Part 7
Sam wandered along the hallway, doing his best to avoid the rest of the people coming and going as he yawned. It was an hour before his shift was due to start at 15 but he'd been woken by the constant ringing of his phone.
Best had informed him to get his ass to the morgue pronto and take care of things and then hung up before Sam had managed a hello.
"Okay, what have we got?" He asked as he walked into the room he'd been directed to by Dov who had hurried past him with an armful of forensic sample bags.
Traci stood up from where she was examining something one of the techs had found on the floor.
"Hey Sam, you leading this?" She asked as she joined him by the door.
Lifting his hands up and glancing around at all the activity he said, "I guess so."
Traci gave him a look.
He shrugged. "Give me a break I've been up for like ten minutes and I haven't even had a cup of coffee yet." He grumbled at her.
She chuckled and brought out her note book. "What we know so far is that less than forty minutes ago, Darren," She pointed to the security guard still stood in the room talking to Steve Peck. "As he did his round heard muffled sounds form this direction," She guided Sam back out into the hall and pointed to the way Sam had entered. "He came down, said he spotted a broken mug, spilt coffee on the floor and a pair of glasses." None of which were there anymore but numbered yellow plastic scene markers gave Sam the gist. "He could still hear muffled cries and as he came into here," She walked Sam back into the autopsy room. "He found Dr Stewart tied to that chair with a hood over her head and her mouth taped up." She stopped here and shot Sam a look.
He sighed and let his head droop forward. "He contaminated the scene, didn't he?"
Traci hesitated but replied with a quiet, "Yeah."
That was not a good start. Sam looked around at the faces of people in the room with them. "And where is Ms Stewart right now?"
"In the bathroom with Andy." Traci told him with a hand gesture to the hall again.
Sam glanced that way wondering if Andy was okay, she'd been on the night shift last night which was probably why he wasn't in the best of moods, they'd be working opposite hours for the next few days. He hated when that happened.
"She said anything? Description of the intruders, what were they after, how many? That sorta thing." He asked.
Traci shook her head. "We're waiting on the security tapes, and we do have a blood sample," She offered pointing over to where one of the techs was sampling the spots of blood on the floor. She then bit her lip before explaining, "But that could have come from any of the bodies that were worked on during the last day."
"Terrific." Sam muttered unimpressed. "Do we at least know what the hell they took?"
Traci glanced down at her notes again. "Body 1-152014, male, a John Doe."
Sam raised his eyebrows. "A John Doe? Maybe not so unknown huh?"
Traci nodded. "That's our thinking." She and Steve had already put a call in to the pathologist who had been down to work on the body but they hadn't heard back from him yet. "We've sent everything we could find to the forensic lab and put a rush on it, whatever it is about that body they obviously wanted it for a reason."
Sam nodded to her just as Steve came and joined them. He out ranked Sam but there had to be a reason for Best to want him on this. "So?" He asked the detective who was standing there with his hands in his trouser pockets.
Steve sucked in a slow breath and glanced around them. "Whoever they were came for the body, Holly was in a bit of a state when we got here, I tried asking a few questions," He sniffed and shrugged. "I think she went to throw up."
Traci glared at her boyfriend. Holly was a friend and she'd been gagged and tied to a chair for who knows how long. And she wasn't a cop, so Traci was sympathetic to her being a bit emotional over the whole thing.
"Do we know what she was even doing here in the middle of the night?" Sam asked the two detectives.
"I was working in my office." Holly said as she came up behind Sam with Andy beside her. She crossed her arms over her chest and wanted nothing more than to go home and close her eyes, and pretend that this hadn't happened to her.
Sam spun and took in the pathologist, she was pale and her hair was a mess. She was clearly uncomfortable but that was to be expected after what she'd been through. "And is that normal?"
Holly shook her head. "No, I'm normally out of here by 11pm at the latest but I had a report to finish and I didn't want to come in when I had three days off so I stayed and finished it."
"And what time did you finish?"
Holly shook her head again. Right now all she could remember was the gun being pointed at her. She felt her eyes sting again and quickly wiped her hand across her face. "I don't know. Um, it'll be in the system, completed reports are time stamped."
Sam was encouraged by that, it gave them a starting point to piece the events together with. "Okay, so walk us through it, you were in your office, and what happened next?"
Holly glanced around trying to think. She licked her lips and rubbed at her eyes wishing she could get the images in her head to stop. "Um, I…I don't…"
Traci reached over and rubbed her hand up and down Holly's upper arm. "Hey, we can do this in your office or we can take you someplace else, okay?" She said softly even as she felt Sam's glare. She knew it would be best for the investigation to have Holly here and get her to tell them as much as possible, but as her friend Traci hated seeing the other woman like this. Her hands were shaking and she looked like she was struggling just being in this room again.
Holly swallowed hard and tried again. "I just finished my report and I was going to head home. But my coffee was cold and I was tired, so I went," She paused as her mind took her back to that moment when she'd walked out of her office and been crashed into. "Someone knocked me down in the hallway, they grabbed me, my glasses were on the floor, I remember reaching for them."
Traci frowned as she studied her friend. Holly was rubbing at her neck. Traci took a closer look then eyed Sam, she then stepped towards Holly.
"Is that when you got that mark on your neck?" She asked gently.
Holly's hand went to her neck again, but she couldn't remember. "He grabbed me, pinned me against the wall." She told them.
"He?" Sam asked, he expected the people responsible to have been male given how much a dead body could weigh but he needed confirmation and right now Holly was all they had.
"Yeah, he." Holly confirmed with a nod.
Progress. "Okay, what happened after that? How many were in the hall with you?" Sam continued with his questions.
Holly put her shaking hands over her face and then pushed back her hair. "I don't know, I'm not sure, my glasses were…two I think, I mean at least two."
Sam gave Traci a look. The last thing he wanted was for Holly to lose it and give them if, buts and maybe's.
"You know what?" Traci said softly as she placed an arm around Holly's waist and started to guide her away. "Why don't we go to your office, take a breather and then we can talk some more, okay?"
"Yeah, okay." Holly replied and let herself be led away.
Sam watched them until they were out of sight, then he sighed and looked at Steve. "What's Guns and Gangs doing here?" He asked him.
Steve gave Sam a pained look. "The body that was took, the John Doe?" He paused to take a breath before revealing. "I think it's connected to the Dock shooting."
"You're shitting me right?" Sam asked in disbelief. Because that put a huge other spin on tonight. He thought about why the body could be important enough to break into a city morgue for.
"Drug mule?" Sam asked.
Steve nodded his head slowly. "Possibly."
"Well ain't that great!" Sam said with a fake smile and marched back into the autopsy room. He looked around, the crime scene techs were still working away but he wasn't sure what kind of evidence they had, but if this was part of the Dock operation then Gail Peck might have been involved.
Sam turned to Steve with narrowed eyes. "They knew where to go, where the body was." He stepped closer to Steve. "Which means they had inside knowledge of the morgue and there's only one person I know who was at the Docks and would know the inside of this place like the back of her hand." He said watching the older Peck very closely.
"Gail." Andy muttered to herself in shock. Nick had said she was there but she never really believed Gail Peck was capable of being this far involved in crime.
"Yeah, Gail Peck, your sister." Sam directed back at Steve.
Steve took his hands out of his pockets and held them up. "Which is why I'm hands off in this investigation, and why you were called in Sam."
"You don't really think?" Andy asked, not sure how to phrase asking if the woman she worked with for years was now someone they needed to arrest.
Sam snorted and turned to his girlfriend. "Yeah, actually, I do think." And then he turned back to Steve. "If we have her on tape doing this tonight, she's gone Steve." She'd be arrested and jailed not just for the break in, theft of a body and the tying up of Dr Stewart, but if they could connect the body to the Docks, she'd be charged with murder as well.
She'd never get out of a prison cell.
"It is what it is, Sam." Was all Steve could say. He'd tried talking to Gail for a long time after she walked out of 15 but it got him nowhere, eventually he had stopped trying.
And if there was anything to link her to tonight, there was nothing he could do to help her.
xxxxxx
Gail watched from her spot leaning against the side of the van as two of Wolf's guys buried the dead body they had gone to so much trouble getting tonight.
They were far enough out of the city and far enough into the woods that unless it was one of the people here tonight that gave up the location, the body was never going to be found.
"So, that it?" Romi asked as he joined Gail by the van.
Gail sighed and turned to him, tossing what was in her hand over to him. "Not quite, I have to deliver that to its owner." She explained. The sun was just starting to lift into the sky but she was bone tired and there was a long day ahead of her before she could go back to her apartment and get some sleep.
"What is it?" Romi asked, his eyes on a plastic bag about the size of his palm holding what looked to be chunks of stone.
Gail shifted to the window of the passenger's door of the van. "You ready?" She asked Kurt, then eyed the body of Lucky still lying in the back.
Kurt shrugged and started the van up. "I take care of." He told her, flicking his hand behind him at the body. "Then I go, two, maybe three days." He continued before giving her a smile. "Time to drink I think, yes?"
The time to drink was after the job was done, and for Kurt that would be after burying the body and then driving the van over the border, changing the plates and then selling it cheap or leaving it with the keys in the ignition to be taken.
Gail still had to pay Wolf a visit and hand over his package before explaining why Dieter was going to be another man down after tonight.
"I'll see you in a couple of days." She told Kurt and slapped at the door before watching him drive off. She knew Kurt was smart enough to dispose of Alexander without leaving any trace, he'd also done car runs over the Canadian border before and a payoff to the border control ensured that it wouldn't matter that Kurt didn't have the vehicles documents.
"Time to go kid." Gail told Romi as she started walking to the banged up Ford that was supposed to get them back into the city. She'd count herself lucky if there was gas in the tank.
Romi hurried over and got into the passenger seat, the bag still in his hand as Gail started off in the opposite direction from Kurt.
"So, really, what is this?" He asked her again, holding the bag up to her and shaking it a little. The rocks touched and sounded almost like a bag of marbles.
Gail grinned and took the bag from Romi and tossed it onto the dash. "It's more than you'll make in your life. Now be a good boy and find me something on the radio so I don't drive us off a cliff when I fall asleep."
Romi quickly started turning and tuning the radio settings looking for something other than static.
"I could drive, if you want?" He offered his friend.
"Yeah, no." She replied. "We have to drive back through the city to Wolf's bar and if we get spotted by the cops I would rather I was behind the wheel so you don't just pull over and give us up."
"I wouldn't do that." He refuted.
Gail chuckled. "You so would."
xxxxxx
"Everything went well, I assume?" Wolf asked the blonde in front of him after he had cut open and inspected his package, it was all there so he was very pleased.
Gail made a face. "You have your property back."
Wolf stopped smiling and glanced at her with greater interest.
Gail sighed. "There was a lab tech or someone there as we were leaving with the body. I left them alive."
Wolf shifted as he absorbed this information. "And?" He could tell there was more to come.
Gail cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. "Alexander felt differently, he wanted to kill them, we argued, I got my way, we secured the tech and left. In the van he got angry. Went for his gun, so I killed him."
Wolf stayed quiet, the only other person besides Gail in the room with him was his bodyguard who was always stood with his hand on his gun. The blonde in front of him had placed hers on the table in plain sight before he had even joined her.
"Is this going to be a problem?" He asked her.
Gail shook her head. "Not if they can't connect Alexander to you, he might have bled at the morgue, I'm not sure."
Wolf waved his hand at that, completely unconcerned about one of Dieter's boys being associated with him. "That's nothing. Replaceable." Alexander had only been of use because he could identify the body, beyond that he was just another number in a team, with ten more just like him waiting in line.
"Then we're good." Gail replied quickly.
Wolf nodded and stood, picking up his bag and placed it in his jacket pocket before walking over to Gail. "But if that tech can place you there, then I will have a problem. Do you understand me?" He asked her as he locked eyes with her.
In other words, if Gail's contact at 15 suggested she was being fingered for the body snatch then either the tech died or she did. Whatever was needed to keep Wolf off of the police's radar.
"Crystal clear Sir." Gail told him.
Wolf took a close look at the blonde, she didn't seem overly concerned about it either which he took as a good sign. "Here." He reached in and handed one of the stones over to the blonde. "Good work Bravo, now I don't want to see you for a week, you can pick up your pay next time you're in the club."
Gail blinked as he walked out of the room with his shadow. That had gone better than she'd hoped. Wolf had lost a few men in the last few days, she'd thought he'd have been angry at yet another loss to his team.
She looked down at the stone in her hand, it was fairly small, but the uncut diamond was probably worth more than she had made the entire time she had worked at 15. With a shake of her head she tucked it into her jeans and then moved to collect her gun.
As much as she had claimed that things were good and Holly wouldn't be a problem, she had no idea what the pathologist was currently telling detectives.
And there was really only one way to find out.