Gone by Jonathan Kellerman Page B

his red suitcase and fished in a rear pants pocket. “I’ll pay for my own beer.”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “I don’t worry, worrying’s a waste of time. I’ll pay for my own
beer.
” Giacomo pulled out a wallet stuffed so thick it was nearly round. Taking out a five, he tossed it near Milo’s cash.
    “If I call your medical examiners, ask about unclaimed bodies, what’re they gonna tell me?”
    “What makes you think that happened to Tori, Mr. Giacomo?”
    “I was watching this show on cable. Forensics detectives, something like that. They said bodies don’t get claimed, sometimes you do a DNA, solve an old case. So what would they tell me if I asked?”
    “If a decedent is identified and someone offers proof of family relationship, they’re given forms to fill out and the body can be released.”
    “Is it one of those long pain-in-the-ass red-tape things?”
    “It can usually be done in two, three days.”
    “How long do they keep ’em around?” said Giacomo. “Unclaimed bodies.”
    Milo didn’t answer.
    “How long, Lieutenant?”
    “Legally, the maximum’s a year but it’s usually sooner.”
    “How much sooner?”
    “It can be thirty to ninety days.”
    “Whoa. In and out, huh?” said Giacomo. “What, you got a dead body traffic jam?”
    Milo was impassive.
    “Even if it’s a murder?” pressed Giacomo. “For a murder they got to keep it around, right?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Don’t they need to hold on to it for all that forensic stuff?”
    “Evidence is collected and stored. What’s not… necessary isn’t kept.”
    “What, some union flunky’s getting paid off to ditch bodies?” said Giacomo.
    “There’s a space issue.”
    “Same deal even with murder?”
    “Same deal,” said Milo.
    “Okay, then what? Where does the body go if nobody claims it?”
    “Sir—”
    “Just tell me.” Giacomo buttoned his jacket. “I’m one of those people, meets crap face-to-face, don’t do no running away. I never fought in no wars but the marines trained me to deal. What’s the next step?”
    “The county crematorium.”
    “They burn it… okay, what happens to the ashes?”
    “They’re placed in an urn and kept for two years. If a verified relative steps forward and pays $541 to cover transportation costs, they get the urn. If no one claims the urn, the ashes are scattered in a mass grave at the Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Boyle Heights —
that’s East L.A., near the coroner’s office. The graves are marked with numbers. It’s a group scattering, no individual identification is possible. Not all the unclaimed bodies are kept at the main crypt. Some are out in Sylmar, which is a suburb north of L.A., and others are even farther out in Lancaster, which is a city in the Antelope Valley —
the high desert, maybe seventy miles east.”
    Rattling off the facts in the low, emotionless voice of a reluctant penitent.
    Giacomo took it without flinching. Seemed almost to revel in the details. I thought about the cheap plastic urns the county used. Bundles stacked in room after room of the cold-storage basement on Mission Road, bound by sturdy white rope. The inevitable rot that sets in because refrigeration slows decomposition but doesn’t stop it.
    During my first visit to the crypt, I hadn’t thought that through and expressed surprise to Milo at the greenish patches mottling a corpse lying on a gurney in the basement hallway.
    Middle-aged man with a John Doe designation, awaiting transfer to the crematorium. Paperwork laid across his decaying torso, listing the meager details known.
    Milo’s answer had been painfully glib: “What happens to steak when you leave it in the fridge too long, Alex?”
    Now he told Lou Giacomo: “I’m really sorry for your situation, sir. If there’s anything else you want to tell us about Tori, I’d like to hear it.”
    “Like what?”
    “Anything that would help find her.”
    “The restaurant she worked, her mother thinks it had