Jayne and Steelie - 01 - Freezing Read Online Free PDF

Scott, I can take care of this place myself!’
    â€˜Well, that’s not what Steelie said to Eric in relation to this.’
    Jayne faltered. ‘Steelie?’
    â€˜Yeah. She got to talking with Eric about the brownouts, mentioned your office needs a generator but doesn’t have the funds, and Eric decided to organize a donation to the Agency. All by the book.’
    Before Jayne could muster a response, Scott continued. ‘Plus, we don’t want your computers going down while you’re working on anything related to our discussion at Angels Flight.’
    â€˜I see. Well, in that case, thank you. We’ll send you a donation receipt. Or send it to Eric . . .’ She petered out.
    â€˜Take your time, Hall.’ He sounded amused. ‘Ten-four.’
    Jayne reflected on Scott’s mellow response to the fact that she’d completely jumped the gun before she remembered gum-chewing Ron on Line 1. She pressed the button to retrieve him and politely organized the delivery of the generator for Wednesday.
    She’d only been back at her desk for a few minutes when she heard Carol and Steelie enter the building. Jayne walked out her side door to meet them in the hall.
    Steelie asked, ‘Good lunch?’
    Jayne followed them into the small kitchen where they were putting leftovers in the fridge. ‘We need to be at the FBI’s Wilshire office tomorrow at eleven.’
    She explained Scott’s theory about the body parts and his desire for a preliminary report.
    Steelie sounded doubtful. ‘And the coroner’s office isn’t going to have a problem with this?’
    â€˜Apparently not.’
    Carol looked at the two anthropologists. ‘If Scott’s got it cleared on his end and you’re not compromising a future autopsy, you won’t be interfering with the wheels of justice turning down at the coroner’s office. Maybe you’ll even grease them a little. That fits into the Agency’s mission, in my view.’
    The bells on the front door rang out. Carol said, ‘I’ll go.’
    As she padded away, Jayne addressed Steelie. ‘Your loose lips have won us a generator.’
    â€˜No way.’
    â€˜Yeah. Eric and Scott have ordered one for the Agency.’
    â€˜Wow.’ Steelie’s broad smile collapsed when she caught Jayne’s expression. ‘Don’t tell me you did one of your don’t-think-me-ungrateful-but-we-can-do-it-ourselves numbers on them? Oh, you didn’t!’ Steelie threw up her hands. ‘Y’know, not everyone is paternalistic or even chauvinistic—’
    She broke off when the sound of a sob traveled back from the front of the building and then motioned with her head that she’d be in the lab. Jayne went into her office through the hall door and was relieved that the double French doors to Reception were closed; Carol’s doing, no doubt. She didn’t want to interrupt what the doors’ mottled glass panels allowed her to make out. Carol, in full grief-counselor mode, had sat down next to the visitor. The crying, which had started as though a dam had burst, was subsiding, but Jayne sensed that the force of the tears had been only dammed up again, not spent. And was it ever?
    It was possible that the visitor wouldn’t stay for an interview on the first visit. Sometimes it was enough for family members to come in the front door and deal with what that represented. They’d reached the stage where they were considering the possibility that their missing relative had been found, but found dead. They returned when they felt stronger.
    A darkening across the room made her look up. The visitor was leaving. A knock on the door a moment later was Carol.
    â€˜That was Solana,’ she said, sitting in the chair opposite the desk. ‘Here about her son Roberto, missing for six months. She was referred by the Alstons in Pasadena.’
    â€˜Some referral. We