Moon Music. Faye Kellerman

The Filipina women we found in the plastic bags?”

      Jensen said, “They were left in a truck-size communal waste container, buried under three feet of garbage. Rotting but otherwise intact.”

      “Except for the gunshot wounds in their heads,” Patricia added.

      Jensen said, “Newel wasn’t shot, she was ripped apart like an animal. She was also found in the open desert. I don’t see any connection, Poe.”

      “They were both body dumps.”

      “All bodies gotta be dumped somewhere.”

      “It’s worth a shot,” Poe insisted.

      Weinberg said, “I haven’t heard of any recent similar case. But sure, try it out, Poe. As long as you don’t waste time digging up bones that don’t mean anything.”

      Poe agreed.

      A couple of hours in Records was all that he needed.

      The Downtown Metro building wouldn’t be winning any architectural awards, but Poe gave it an A for effort. It was an eight-story thing, shaped like a cylinder missing a wedge with its center hollowed out for a courtyard. The courtyard was floored with pavers and decorated with oversized concrete planters designed not only for interest, but also to prevent wayward cars from smashing into the structure. The streetside perimeter wall was made from stone and adorned with a cryptic primitive mural of tile in primary colors. The courtyard exterior wall was a continuous sweep of glass windows and concrete balconies.

      Police records were stored on the first floor next to the Traffic Division. Thousands upon thousands of case files arranged according to number. To look up the case required a trip to the card catalog, then an exhaustive search through shelves of folders. Poe knew right away that he’d hit blanks. The files started in the mid-1990s.

      Which necessitated a trip to IAD. Like Homicide, IAD had its own separate building, which housed past files stored on microfiche. In the meantime, Poe did what he could at Metro.

      Ambling up the stairs to the second floor. Most of Metro’s detectives were housed here. Each detail had its own squad room. Ten detective quarters surrounded the interview rooms, which, like islands, sat in the middle of the floor. Spotting an empty Crime Analysis hookup in Fugitive turf, Poe pulled up a chair and entered the particulars of the Brittany Newel case.

      Waited as the cursor blinked.

      Over the next hour, the computer spit back twenty similars which had taken place in the last two years.

      Serial killers who took body parts as trophies—lots of scalping.

      Serial killers who gouged and mutilated.

      Serial killers who cannibalized their victims.

      Grisly stuff, but none screamed Newel’s MO.

      When the clock struck three, Poe had had enough. He logged off the computer, then took out the composite and scanned the recent mug books. Finding nothing applicable, he gave up, left Metro, and headed to Internal Affairs Division, arriving at the building five minutes later.

      Clearing the reception room at IAD, he made his way to the bowels of Records, where he was blocked by the file clerk. A very efficient young lady who wore her hair in a bun. Her name plate read Madison.

      “You haven’t filled out the papers correctly.”

      Poe politely explained that he was not sure what case he was looking for, only that he’d know it when he saw it.

      “Detective, you know and I know that you can’t go browsing through files without authorization. It’s a violation of civil rights—”

      “A dead person has no civil rights.” Poe kept his temper in check. “It’s a twenty-five-year-old case. She isn’t going to come back to sue.”

      The clerk frowned. “Do you at least have a year for the case?”

      Poe rubbed his face. “Nineteen seventy-two or -three.”

      “I said a year. In the singular.”

      “I gave you a two-for-one. C’mon. Give me a break!”

      Madison rolled her eyes—an old schoolmarm who didn’t believe his excuse for not having his homework. “How long are you going to be?”

      “Maybe an hour.”

      Madison motioned him inside the crypt.

      Within fifteen minutes, Poe was alone with the films, cases flipping by with a flick of the wrist. He felt his heartbeat, heard his steady breathing; he was the only one in the room.

      There was no Bogeyman case file: that was the sensationalized name invented by the media. He found only one twenty-five-year-old unsolved murder case that had all the elements.