hatch was about as anonymous as they came, something he prized. A minute later and he was driving away from the scene and heading for the closest busy road where he soon got lost in the traffic, one more econobox hatch going from A to B, unremarked and unnoticed.

Simmonds relaxed a little, the laundry van had been reported stolen, so soaking the interior in kerosene and burning it out made it look like some kids had stolen it for a joy ride. The flames would destroy any prints that might be there as well. He'd previously offloaded the cleaner's stiffening body into a dumpster almost seven miles from here; even if he was found by someone before the dumpster was dumped into a trash compactor and the body was mulched into mincemeat, there was nothing to connect him with the van.

There was just one more connection that needed to be taken care of and once that had been done he could fade into the background like he'd never existed, just the way he liked it.

Los Angeles Watts

The next morning

For Leroy Grumman life had boiled down to a few essentials, food, shelter, alcohol, not necessarily in that order. His life hadn't ever amounted to much, and when he'd lost his job at Walmart, in part because he was lifting a few items each week he could pawn for more drinking money, he's skidded hard and fast down the ladder, fetching up at the bottom of the heap.

He was doing his usual rounds of dumpsters and other locations people dumped stuff, he occasionally found something that he could pawn for another bottle. This one was of his favourites, he still fondly recalled the day he'd found a complete if old stereo in it, the money from that had paid for almost half a dozen bottles, leading to a major bender he still remembered fondly, if a little dimly.

Looking in the first thing that hit him was the stench, it was bad, Leroy knew what that was, this wasn't his first found body after all, he'd found two junkies before, dead in dumpsters just like this one. For a moment he considered walking away but remembered the local cops were always interested and they were always good for a free coffee or two, maybe even a burger if he was lucky. He peered in; looking to see what was making such a smell then recoiled as he saw the messy wound and all the blood staining the body's chest.

"Poor SOB" Leroy muttered to himself. That changed things, someone had been killed, the cops would really want to know about this and he was certain they'd pay for a decent meal for his info. He nodded to himself, letting the dumpster's lid drop as he turned away and headed for the street at the end of the lane, the cops regularly drove past, he'd just flag one down, easy as pie.

He made his way out onto the nearest cross street and looked round, no cops yet, but there would be. He found a comfortable spot on the sidewalk where he could see both ways and settled down, the local cops would be along soon enough and he'd get his meal and maybe even some cash for a bottle or two.