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“And to Metcalf?”
“Of course.” She turned to Special Agent Dean Cassalas, who was now a few yards away.
He gave her a wary glance. “Good morning, Dr. Michaels.”
“Good morning. I’ve just been talking to Griffin, and he seems to have thought I’d be scared off by this crime scene. I want you to know that I’ll respect it, but it won’t intimidate me.” She told him quietly, “I’m ready when you are. I’m not going to promise you anything. Let’s just see what we can do to find out why those good friends of yours died here yesterday.”
He gave her a long look, and then nodded soberly. He gestured toward the crater. “After you, Dr. Michaels.”
“Kendra,” she corrected. “And you should go first, because you’re going to get me a good many interviews with the tech people who are going to answer my questions. Okay?”
He smiled and nodded. “Okay.” He preceded her down the hill.
She started after him and then looked over her shoulder at Griffin. “I got this. I’m sure you have other things to do here.”
“Thank you,” he said sardonically. “I know when I’m being dismissed. But I’ll be around on the off chance you need anything.”
“Fine. But please remember that I don’t like to be used. And that I hate the idea that a terrible tragedy could ever be referred to as a ‘mess.’”
She turned and followed Cassalas down the hill.
Although the corpses and body parts had already been photographed, tagged, and removed, the stench of death still hung in the air. Dozens of trees still standing on the perimeter were singed and stained with blood.
“Are you okay?” Cassalas asked.
“Yes. More than anything, I’m just…angry.”
“We all are.” He motioned toward the dozen or so evidence collection techs still working the scene. “We knew these people. They were family.” He consulted a clipboard and pointed to the base of a tree, where a yellow marker rested with a bold black “9” on its face. “That’s where we found Cynthia Strode.”
Kendra looked at the bloodstained tree root. Damn. She gazed around, realizing that the yellow plastic markers scattered around the scene represented the location of corpses.
Cassalas pointed to another marker just six feet away. “Barrett was there.”
Kendra turned. Farther from the blast crater, she saw half a dozen blue plastic markers scattered around the scene. “What are those?”
“Survivors.”
She shook her head. “I’m amazed anyone could have lived through this.”
“Well, two of these people didn’t make it to the hospital. And, as you know, another didn’t make it out of surgery.”
“Where was Metcalf?”
Cassalas consulted his clipboard and stepped back a few feet. He pointed toward a blue marker. “Here. Number five.”
Kendra crouched next to the marker. “I know he arrived down here with Cynthia, but the nurse told me he was somehow spared the burns that the others had.” She looked at the distance separating Metcalf’s and Cynthia’s markers. “I wonder how that happened.”
“It might have been the phone call,” Cassalas said.
Kendra’s head lifted sharply. “Whatphone call?”
“A lab tech had just called Metcalf with test results from another case he was working. He was still on the phone with her when the bomb went off.”
Kendra stood up. “That could explain it. He may have stepped away to take the call, which saved his life.” She continued around the crater and looked at the surviving trees. Pieces of clothing and hair still hung from the higher branches, along with shreds of what she suspected was human skin.
She turned and looked at the sea of markers, which looked almost like tombstones. She pointed to a red marker in the middle of the blast site. “What’s that?”
“It’s to mark what was left of his victim who was buried here.”
