Even though her face had been damaged, her eyes were wide open. A bright golden brown.

Sweeney and Banks stepped away. Lena could hear her old partner taking another swig of spring water like it was a hundred proof. Someone lit a cigarette. As she heard Gainer murmur something to his maker, Lena turned back to the victim and let it sink in. She understood that this was another look at a place where evolution had reversed course. She wouldn’t find humanity here. This case would be another walk beyond the last outpost of civilization. And she was without a partner. Flying solo and on her own.

 

4

Her first impression had been the right one.

This was not a crime scene. The alley between Ivar and Cahuenga off Hollywood Boulevard was nothing more than the location for a body dump. A convenient location just three blocks from two separate entrances to the Hollywood Freeway. They could search every inch of the alley and find no evidence. Not a wallet, a purse, or anything that might resemble a murder weapon.

Lena glanced at a criminalist from SID packing up his kit as she thought it over.

There was no linkage. Nothing found here would point to the perpetrator because the victim hadn’t been murdered here. Instead, this was the place where she had been thrown out with the trash.

Lena could feel the anger in her bones.

If the perpetrator had made a mistake, she only counted one. The plastic bag the victim had been placed in didn’t match any other bag found in any Dumpster within five blocks. The plastic was a commercial grade, thicker than any normal trash bag and a good 30 percent larger. Lena’s father had been a welder. The Denver skyline bore its shape and beauty from his work. She knew from experience that bags like this were common on construction sites. The extra-thick plastic held more weight and was less likely to rip open if the bag contained sharp objects like glass and nails, or in this case, a young woman’s jagged bones.

Danny Bartlett, the runaway from Little Rock, had stoked up his crank pipe and just hit liftoff when he fished the five green bags out of the Dumpster. Lena had gone through the four remaining bags with a criminalist, then again with the kitchen manager at Tiny’s. The contents were from the bar and had gone out at 2:00 a.m. last night. According to the employee who tossed the bags, the trash had been picked up the night before, the Dumpster completely empty. None of the tenants sharing the alley had seen anyone drive through since they arrived at work this morning. So, it was a safe bet that the perpetrator got rid of the body between 2:00 a.m. and sunrise, then made the short drive north and vanished into the freeway system.

Lena shook it off, stepping aside when she heard the coroner’s van backing toward the Dumpster. Gainer’s assistants had placed the trash bag inside a blue body bag and were zipping it up.