Page 6 of Identity Unknown

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Page 6 of Identity Unknown

That and her potent floral cologne, and I can tell she’s passed through recently. Her office is connected to mine, the door shut between us, and typically I wouldn’t be able to make out what’s she saying on the phone. But she’s talking loudly, adamantly, with a spark of ire. Someone must be giving her a hard time, underestimating her as most people tend to do.

My secretary is friendly and helpful until she’s not. I don’t know anyone shrewder, and I move closer to the closed door between us. I detect the flintiness in Shannon’s tone, her Irish brogue as pronounced now as when I was chief the first time around. I catch fragments of what she’s saying…

“… I’ve made myself clear, Mister Briley. Doctor Scarpetta isn’t available…”

And…

“… Will serve you no good to carry on like this. I won’t be bullied…”

Then…

“… You should know this call like the others is being recorded…”

Also…

“… I’ll just be hanging up now…”

I suspect that Ryder Briley is calling about his dead daughter who was sickly and slow witted, I was told yesterday. She was always hurting herself, it was volunteered, because the parents knew damn well what I’d find. The ringing starts again, and I can hear Shannon impatiently snatching up the phone.

“As I’ve said, I’m very sorry for your loss. But you really must stop this. It’s most inappropriate…”

I step away from the door as Marino texts me the latest weather update. High winds and thunderstorms in the Appalachian Mountains could cause hail and tornado conditions.

CHAPTER 3

Icheck my desk for what’s been added since I was here last, piles of autopsy reports, death certificates and lab reports awaiting my review and initialing. The stack of cardboard slide folders next to my microscope wasn’t there earlier, and I won’t get to any of it today.

I begin shuffling through telephone messages from funeral homes, attorneys, forensic scientists. I’m not surprised to discover that Ryder Briley is demanding I discuss the autopsy. He wants his daughter’s body released immediately so that he canput my baby to rest,my secretary quotes on a pink message slip.

Blaise Fruge is the investigator in the case, and she’s been trying to get hold of me. Before doing anything else, I check on the weather, opening a window shade. The parking lot is bright, my bland brick building surrounded by a palisade of tall metal privacy fencing that casts long shadows.

The blue sky is streaked with wispy clouds, the storm front Marino continues harping about a dark band on the distant horizon. As I watch employees heading out on lunch breaks, I notice a large white SUV has pulled off the street, parked in a blind spot for our surveillance cameras. The driveris positioned to watch who comes and goes through our parking lot’s security gate.

Only someone familiar with the building would know the location of the cameras unless it’s luck. I’m reminded of arriving at the Brileys’ house late yesterday afternoon. Fabian and I were carrying in our gear as the police searched the huge garage, the doors retracted. I noticed the expensive vehicles inside, including a white Cadillac Escalade SUV parked between a Ferrari and a Bentley.

Picking up my binoculars, I can see the Cadillac badge on the grille of the white SUV across from my building. I recognize the angry middle-aged man behind the wheel. Ryder Briley has on sunglasses and a golf shirt, wearing his baseball cap backwards. His hefty gold watch and diamond pinky ring shine in the sunlight as he flicks a cigarette butt out the white Escalade’s open window while harassing Shannon over the phone.

I train the binoculars on Piper Briley in the passenger seat drinking a tall boy beer, her long blond hair in a ponytail. Her pretty face is frozen with no expression as it was yesterday, the result of Botox injections, I assume. Braless and big breasted, she has on a hot pink tube top, and through the stretchy fabric I can see the shapes of nipple rings.

Holding up her phone, she’s filming state employees driving in and out, her diamond jewelry flashing in the bright midday sun. Then my own phone is ringing, Investigator Blaise Fruge trying to reach me on FaceTime, and I answer.

“I just came upstairs to my office and was going to call you before I head out the door. But you beat me to it,” I say to her.“I’m holding on to Luna Briley a few more days and pending her manner of death for now as we continue to investigate.”

“Her parents are already causing huge trouble, and I wanted you to hear it straight from me,” she says, her face stern on my phone’s display.

I can see that she’s parked somewhere in her unmarked SUV, her eyes masked by mirrored Ray-Ban sunglasses similar to what Marino wears. Like him she’s obsessed with the gym and taking all sorts of dietary supplements. She looks buff in jeans and a polo shirt, her typical uniform now that the weather is warmer.

“Ryder Briley has been calling the chief’s office, internal affairs, also the city manager and the mayor,” Fruge says on FaceTime, clamping her phone into the holder on the dash. “He’s bragging about all the super-lawyers he has working for him, throwing his weight around, threatening to own the police, the medical examiner and the city of Alexandria.”

“He keeps calling my office haranguing Shannon. And right now, he and his wife are parked across from my building,” I say to Fruge as she picks up a large drink from Burger King. “Plus, we’ve been getting weird phone calls. Harassment, in other words. I can’t swear it’s the Brileys. But it could be.”

“They’re claiming that Fabian was threatening them inside their house. Basically, they’re lying through their teeth about all of us,” Fruge replies between sips on a straw.

“I won’t allow them to intimidate my staff or anyone else, including me,” I tell her while glancing at the white Escalade out my office window.

“Easier said than done.” Paper crackles as she opens a fast-food bag. “You got any idea all the stuff he owns? Hotels, office and apartment buildings, amusement parks, airport hangars. Plus, all kinds of companies, and huge homes all over. He’s as rich as God and has a network of high-level people who will do what he wants,” she says, and I’m aware of his reputation.

When Roxane Dare ran for governor, Ryder Briley was her opponent’s biggest contributor. After she won, he’s continued to speak out about her viciously and publicly in TV commercials. He’s known for starring in his own political ads for whoever he’s backing, typically depicting himself hunting big game in Africa or landing his helicopter on the rooftop of a building he owns.




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