Full Tilt. Rick Mofina

the movie, as Kate got her into bed, Grace asked her a question.

      “Are you going to go away again to look for Aunt Vanessa, Mom?”

      “I’m not sure. I have some time off from work right now, so I’m not sure.”

      “Maybe one day you’ll find her, Mom, just like Dorothy found her way back home to Kansas.”

      Kate smiled.

      “Maybe.”

      Later that night, as Kate continued researching, she couldn’t help but think how her pursuit of the truth about Vanessa had turned into her own yellow brick road of doubt and defeat by dead-end leads. Kate was a reporter and, like a cop, needed facts. What she had now were puzzle pieces, and what she needed to do was keep digging for more to see if they all fit. Kate found herself on airline sites checking flights to Calgary.

      Kate called Nancy.

      After telling her everything, after explaining her situation, Kate was still unsure about leaving Grace, about the whole idea of going to Canada, with her job situation and everything else.

      “There’s no question you have to go,” Nancy said. “This is part of the fabric of your life, of who you are. How would you live with yourself if, after all that’s happened, you never did all you could to find the truth about your sister because you’d left a big stone unturned? Go. I’ll take care of Grace.”

      Five minutes later Kate booked a flight to Calgary.

14

      Rampart, New York

      Pathologist Morten Compton sat at his desk in his basement office at Rampart General and reviewed his notes on the two deaths at the old burial grounds.

       We’ve got to nail down the ID on the male. And the cause of death.

      It was late and as Compton worked he started wheezing again. His wife had warned him to cut back on the meatball sub lunches at Sally’s Diner and to drop a few pounds. The job stress didn’t help.

      Compton’s temporary assistant, Marsha Fisher, who’d gone for the day, had left him a summary.

      Detective Brennan’s extremely anxious for updates.

      As you know Dr. Hunt made dental charts, which we’ve circulated with no results so far. If the male victim had a dentist, it appears he didn’t visit one recently or locally.

      One potentially positive new aspect: the forensic unit at the scene recovered a military dog tag in the vicinity of where the male was found. I’ve attached a photo of it. I’ve submitted it to the military’s National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis with an urgent request for comparison of our dental chart with the dog tag info. You should be hearing back anytime now.

      Compton clicked on the image.

      The dog tag was charred and twisted metal, but the information was clear to read. The name was: Pollard, J.C., blood type was O positive, followed by the Social Security number, and other information.

      Compton stroked his Vandyke.

       Were there more victims?

      The blood type was the same as the presumed victim, Carl Nelson, but O positive was very common. The dog tag could have already been at the site and have no bearing on the victim. Then again, it could be a key piece of evidence.

      Identifying a body this severely burned was always challenging. The face was gone, so identification by a relative or friend would not be possible. The hands were gone, so fingerprints were not possible.

      Clothing was destroyed. No distinctive jewelry for the male had been recovered.

      Compton had taken X-rays of the remains, hoping to find any medical implants or screws for a broken leg and such. He’d circulated them with doctors in the region. So far to no avail. And as far as the DNA went, he was unsure if, given the extensive damage to the body, the tissue sample he’d submitted to various databases, including CODIS, the FBI’s national DNA database, was viable.

      That brought him to the cause, which had all the indications of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The entrance was the right temple. The wound track was right to left and slightly forward to the left temple, where he’d recovered the 9mm round, but there was also a significant skull fracture from blunt trauma. The injury could’ve been a result of being struck by debris, such as a large beam, falling from the burning building. The problem for Compton was that given the severity of the damage to the body, he couldn’t conclusively determine the order of events. He was leaning to concluding that death was the result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and the skull fracture was postmortem, given the other supporting factors of Carl Nelson’s suicide note, his vehicle and his absence from his job.

      The phone rang.

      “Pathologist, Compton.”

      “Dr. Compton, this is Major Robert Ellis with the office of the chief of dental services with the United States Army. I’m calling in response to your request, concerning the dental records of Sergeant Pollard.”

      “Yes, Major, thanks for calling.” Compton reached for a pen.

      “We can confirm that the chart you sent for comparison is the chart of Sergeant John Charles Pollard formerly of the US Army Special Forces. He toured Iraq and Afghanistan and was honorably discharged seven years ago.”

      “You’re positive on the chart?”

      “Yes, sir. It’s clear regarding the patterns and wear of several large amalgams.”

      “This is one hell of a game changer.”

      “We’ve arranged to expedite written confirmation and can provide you with scanned and physical copies of Sergeant Pollard’s full military records and photographs to assist your investigation.”

      “Thank you, Major Ellis.”

      Compton hung up.

      His breathing had quickened.

      He stared at his computer’s monitor and the charred, twisted dog tag that belonged to the former US Army sergeant. Before Compton made another note, before he called Brennan, he absorbed the new information.

       If the body is Pollard, then where is Carl Nelson?

      And why would Nelson leave a suicide note seeking forgiveness for what he’d done?

       What the hell have we got here?

15

      Buffalo, New York

      Yellowing tape held meal schedules to the walls of the dining hall of the mission in downtown Buffalo.

      The rules were up there, too: “No weapons, no drugs, no booze and no fighting. We offer: Love, respect, understanding and healing.” After reading them Dickson shook his head.

      “It sickens me that any veteran, after sacrificing everything for our country, comes home to this.”

      Ed flipped through his notes. The two Rampart detectives were at a table waiting for the mission crew to finish up with breakfast so they could interview people about former Sergeant John Charles Pollard.

      That Pollard, not Carl Nelson, had been identified as the male victim took this thing to a whole new level. They needed to determine his connection to Nelson, to Bethany Ann Wynn, to any aspect of the case.

      After the pathologist had alerted them yesterday to Pollard’s ID, Brennan and Dickson pored over his military records, made calls and tracked his last known location to Buffalo.

      Pollard, aged thirty-nine, was from Toledo, Ohio, and had enlisted as an artillery man in the US Army in 1998. He was assigned