Blind Sight Read online

  “We were trying to keep it quiet,” said Garcia.

  Bernadette stared at the corpse’s clean white forehead, almost luminescent under the fluorescent lights of the storage room/morgue. “Someone found out and took it off.”

  “Why?” asked Garcia.

  “Maybe it wasn’t drawn in her blood,” suggested Bernadette.

  “The killer’s blood?” asked Garcia. “That’d be stupid—or brazen.”

  “Or maybe he was worried that the way he drew it was telling. Regardless, he had second thoughts about his artwork and decided to erase it.”

  “Morgue isn’t exactly on Main Street,” said Garcia. “He’d have to know the body was down here.”

  Bernadette looked at the doctor. “Who knew about this room? Who had access?”

  Hessler: “I told you, the door was kept locked.”

  Bernadette: “Dr. Hessler, no one enters or leaves this hospital tonight.”

  The doctor flew out the door, leaving the two agents alone with the corpse.

  Garcia took out his cell and started calling. “We’ll need Seth’s men to help us do this.”

  “We need someone outside this room.”

  “Can’t get through. Probably have to wait until they get out of the woods.” Garcia started punching in another number. “Our Minneapolis guys. They’ve gotta be up here by now.”

  “Where’d you tell them to meet us?”

  Garcia held up his hand. He had someone on the line. “What’s the story? Where are you?”

  While Garcia talked on the phone, Bernadette went to the door and scanned the hallway. Hessler wasn’t coming back for a while. She closed the door and returned to the slab. She had to do this quickly, before the army descended. As she pulled her gloves tighter over her fingers, she looked down at the dead teen.

  The girl’s face was covered in acne and freckles, both of which had apparently been airbrushed from the studio photo. Upturned a bit at the end, the nose was the same as in the portrait. Like the portrait, her ears stuck out a bit too much. The lobes were dotted with gold earrings shaped like hearts, and a plastic heart barrette was caught in her straight, shoulder-length red hair. The blood-drenched nightgown was a long-sleeved flannel sprinkled with more hearts. This girl had been too young for motherhood, and too innocent to be a murder victim. She should be home with her parents—and where were they?

  Garcia closed his phone. “Our Minneapolis crew is gassing up at a station in Akeley I gave them directions to the hospital. They should be here pretty quick.”

  “Where are her folks?” Bernadette asked.

  “Trying to get out of Dulles.” He saw what she was getting ready to do. “You want me to do anything?”

  “I can handle it.” She reached down and walked the zipper to the bottom of the bag.

  “Need a tool?”

  “Got one,” she said, dipping her hands into her jacket pocket and producing her keys. On the keychain was a small pocketknife.

  “Be discreet.”

  “I’ve done this a few times before,” she said as she opened the knife.

  “I know,” he said.

  Indeed, he did. Unlike her previous supervisors and their ignorance-is-bliss approach, Garcia insisted on watching her use her sight.

  She ran her eyes around the corpse. The butcher must have laid hands on the nightgown to cut out the fetus. If he wore surgical gloves, however, they could be screwed. No reading.

  “Why would someone do this to a kid?” Garcia asked.

  “A pregnant kid, no less.” She sighed, and reached for the flannel sleeve closest to her. It was free of blood. She turned up the cuff. “This should be safe.”

  “Good spot,” said Garcia.

  It had been a sloppy factory sew job, and a wide flap of fabric was hanging where the sleeve was attached to the cuff. Bernadette held the fabric away from the body with one hand and sawed off a patch of flannel with the other. “Not much to work with,” she said, holding the sliver between her thumb and index finger. She passed the fabric to him.

  He cupped it in his palm and watched her take off her gloves. “A quickie?”

  Garcia’s question was more skeptical than hopeful. He knew quickies rarely worked for her, but she had to try. If she determined that the killer was still in the hospital, it would make quick work of the case. She sat down on a box of computer paper that was pushed against the wall and propped her back against the concrete block. Rolled her head to the right and left. “Lights.”

  Garcia flipped the switch and the room went black, save for a white band at the door’s threshold. She closed her eyes. Through the heating vents, she could hear the rumble of the hospital’s heating system struggling to keep up with winter. Then she heard her boss bump into a box as he made his way back to her. “Fuck.”

  “Careful.”

  “Thanks.”

  She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. Thought about the girl a few feet away from her, on a slab. Wondered about the missing baby. The missing pentagram. She held out her right hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Here it is.” Garcia set the sliver in her palm.

  As she made a fist around the fabric, she said the short prayer she always offered: “Lord, help me see clearly.”

  She closed her lids tighter, waited a few seconds, and slowly opened her eyes.

  All she saw was the dark profile of her boss standing in front of her.

  “Shit,” she said.

  “Nothing?”

  “Yup.”

  “Ah, that’s what I figured. It’ll work later.”

  “Later,” she repeated, and stood up.

  Garcia flipped the lights on, went to his jacket, and foraged around its pockets until he found an evidence bag. He opened it and held it out to Bernadette. She dropped the fabric inside and he sealed it. She tucked the bag into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled her gloves back on.

  Bernadette went over to the corpse’s feet, grabbed the zipper, and walked it back to the head of the bag, pausing to take one last look at Lydia’s face. Her brows came together. She went to her jacket and took out the girl’s photo. She held it up while tipping the corpse’s head to one side. “Thought this was a pimple at first, but—”

  “My flashlight’s in the truck,” he said.

  He left the room for a couple of minutes. Bernadette continued studying the right side of the girl’s face, focusing on the area just below the outside of her eye, along the cheekbone. She looked back at the photo. “Really liked your hearts, didn’t you, kid?”

  Garcia came back in with a desk lamp and plugged it into a wall outlet close to the slab. He took off the shade and held the bare bulb over the corpse. “A tatt. Tiny, tiny heart tatt.”

  “Didn’t have a tattoo in her school photo,” said Bernadette, holding the portrait up for Garcia to see.

  “Got it while she was on the road?”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s a shop in Walker.”

  “We’ll check it out,” she said as she zipped the sack all the way to the top. “People empty their guts while sitting for a tatt. Sort of like going to the hairdresser.”

  Garcia pushed the slab back into the cooler and snapped the compartment door closed. “Let’s get out of here before we get spanked by the CSI guys. We’ve compromised fibers and microbes and shit just by being in here.”

  The two agents grabbed their jackets and stepped out into the hallway, closing the door after them. “Where do you want to start?” she asked.

  “Maybe one of the nurses knows something, saw someone skulking around the main floor or heading down here.”

  Garcia’s late wife had been a nurse, and Bernadette suspected that he still had a thing for them. “You know, one of them could be the—”

  “I know,” he said quickly. “I’m not dismissing the possibility.”

  “Go upstairs and start questioning them. I can babysit the body.”

  “You sure?”

  “When the rest of our
guys show, send one of them down.”

  • • •

  Twenty minutes after Garcia left, one of the Minneapolis agents appeared in the hallway. “Hey, Bern.”

  She blinked twice. What was he doing here? “Hey B.K.” He was dressed in a work suit but had a puffy down coat in his arms and clunky, fat boots on his feet. “You’re a tech guy. I didn’t know Garcia needed—”

  “I volunteered,” he said cheerfully, and then added, “I don’t work exclusively with technology, you know. I do do other things.”

  Garcia came down the hallway. “You’re with me now, Saint Clare. Cahill is going to relieve you.”

  Carson Cahill. That was Big Kid’s real name. Bernadette stepped around the big blond boy. “Thanks, Carson.”

  “Wait,” Cahill said after her. “Where’s the body, exactly?”

  Garcia opened the door to the room. “Against the far wall.”

  Cahill looked at a stack of cardboard boxes sitting against the wall. “No way.”

  Bernadette stepped next to Garcia and pointed to the closed door of the compartment. “In there. That’s a cooler.”

  Cahill nodded. “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  Bernadette closed the door to the room. “No one enters. The crime-scene guys have to do their thing.”

  “I’m on it,” said Cahill, pulling back his blazer to reveal a gun tucked into a shoulder holster.

  “I don’t know about leaving him alone,” said Bernadette as she and Garcia climbed the stairs to the first floor.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Thought he worked with computers and phones and cameras. Surveillance equipment. Junk like that.”

  “He’s young, but he can handle himself.” Garcia opened the door to the first floor and motioned toward the ER, which occupied one of the tips of the U-shaped hospital. “Reinforcements have landed and the place is on lockdown.”

  “Great.”

  “I told the nurses that something had been drawn on the girl’s body and then removed while she was here,” said Garcia. “I didn’t describe the symbol, but one of the gals immediately asked if it was a devil or witch sign.”

  “I’m going to want to talk to that nurse.”

  “She said there’re things going on we should know about,” said Garcia.

  “Like the sound of that,” said Bernadette.

  “Figured you would.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The ER break room reeked of burned microwave popcorn, scorched coffee, and chocolate cake. Paper cutouts of mittens and snowmen were taped to the walls, each ornament labeled with a name drawn in glitter. Bernadette assumed they were all ER staff members, as one of the mittens was labeled “Sven.” Bernadette sat across a sticky Formica table from one of the nurses while Garcia talked with a soggy hospital administrator out in the hallway. The man’s wife had dragged him out of the shower to take Dr. Hessler’s frantic call. He’d driven over to Crow Wing Lakes Memorial immediately, pulling a stocking cap on over his wet head. He’d repeatedly asked Bernadette to excuse him for not removing the hat.

  “Officer Garcia, I am so sorry this …”

  Bernadette got up and closed the door. She’d heard the apology multiple times, and with each mea culpa the fellow had used a different rank or title for her boss. Sergeant. Captain. Detective. He had yet to get it right. At least she knew the poor guy was taking the corpse-tampering seriously. So were the nurses, and one in particular had some ideas on who had been involved.

  Bernadette went back to the table, sat down, and flipped her notebook to a clean page. “I missed that last part, Delores.”

  Delores Martini—a husky woman with black hair tied in a severe bun behind her head—took a sip from her ER TAKES THE PRESSURE coffee mug and smiled grimly, revealing a gap between her top front teeth. “I knew something like this was going to happen. Predicted it.”

  Bernadette frowned. “By that you mean—”

  “Break-in, not the murder. The murder threw me for a loop. Who knew that crap could happen around here? Security screwup—that’s what I’m talking about. I told them they needed cameras. Needed to staff the front desk around the clock. Nobody listens.” Nurse Martini took another sip of coffee. “Always trying to do it on the cheap. Now they’ve got a witch running around the place, messing with bodies and whatnot. Serves them right, I say.”

  Bernadette put her pen to her pad. “Yeah. Let’s go over that again. This Jordan Ashe is—”

  “An authentic, certified, bona fide, licensed, bonded, and insured witch. Probably has framed witch diplomas hanging from her black walls.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me. Calls herself a Wiccan. Know what I say? A witch by any other name—”

  “Are there other practitioners around town?”

  “Hell, no. She’s the only oddball. Everyone else is Lutheran or Methodist or some other proper Christian religion.” She pointed at Bernadette’s notebook. “I’m a Catholic. Put that down for the record. Born and raised Roman Catholic.”

  “But no one reported seeing her in or around the hospital?”

  “Too smart to get caught. Too sneaky. Besides, the way this place is run these days Charles Manson could waltz in here with a machete, sign the visitor log, and pin on a badge. No one would stop him.”

  Bernadette slapped the photo of Lydia on the table and slid it across to Martini. “Take a good look. Ever see Ashe with this girl?”

  “What was her name?” Martini asked.

  “If you could just look,” said Bernadette.

  Martini picked up the picture, studied it hard, and shook her head. “Never laid eyes on that kid before. Don’t know nothing about her.”

  “You think Ashe drew the pentagram in the first place?”

  “She’s a witch,” said Martini, sliding the photo back to Bernadette. “That’s what they do, isn’t it? That’s their deal. Pentagrams. Monograms. Other Devil symbols and signs.”

  “Ever see her display a temper or heard her threaten anyone?”

  “Not really.”

  “Is Jordan Ashe capable of murder?”

  A shrug. “As far as murder goes, I don’t know. She’s capable of being a witch. That alone should get her locked up, I say. Good-for-nothing witch.”

  “You really don’t like this woman,” said Bernadette.

  “She came in here a while back and wanted to peddle that healing-touch bullshit to our patients. Idiot administrators were ready to give her the green light until some of the docs pulled their heads out of their asses. Opened up their mouths and said they didn’t want that healing-touch mumbo jumbo around here.”

  “Healing touch?”

  “You put your hands over the patient, kind of wave them over the body without actually touching it.” She took a deep drink and set down her mug. “Your good energy or electricity flows into the patient and helps them get better.”

  “So it’s an alternative therapy.”

  “A load of malarkey.”

  “Is that how Ashe makes her living? Healing touch?”

  “Hear she does it out of her home for fifty dollars a session. Plus she makes these pots and figurines, sells them out of witch headquarters. On top of all that silliness, she does psychic readings. A real medical professional, this chick. And the hospital was ready to give the flake her own flipping office.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “In the woods with her fat hippie boyfriend, Karl Vizner.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Drives a snowplow.” Martini took a sip of coffee. “A real loser.”

  “Can you give me directions to their house?”

  “I can draw you a map.”

  “A map would be good.” Bernadette tore a page out of her notebook and handed it to the nurse.

  Martini took a pencil out of her smock and started scribbling. “She’s not from around here, you know. She’s from Los Angeles. Big surprise. The crazies in California.”

  “Right,” said
Bernadette.

  Martini frowned at her drawing and erased part of it. “If I were you, I’d try to make the drive during the day. They live outside of town, practically in the forest.”

  “Paul Bunyan State Forest?”

  With a dark face, Martini looked up from her drawing and nodded toward the photo of Lydia. “Same forest where the body was found. Now, how close to the exact same spot, I don’t know.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Martini went back to the map. “Winter or summer, those back roads can be rough going. Half of them ain’t marked worth a damn. Cell-phone reception in the woods is hit-or-miss. What I’m saying is, get stuck at night and you’re screwed.”

  “You’ve been to their place?”

  Barking a laugh, Martini said, “Wouldn’t be caught dead. I just know where they live. Everyone knows. They’re what you might call infamous.”

  Bernadette stood up, taking the photo with her. “Thanks for the help, Delores.”

  Martini stopped writing and ran her eyes up and down Bernadette’s slight figure. “Hope you ain’t planning on going out there by yourself. Karl hunts, so he’s got guns. They’ve got a pack of dogs, too. Call ahead so they lock them up. Everyone calls ahead before going over there.”

  Bernadette took the slip of paper from Martini and examined it. “I appreciate your concern, but I’ve got a gun—and a big partner.”

  “I seen him out in the hall,” said Martini, tucking an errant band of hair behind her ear. “He could double for that Erik Estrada actor. A young Erik Estrada, from the CHiPs days. I suppose he hears that all the time.”

  “I’ll make sure he hears it now,” said Bernadette, jamming the slip of paper into her jacket pocket.

  Hessler was at the end of a double shift, and Garcia and Bernadette agreed to get him out of the way next.

  The size of a closet, Hessler’s office was crowded with an old metal desk and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. If there was a window, it was buried behind the walls of medical reference materials. Instead of hiding behind his metal clunker during the interview, the doctor propped his butt on the edge of it to talk to them. The agents sat in folding chairs. Most of their questions were about the storage room/morgue and its key.