The Death Box by J. A. Kerley Page A

feeling it was one of those neighborhoods where everyone has secrets and won’t poke into yours if you don’t poke into theirs.
    We watched the ambulance take Paul Carosso on his final journey and headed back to the office, happy to find two desks, two desk chairs, two chairs for sitting, one low couch, two file cabinets and a whiteboard. Each desk had a computer terminal linked to a printer and both phones worked. A box of office supplies was in the corner.
    We sat and started digging into Carosso’s financial records. An hour of calls to various banking voices revealed that two grand had been deposited in Carosso’s account a year ago. Though it wasn’t much, it was an anomaly, most deposits being paycheck range: three to five hundred every couple weeks.
    Gershwin leaned back with purple skate shoes on his desk and his hands jammed in the front pockets of his paint-tight black jeans. “Maybe Carosso got a big payoff and spent it on something, had two grand left.”
    “I don’t think the guy owned anything that cost more than fifty bucks.”
    My phone rang, Morningstar. “Hello, Doctor,” I said in my most charming and inoffensive voice. “What can I do for—”
    “I need those fibers tested now, not yesterday …”
    “Excuse me, Doctor?”
    “Wake up, Diego! Get me more one-quart evidence bags …”
    I realized that Morningstar had dialed, then started issuing orders, forgetting the phone in her hand.
    “One goddamn Coke,” she bayed. “How hard is that?”
    “YO!” I yelled. “DOCTOR MORNINGSTAR!”
    A beat, and I heard the phone bump her cheek. “Yeah, Ryder. I hear you. Whatdaya want?”
    “You called me.”
    “Oh yeah. How about you haul your ass to the site?”
    “Haul my what where?”
    A pause while she reconsidered her tone. “Can you stop by, Detective? We’ve got some new information you’ll find interesting.”
    We booked to the site and entered the tent – IDs predominant on our chests – and found Morningstar at the upper bank of examination tables. She looked up as we approached.
    “I heard you just sent a body to the morgue, Ryder. Connected to this case?”
    “Can’t say yet. If it is, it adds a new urgency.”
    “Doctor Wilkens will handle the autopsy since I seem to be living here. And to that end, we have another complete body extraction.”
    I saw a body on her side on a reinforced table, almost fetal, legs drawn up, one hand floating in the air, the other below, the spine and rib cage compressed by huge force. Her preserved face projected forward, mouth wide below a straight nose, the empty eye sockets like twin screams.
    It was the woman who had called to me from the stone, the one trying to swim free. I knew it was an illusion, that her lifeless body had pressed against the wall of the cistern, her face and hand wedging between stones lining the cistern, eluding the concrete and appearing frozen while swimming.
    Morningstar turned to me. “The big reason I called you here? I’m wondering about the serial-killer line Delmara is pushing.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “So far we’ve pulled nine skulls, seven females and two males. Several skulls provided a look at dentition. A lot of decay, but the teeth display the kind of contemporary dentistry done by first-world dentists on charity missions.”
    “Meaning?”
    “I’m getting there. BELT!”
    A tech sprinted over and set a brown leather belt in Morningstar’s outstretched palm. The belt was crusted with cement, but a section near the corroded buckle had been cleaned.
    “You can’t see the words with the naked eye, but under a microscope we’ve made out HECHO EN HONDURAS – made in Honduras. BRACELET!” Morningstar barked and the belt became a silver-colored ID bracelet, the opening heartbreakingly small. She handed me a magnifying glass and pointed to a cleaned area of the bracelet. I squinted at faint letters etched into cheap potmetal.
    “T-e-g-u …”
    “Tegucigalpa,” Morningstar said. “A souvenir