Deception (Southern Comfort) (22 page)

Those folks lucky enough to not be caught directly in the fray hunkered down behind their battlements and hoped to avoid stray bullets, but since Josh was responsible for The Drawing, he was pretty much cannon fodder.  He, Kathleen, and Mac were once again crammed in the lieutenant’s office, though this time it was with the unhappy addition of the mayor, his lawyer and his aide.  Mayor Beaumont had to have intuited that he was being called to the station in order to receive bad news, so he had surrounded himself with support staff.  A support staff
that right now was doing nothing to mitigate the man’s anger. 

“You mean to tell me that my… these remains were found three days ago and I’m just hearing about this now?”  The mayor’s perpetually tanned face was red with fury, his tie straining against the bulging cords of his neck.  “You people were instructed to come to me the minute you had any information.” 

Lieutenant Cunningham was cool under fire.  “With all due respect, Mayor Beaumont, we had no reason to suspect that the remains had any sort of connection to your daughter.”  Which was a lie, but only a small one.  They’d had suspicions, but no real proof.  “There was nothing at the scene to offer any hint as to identity. It wasn’t until Detective Harding created that composite that we realized the significance of what we were dealing with. We contacted you the moment we found out.”

“And what,” the mayor asked, “makes you think that this… woman is my daughter?”  He glanced down at the sketch in his hand, disbelief written over his face.  “I suppose there’s some bit of resemblance there, but who’s to say it wasn’t just copied from a photograph?  This is the sort of thing that someone might pull if he were trying to make a name for himself.”

Josh resisted the urge to take offense, realizing the man was simply lashing out in denial.  “Actually, sir, I did copy this from a photograph, but not the type of photograph you mean.  Two-dimensional facial reconstruction is as much a scientific as an artistic process, involving the overlaying of flesh and defining facial characteristics to photographs of the actual skull.”  He paused when the mayor flinched.  “I build the composite from the bone up, working within fairly specific parameters, and while there might be some room for artistic interpretation as far as hairstyle or eye color, the framework beneath those things never changes.  If the composite resembles your daughter, sir, it’s because the skull of the woman we found at that construction site bears the same basic characteristics.  And it would be more of a career buster as opposed to a career maker to create a reconstruction that was patently false.  Especially if it involves the mayor’s daughter.  Sir.”

The mayor paled as he stared at the composite.  Sometimes being confronted with the naked truth was the only way to break through the denial.

And since he was already on the hot seat, Josh figured he might as well take one for the team.  “The postmortem on the remains also showed evidence of cosmetic surgery and a number of healed fractures.”  Here was the mayor’s chance to either offer another rebuttal or to buckle down to reality, because they all knew who the remains belonged to. 

And as Josh and the others watched, Charles Beaumont – a man renowned for his mega-watt smile and polished personal demeanor – began to crumple before their eyes. Josh’s heart went out in empathy.  He may not like the mayor personally and certainly didn’t approve of his behavior toward the department during this whole debacle, but he couldn’t begrudge the man his sorrow.  Beaumont’s lawyer leaned over to murmur something in the other man’s ear, laying a hand on his shoulder as the mayor nodded.

Beaumont turned to address Josh.  “Allie had some fancy dental work done about three or four years ago. Is that what you were referring to? The cosmetic dentistry?”

Josh nodded, his expression somber.  “Several molars had been replaced with implants.”

A sob caught in the mayor’s throat.

“About the fractures,” Kathleen jumped in, obviously hoping to get through this as quickly as possible.  “Was your daughter ever injured in such a way that she might have broken any bones?”

Mayor Beaumont’s eyes snapped toward her, seemingly startled to realize she was there.  “Uh… her leg.  She fell out of a tree in the backyard, when she was about eight, I think.  I built her a tree house against my wife’s wishes – said I’d turn her into a tomboy – and Allie fell out the very first day.  Caught hell for that one.”  A ghost of a smile appeared.

“Just the one leg?” Kathleen asked.

“Yes.”  The mayor nodded.  “I think one was bad enough.”

Kathleen shot a look at Josh, then caught the eye of the lieutenant.  “There were no other broken bones that you know of?”  Cunningham asked.

“No.” Mayor Beaumont caught the drift of their questions and straightened in his seat.  Hope brightened his watery eyes.  “Did… this woman have other fractures?  Is that what you’re saying?”  He looked at them each in turn, his gaze settling on Josh.  “Then maybe she’s not Allie.”

Josh thought it was far more likely that Allie Beaumont had simply broken a bone that her father wasn’t aware of – something they’d have to look into – and he wasn’t sure whether it would be crueler of him to tell the man that now or let him cling to hope for just a bit longer.  “We’ll need your daughter’s medical records,” he told him.  “And dental x-rays.”  There might be enough teeth left to make a match. “But we’ll hold off on positive identification until we get the results of the DNA.  We’ll, uh, need to take a sample from your wife.”

“My wife?”  He looked blank.  “Don’t you need a sample from me as well?”

Lieutenant Cunningham quietly explained.  “Most of the nuclear DNA – the DNA found in bodily fluids and hair follicles – was degraded to the point of not being useful. We’ll have to make a match based on the mitochondrial DNA found in bone marrow, which is passed down through the mother’s genes.  I’m sorry.  I know you wanted to spare your wife as long as you could.”

“But there’s still hope, right?  I can tell her it’s… just routine.”

In the silence that followed, the hope began an obvious fade.  “You think it’s her, don’t you?”      

“I could soft soap this, but…Yes sir,” Cunningham said honestly.  “We do.”

He closed his eyes against the sharp stab of truth, but then visibly pulled himself together.  “That construction site where she was found… I shut that project down, you know.”

Josh and the others sat at attention.  This was definitely a place to start.  “The Historical Society was on my ass about it, and they have enough clout in this city to make things uncomfortable for a man in my position. There were several developers who weren’t very happy when I made sure they were inundated in red tape.  They waded through it, eventually, but I know it cost them a bundle.”  The gleam of sorrow in his eye forged into steel, and Josh realized this was not a man to mess with.  “You find who did this to my daughter,” he said, fury threading through his grief.  “You find who did this to my daughter and I will personally see to it that they pay.” 

SAM
did her best to keep Snickers quiet as she slipped her key into Josh’s door, but the poor little dog had been cooped up in a combination of car, crate and storage room for most of the day and was now in a frenzy of squirming, licking enthusiasm.  But it was late, and Sam knew that Josh needed his sleep. And the fact that he’d agreed to take in Karen’s dog when he clearly wasn’t crazy about the idea weighed heavily on Sam’s conscience.  Since they’d run into each other so unexpectedly, it seemed his condo had become a repository for strays – four-legged and otherwise.  Despite all his noises about wanting to help – and she realized he truly did – she should probably look into finding herself another place, for his sake as well as hers. Who knew how long it would be before they had word on Karen, or if any of the other woman’s relatives would even be willing to take her dog.  And there was no need to turn his life upside down just because her own was so topsy-turvy.

“Shh,” she hissed at Snickers, grimacing as the dog licked her face.  Some well-meaning fool at the Roadhouse had fed her scraps from a bean burrito.  For an animal who was accustomed to only the finest of nutritionally-appropriate kibble, it had been a real low-class treat. Unfortunately it had also resulted in some troublesome digestive issues, and now she smelled like vomit.  Those burritos were bad enough the first time around, but regurgitated, they were pretty much toxic.   

Snickers yelped, a quivering ball of doggy nerves, and Sam hoped Josh was a sound sleeper.  She jostled the animal to the crook of one arm, freeing a hand to set the alarm.  There was no denying that having her apartment tossed and her friend go missing all within the space of a few days had given her a good case of the willies. 

“Hey.”

“Oh!”  Sam jumped three feet if she jumped an inch.  She almost dropped Snickers in the process but managed to snatch her at the last instant.  Whirling, the heart that had just stopped dead in its tracks started chugging like a steam engine.

Well… damn.

“I’m sorry.”  Josh scrubbed a hand through his tousled hair – yes, tousled, although on him it looked artfully arranged – and then ran it over his bare chest.  Sam blinked, then dropped her gaze, scoping out the scene just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.  But he was just as semi-naked as she thought. 

Yessirree, that man was not wearing a shirt.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he continued from his position on the sofa, oblivious to the fact that he was a god.  “I guess I fell asleep watching TV.”

Sure enough, Sam now noticed the flickering bluish glow, but had no idea what was on the screen.  Her vision had pretty much tunneled.  Then Josh stood and stretched, sending a whole array of muscles into action, and Sam went perfectly still.

Except for her rioting hormones, which were staging a violent coup.  It was biological chaos.  Even Snickers stopped her struggling long enough to appreciate the view. 

Apparently, the process of natural selection wasn’t totally exclusive with regards to species.  This here was primo mate material, capable of ensuring the continuity of the race.  Any race.

Several of Sam’s eggs popped off her ovaries just from looking at him.

Then Snickers whimpered, and Sam knew exactly how she felt.  Nature had one twisted sense of humor. 

“You didn’t have to keep her with you all day.” Josh donned a CPD T-shirt. 

Sam watched wistfully as gray cotton slid over golden skin, but given the fact that her IQ had dropped ten points since she’d walked in, figured it was for the best.  “I didn’t want her to bother you,” she told him, relieved that she could speak at all.  Snickers squirmed harder, stubby little legs pedaling, so Sam sat her down on the wood floor where she promptly took off toward Josh.  He looked alarmed for an instant, eyes going wide over all that flying fur, but then he surprised her by patting the seat beside him, where Snickers didn’t hesitate to jump.   

Sam couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous when Josh ran his hand over the animal’s coat.

“I can handle it,” Josh assured her, before looking pointedly at the dog.  “Just stay away from my shoes,” he addressed her.  “You chew up any of my Bruno Magli’s and we will not be getting along.”

Snickers simpered, and Sam frowned, trying to remember if any of Karen’s shoes had sported teeth marks.  Then some more of her brain cells kicked into place and she remembered that she needed to thank him.

“You, uh, didn’t need to send someone to escort me to my car,” she told him, thinking about how surprised – and worried – she’d been when the uniformed officer came into the bar.  He’d introduced himself as a friend of Josh’s and then followed her from the Roadhouse to the hospital, where he’d made sure she got a parking spot near the entrance and then walked her safely to the door.  Sam felt awkward that Josh had gone to so much trouble. 

“Simms owed me,” Josh said with a shrug, giving another pat to the dog’s furry head.  Clearly in doggy ecstasy, Snickers plopped down and promptly rolled over.  “I’m doing a portrait of his daughter as a Christmas gift for his wife so we bartered.  I would have come myself, but I probably wouldn’t have done you much good.  I was so tired that a five year old could have gotten the jump on me.”

And now she was keeping him up.  “I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing, “about the barking.”

He dismissed it with a wave of his hand.  “I was sort of waiting up for you anyway.  Well, not up.”  His smile was adorable as he mocked the fact that he’d been out cold.  “But I wanted to talk to you when you got in.”  He patted the sofa, much as he had with Snickers, and asked her to have a seat.

“I’m all smoky,” she protested, looking down at her work-soiled clothes.  She didn’t want to mess up his leather, knew how that smell could soak right in.

“Well, I neglected to take a shower after working out and now I’m all sweaty, and Snickers here really stinks, so I don’t see how that’s a problem.  Come on.”  He patted again.  “I’m more concerned about you than a piece of furniture.”

Which shouldn’t have made her feel as good as it did.   

“How did things go at the hospital?” he asked as she took up position on the other side of Snickers.  The flirt was shamelessly sprawled, looking at Josh with adoring eyes, and Sam felt no small measure of sympathy. If she thought she stood a chance of gaining his attention in that respect she’d be sprawled on her back as well.

Sam crossed her legs and told her hormones to keep quiet.