“How long do you think that body’s been in there?” Claire asked, staring at her phone.
“I don’t know.” Ozzie pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s why we need to wait for forensics to get it out of the wall.”
She let out a soft grunt. “We’ll just do a general search for missing persons.” Her fingers flew over the phone keyboard. She paused as the search results came up, then lifted one eyebrow. “That’s a lot more people than I thought it would be.” She tipped the phone toward Ozzie.
He plucked it from her hand and scrolled. “Yeah.” Running his palm over his jaw, he read a few of the article descriptions, then handed it back. “We just need to wait on forensics. I can’t narrow it down until I get at least the gender. An approximate time of death would be even better.”
Claire huffed and laid the phone face down before resting her chin in her hand. “Fine.”
Ozzie put a hand on her back and rubbed small circles. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. You just have to give me a chance.”
“What else can we do to help?” Luke asked.
“Not much, honestly,” Ozzie said to him, then turned to me. “And I’m afraid work will have to stop on the café until we get all we can from the building.”
I grimaced but knew he was right. “I figured. You should know, the basement is full of junk. I don’t know if any of it is important.”
“Claire told me about it. We’ll probably haul it all out and to a secure facility for processing.” He rolled his neck. “The chief is going to love this.”
“I’ll bring you all the things I took from the building. It’s not much. Some art, a couple of decorative knick-knacks, and some planters.” I scooted away from the table. “In fact, some of it’s here.”
“We have that stuff at home, too, don’t forget,” Claire said, waving a finger at him.
Luke stood. “I’ll help you gather things.”
I glanced up, surprised at the gesture. “Oh. Thank you.”
A lopsided smile appeared on his face, bringing out a dimple. “You’re welcome.”
