Lazy Bird a Seth and Ava Mystery Read online

  “He’s really good,” Jemma said. “Plays all the time.”

  “Doesn’t it drive you crazy?” Koko asked Ava.

  “Not at all,” Ava said. “I love listening to him play. He likes to play in the basement. I often go down there and read a book while he plays.”

  Ava shrugged.

  “I work a lot,” Ava said. “I run and swim. I mean, I used to before this. . .”

  Ava gestured to the brace on her leg.

  “We both have a lot of friends,” Maresol said.

  “I like to read,” Ava said. “I’m either reading a book for work or a novel. Maresol and Jemma, too. I take martial-arts classes. Right now, Jemma, Maresol, and I are taking an art class. We have big lives.”

  Ava shrugged. Jemma nodded.

  “When his attention is on Ava,” Jemma said, “the walls sweat from their heat.”

  The women giggled, and Jemma smiled at her joke.

  “They are good,” Koko said. “What’s that?”

  “Lazy Bird,” Ava said. “They are playing jazz songs named after birds.”

  “The concert is for the Denver Zoo,” Maresol said. “Raise money for their bird enclosure.”

  Koko nodded.

  “Ava needs to get to work,” Maresol said.

  “Nelson’s picking me up in a car,” Ava said.

  Maresol nodded.

  “Would you like to see the apartment to see if it’s to your taste?” Maresol asked.

  “Why do you say that?” Koko asked. “Any apartment is. . .”

  Maresol gestured to Koko’s neck, wrist, finger. . .

  “Oh. This?” Koko asked. “I was nervous going to visit some rich, white people. I. . .”

  “I looked for a crown,” Ava said with a conspiratorial grin.

  The woman laughed.

  “No,” Koko said. “I never dress like this. You can ask my mother. I’m a complete embarrassment to her. I just. . . I mean, that’s the Seth O’Malley and. . .”

  Koko shrugged.

  “I’m Shoshone,” Jemma said.

  Koko looked at Jemma.

  “I just thought you should know,” Jemma said. “I’m from a broke-ass Indian tribe from the Plains.”

  “Mom said you were from the Great Basin,” Koko said, quickly.

  Ava laughed. Maresol grinned. Jemma scowled at Koko.

  “I don’t care,” Koko said. “My brother is happy. I mean, I know him better than anyone, and I can tell you that he’s truly happy. I’ve never known him to even date anyone more than a month — and you’re married?”

  “Last weekend,” Jemma said, holding up the thin gold band on her finger.

  “Having a baby?” Koko asked.

  Looking at the picture in front of her, Jemma nodded.

  “If I wasn’t sitting here, I’d never believe it,” Koko said. “Take the win. My brother is a wonderful human being. He’s never loved anyone, but he clearly loves you. That’s all I care about.”

  “They are so cute together,” Maresol said.

  “I set them up,” Ava said.

  Nodding, Jemma smiled.

  “Who cooks?” Koko asked.

  “I do,” Maresol said. “If you need something from the market, just let me know. You’re allowed to make coffee in my kitchen. If you want something else, you can make it in your kitchen. Let me know if you have dietary restrictions. Otherwise, dinner is at 6:30 p.m. Call if you want me to save you a plate. Breakfast is usually done by 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. on the weekends. I can make you a lunch for work, but otherwise, you’re on your own at lunchtime.”

  “Who pays?” Koko asked. “Who cleans?”

  “O’Malley pays,” Maresol said. “We have a service to clean, another mows the grass, and we have a handyman for nearly everything else.”

  Koko nodded.

  “Nothing to say?” Maresol asked.

  “Thank God,” Koko said. “I hate cooking. I suck at cleaning, and I won’t mow grass. I think it’s dumb.”

  The women nodded.

  “Frankly, if you’re willing to do it, I’m willing to eat,” Koko said. “I have the usual dairy sensitivity, but I assume you and Jemma do as well.”

  Maresol nodded.

  “Her food is so amazing,” Jemma said. “So good. Running Wolf thinks that may be why we’re pregnant so fast — Maresol’s great cooking.”

  “Probably.” Ava nodded.

  “Come on,” Jemma said. “I’ll show you the apartment. Dale lives on the ground floor.”

  “What’s a Dale?” Koko asked.

  “He’s a friend of mine,” Ava said. “He is our handyman.”

  “Gorgeous,” Jemma mouthed.

  Ava nodded.

  “Good to know,” Koko said. “Lead on.”

  “Good luck today,” Jemma said to Ava as she got up.

  “Thanks,” Ava said.

  Ava and Maresol watched Jemma and Koko leave through the sliding glass door. Ava sighed.

  “Are you going to feel sorry for yourself all day?” Maresol asked.

  “Yes, I think I will,” Ava said with a grin.

  Maresol laughed.

  “I’m waiting for. . .” Ava said.

  There was a knock at the door. Maresol gave Ava her lunch bag and a cup of coffee. Ava slipped them into her backpack. Maresol held up the cane.

  “Just for getting into the office,” Maresol said. “You need to put pressure on that bone, or it won’t heal.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ava said.

  Ava limped to the door and opened it. Dr. Nelson Weeks was standing on the other side of the door. He grinned at Ava and took her backpack.

  “Bye!” Ava yelled to the house and followed Nelson to the car.

  Nelson opened the back of the vehicle, and Ava stepped in. Nelson slid in beside her.

  “Ready?” Nelson asked. “This one looks like a doozy.”

  “A doozy?” Ava asked with a grin.

  Nelson’s first language was French. His English was usually very precise.

  “Exactly,” Nelson said.

  The car took off toward downtown and Ava’s lab at the Denver Crime Labs

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  Two

  Ava looked up when her Senior Laboratory Technician came into her office.

  “Fran!” Ava said.

  Pushing off the desk, Ava stood up to hug her. Fran had worked in forensic sciences for as long as she’d worked. She was an extremely accomplished technician, with more convictions under her belt than any other lab tech in the country. She was also their laboratory mom.

  “It’s only been a week since we were at your house,” Fran said, embarrassed by Ava’s fond greeting.

  “I’m always happy to see you,” Ava said.

  She gave Fran’s cheek a loud kiss. Fran laughed and rubbed her cheek.

  “Are we kissing now?” Leslie McClintock, MD, PhD, asked, looking disgusted.

  Her hands were pulled in to her chest. Like a lot of brilliant people, Leslie didn’t like a lot of physical contact. Leslie was an out-of-the-box genius who’d struggled to find an interesting place to share her brilliance before Ava hired her to work in their laboratory.

  Ava and Fran laughed. Fran went to pour coffee for everyone.

  Slipping in behind her, Nelson hugged Leslie from behind and kissed her cheek. Nelson Weeks, MD was an accomplished emergency-room doctor who worked for Ava, doing a little of this and that when he wasn’t functioning in his family role of being the Grand Master of the Templars.

  “Ew,” Leslie said, laughing and wiping her face.

  “What’s this now?” Joan Quincy, MD, asked coming in behind them. “Where’s my kiss?”

  Nelson hugged Joan and kissed her cheek. Joan Quincy was an internationally famous coroner whose specialty was forensic bones. She’d moved to Denver when she was fighting colon cancer. Her husband had followed her out to Denver to become the head of the Denver field office of the FBI. Joan had recently passed
six months cancer-free. She took a cup of coffee from Fran.

  “That’s better,” Joan said. “Thank you, Fran.”

  Fran nodded to Joan and made another pot of coffee. Joan came over to give Ava a hug.

  “How’s our Ava today?” Joan asked.

  “Grumpy,” Ava said.

  “I bet,” Leslie said. “I was pretty grumpy when I saw the Evil Wizard’s email this morning. ‘You’ve been sitting around too long’ or whatever. Prick.”

  Nelson and Fran nodded.

  “I heard that there’s a new prosecutor on our big case,” Joan said. “How’s that?”

  “She was at the house this morning,” Ava said. “She’s very beautiful. Charming.”

  “But?” Leslie asked.

  “I don’t trust Running Wolf’s family,” Ava said.

  “His mother was so terrible to Jemma,” Joan said. “I can understand why you don’t trust them. But tell us — how was his sister?”

  Ava thought for a long moment. Nelson came over and gently guided Ava to the large round table.

  “You know?” Ava said, sitting down in her usual chair. “She was pretty gracious. But, I also think that she was genuinely surprised at how mean her mother was to Jemma. But. . .”

  Ava shrugged.

  “Maresol and I weren’t very nice to her,” Ava said. “She handled that like a pro.”

  “I’m sure that you and Maresol are not the worst she’s ever seen,” Fran said.

  Ava thought for a moment before nodding.

  “The wedding was gorgeous,” Leslie said. “So fun. Even for the kids.”

  Everyone nodded and smiled.

  “It was,” Ava said.

  “Should we start?” Joan asked. “Or give up for the day and head home?”

  “I don’t want to start,” Nelson said.

  “I agree with that,” Joan said.

  Sighing, Ava said, “We should start.”

  “What do we have?” Leslie said, with a heavy dose of false cheer.

  They laughed.

  “Where’s Robert?” Joan asked.

  “Across the hall,” Ava said.

  They had participated in setting up a laboratory to run the many rape kits from Native American reservations. To meet the demands of their funding, they’d hired or trained a bevy of Native American laboratory technicians. It was the only laboratory run by Native Americans that was solely looking at crimes against the Native community. Bob and Ava were administrators of both labs.

  The laboratory had already uncovered seven predators, three of whom had already started serving their lengthy prison sentences. The other four were working their way through the criminal-justice system.

  “I’ll go,” Nelson said, getting up.

  Through the glass walls of the lab, they saw Robert Parrish, PhD, leave the lab across the hall. Smiling, he waved to them. Nelson sat back down.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Bob said. “I was kind of hoping that you weren’t coming in.”

  Bob put his hands on Ava’s shoulders and squeezed them. Fran started to get up to get him some coffee, but he waved her back into her seat. Bob had spent most of his life running the FBI’s forensic laboratories. He’d met Ava when she was training at the FBI forensic laboratory. A few years later, he “retired” to Denver to be closer to his grandchildren. When he’d officially driven his wife crazy by being at home, Ava had hired him to assist her in running the lab.

  Grinning, Ava looked around the table. The Evil Wizard called Ava’s team “freaks” or “weirdos.” But he couldn’t complain with their results. When they weren’t working cases, they worked as overflow for the Denver Crime Lab. They were good at what they did and, in Ava’s opinion, excellent human beings.

  “What do we know?” Bob asked.

  “The new case is from Mancos. Dead homeless guy’s body found in a construction dumpster,” Nelson said, opening his laptop. “I’ve requested an electronic copy of the police file. I’ve sent each of you a copy of the file. The hard copy of the file, as well as the evidence boxes, are on their way here.”

  “There are a few things that stand out to me,” Leslie said.

  Even though she was comfortable with everyone there, she was still used to people being offended by her intelligence. She shot a worried look around the table to see if anyone would make fun of her. Ava nodded for Leslie to go ahead.

  “This guy was supposed to be homeless, right?” Leslie asked. “But his body was clean, like the kind of clean you get from bathing regularly. He also had zero drugs or alcohol in his system. His ‘old clothing’ was expensive.”

  “You can get expensive clothing at a charity,” Bob said.

  “Right,” Leslie said, pointing at Bob. “It’s possible that his clothing was donated, but. . . The pockets were clean. I mean, what homeless person has clean pockets?”

  “She’s right,” Fran said. “Homeless people usually stuff their pockets full of all kinds of things — change, food, medications. . . anything, really.”

  “Good point,” Bob said.

  Fran and Leslie nodded.

  “You don’t think that he was homeless?” Ava asked.

  “I just wondered about it,” Leslie said. “What would a homeless guy be doing in nowhere, Colorado? Mancos is like nine blocks long now! Forty years ago? It must have been much less. Usually the out-of-doors population live in town so they can get food and services.”

  “She has a point,” Fran said. “Mancos is thirty minutes from Durango and an hour from Farmington.”

  Thinking, everyone nodded.

  “I hadn’t thought of it, but Leslie’s right,” Nelson said. “The file says that no one had seen him before.”

  “They found a witness — uh, looks like a teenager — who said that the man’s name was ‘Josiah,’” Ava said. “On further questioning, the witness wasn’t sure that Josiah was a human being or an angel.”

  “Dead end?” Joan asked.

  “Maybe?” Ava asked. “I’ve seen cases where the witness gets intimidated by the police which aggravates an underlying mental illness. Do we know if the witness is alive?”

  “Uh. . .” Nelson looked at his computer. “I think so. At least, there’s someone in Denver with his name. I’d have to speak with him to be sure.”

  “We can get a uni to bring him in,” Ava said.

  Nelson gave her a vague nod.

  “You’re right — that might just scare him off,” Ava said. “Coalition for the Homeless?”

  The Coalition for the Homeless had a program that sent counselors into the community. These counselors created relationships with people living out of doors to help them get the services they needed. They had an extensive knowledge of nearly every person experiencing homelessness in Denver and most of Colorado.

  “I put in a call,” Nelson said.

  “Thanks,” Ava said.

  He nodded to avoid her “Thank you.”

  “So we have a name,” Ava said. “Do we have remains?”

  “Oddly, yes,” Joan said. “They arrived this morning. I took a look at them before heading over.”

  Joan worked out of the Denver Coroner’s office. She looked up at the team.

  “I don’t have anything,” Joan said. “The remains are. . . clean. Oddly clean. Like museum clean. That’s what I would say. This death was more than 40 years ago, and his remains almost look like they’ve been boiled.”

  “Were they like that when they were found?” Ava asked.

  “No,” Joan said.

  “The file says that the body was found within twelve hours of death,” Leslie said. Turning to Joan, she asked, “Do you think someone actually boiled the remains?”

  “I’ll know more when I can take a better look,” Joan said. “From my initial look, I think we’re looking at murder. He has a broken hyoid.”

  “Bullet wound,” Nelson said. He rotated the computer around so that they could see. “It looks like a clean shot. Through the heart and out the scapula. H
e would have been dead before he fell.”

  “Bullet?” Ava asked.

  “Yes,” Nelson said. “At least, they had it. We should have it when we get physical files and evidence boxes.”

  Ava nodded. For a moment, they all fell silent as they reviewed the file either on their phone or on a computer.

  “One thing,” Nelson said.

  Everyone looked up at him.

  “This injury could be from a police revolver,” Nelson said. “I haven’t checked to see what weapons they carry in Mancos, but forty years ago, a lot of cops carried revolvers — Smith and Wesson .357, you know, like Dirty Harry?”

  They nodded.

  “I wrote a paper on these wounds when I was in medical school,” Nelson said. “I mean, I can’t be sure, but it looks like a Smith and Wesson .357 wound.”

  “Joan?” Ava asked.

  “He’s correct,” Joan said. “Why don’t you come with me, and we’ll take a look?”

  “Ava?” Nelson asked.

  “Sure,” Ava said, nodding. “So we have a forty-or-fifty-year-old male, possibly homeless, but maybe not, who was possibly shot or strangled.”

  “Or both,” Leslie said. “Do we know what killed him?”

  “The file says that he was shot,” Nelson said. “It looks like he bled out in the dumpster.”

  Ava nodded.

  “Does anyone ever break their hyoid and survive?” Fran asked.

  No one said anything for a long moment.

  “Nelson?” Joan asked. “Any ideas?”

  “No,” Nelson said. “Leslie?”

  “Oh. . .” Leslie said. “I’ve heard of it, but I hate to say that because it’s so unlikely that it’s closer to ‘no’ than ‘yes.’”

  “But it can happen,” Ava said.

  Leslie nodded. Ava thought for a minute.

  “It sounds like this hyoid thing could be distinctive,” Ava said. “I’ll check the federal database. See if there are any soldiers or contractors or. . . other employees with broken hyoids but still working.”

  “O’Malley?” Fran asked.

  “They aren’t sequestered at the moment,” Ava said. “Running Wolf’s sister is a prosecutor. They needed another prosecutor to take over the larger case. I don’t know anything about it, so don’t ask.”

  “But you’ll ask him,” Leslie said.

  “I’ll ask him,” Ava said. “Can we have a facial image made from his skull?”