As a pink dawn fell on Emerson Canyon Estates, residents awoke to see their serene view spoiled. On the west rim of the canyon, police cruisers stood like silent sentinels above a hillside swarming with dark figures going up and down, up and down. Some people watched from their homes while others walked across the road to the main parking lot and milled around the parked fire engine.
After ensuring the fire was out and consulting the first police officers that arrived on the scene, Cap had ordered the squad and engine down to the main parking area. As time passed, more police cars arrived, then an unmarked car carrying a detective while the firemen watched, mesmerized. Cap made sure his crew remained available to be questioned, though there wasn't much to say. After John had alerted him, Cap had radioed dispatch about the gruesome discovery. No one had touched the remains or moved anything from the area.
The wild clover bordering the parking lot, damp with nighttime dew, was gradually warmed by the growing sunshine, filling the air with the fresh scent of nature. John normally loved clean, new mornings outdoors, but today was colored by the memory of the charred and blackened bones still smoking in the ashes. Leaning back on the hood of the squad, Gage asked no one in particular, "Can you believe it?"
Roy joined his partner in gazing up at the hill, which was now bathed in sunshine. "No, not really. You okay?"
"Yeah." John appreciated his partner's concern, but he wasn't fooled. Every man on the crew was shaken up. "I mean, who would do that to another person?"
"Someone very evil," Roy said.
"Hey, guys, the police say we can go now," Cap called over. "Let's head home."
"Finally! I could use some coffee!" exclaimed Marco.
Chet agreed. "And some sack time!"
Roy walked to the driver's side door of the squad, but John remained transfixed. He had committed his life to helping those in trouble. The idea of killing someone in such a horrible way—he couldn't wrap his mind around it.
"Let's go," Roy said.
"Huh? I'm coming." John stood and stretched to his full height. As he turned toward the squad, he spied something golden in the grass. To his surprise, he plucked an old pocket watch off the ground. "Well, what do you know?"
He examined it closely. The exterior was plain with no decoration. John opened it to see the hands frozen at nine and two; engraved on the inside lid were the initials "MAG."
He approached an older man who was standing nearby. "Excuse me, sir, did you drop this?"
The man glanced at the watch and shook his head.
"How about you?" Johnny asked another man. He ended up showing it to several people with no luck. Finally he slipped the watch into his pocket. Maybe he could put a classified ad in the lost and found section of the paper and return it to its owner.
The watch's owner, however, didn't need to be found; he stood a few feet away among the residents and other onlookers. As John opened his watch, the man frantically patted his jacket pockets. How could he have been so careless as to lose his watch?
When he walked through the parking lot so many hours earlier checking for witnesses, he thought he had heard something gently hitting the ground, but he hadn't checked. He hadn't checked! Now a fireman had the pocket watch. Not only could it tie him to the scene of the fire, it would tie him to her. But what was intolerable was the fact that the fireman had looked him straight in the eye and asked if the watch belonged to him.
He could be identified.
A shudder shook his frame. His perfect plan had gone completely and disastrously wrong. As the engine and squad slowly headed down the road in a cloud of dust, the man memorized the number emblazoned on the door: 51.
•
•
Detective Salvatore "Sonny" Molino watched the coroner's dark wagon drive down the hill. The medical examiner had told him it was possible that there were enough fingers left on the body to make an ID with prints, but only if the person was in the system. Otherwise Sonny would have to comb through missing-person reports or wait for someone to report a woman missing.
Molino flipped through his notebook. He had canvassed the locals watching the proceedings as if it was a freak show, but he had come up empty. The crime scene unit had found nothing but some unremarkable trash. If there was any other physical evidence, it had been destroyed in putting out the fire. The firemen hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. Except for the body, of course. In frustration Sonny reached into his front shirt pocket and pulled out his last cigarette.
"Thought you were trying to quit?"
Sonny smiled wryly at Officer Vince Howard, a friend from the police station. "I try to do a lot of things."
"Any leads?" Vince asked, watching the departing coroner's bus.
"Nothing. I hope we can identify her."
"Her?"
"Apparently the ME could tell it was a female from her pelvis bones," Molino replied. "He'll let us know cause of death and whatever else he finds after the autopsy."
"Someone wanted to make sure she was never found. If that fire hadn't spread and Engine 51 hadn't responded so quickly, there would've been no remains to find. Who knows how long it would've been until some hikers went up on those rocks?"
Sonny agreed. "You need to take that sergeant's exam, Vince. I could use the help. Well, I'll be seeing you around."
"See you later, Sonny."
The detective pocketed his cigarette for another time and lumbered back to his dark Ford sedan, already putting this murder out of his mind. He had other cases to follow up on, and besides he couldn't do anything until he knew who Jane Doe was.
•
•
"A" shift was on again the next day and after bringing in a patient with chest pains, Roy and John stopped by the nurses' station to get some supplies. As they went over their checklist, Nurse Dixie McCall strode deliberately down the hall toward them. She rarely let herself become angry at work, but today was the exception. She slammed a stack of papers down on the counter with a punishing bang.
"The nerve of that little…dweeb!" Her blue eyes flashed angrily.
"What's the matter, Dix?" John leaned over the counter.
"Andy in accounting. He implied I didn't fill out form 426B correctly for a patient's billing record! Can you imagine?" She pulled a paper from the top of the pile and shook it at the paramedics.
"Wow, form 426B?" John shook his head. "No one fills out a 426B like you do, Dix. Roy, wasn't I just saying just the other day that Dixie's form 426Bs are always perfect?"
"He did, Dix." Roy deadpanned. "I know if I want a 426B done right, I can always count on you."
The nurse's frown gradually became a grin. Her favorite paramedic duo could always put her in a good frame of mind. Unless, of course, it was one of the times Johnny entered the ER injured. "This form is filled out correctly," she said with certainty. "And the next time I see Andy, I may pop him on the nose!"
"Isn't it early in the day to be threatening coworkers?" Dr. Joe Early looked up from base station with a smile.
"Just those in accounting," she replied.
"Hey, Roy, John," Dr. Early said. "I heard you had a rough one the other night in Emerson Park."
Both paramedics grew solemn. "Yeah, it was," said Roy.
"It was on the radio this morning… something about a body?" Dixie asked.
John nodded. "I found it."
"Oh, Johnny, how awful for you," she exclaimed. "You, too, Roy."
"It wasn't something I want to see ever again," Johnny admitted with a shiver. "I just hope they catch the crazy person who did it."