Regent

IX

It was so unsurprising that another two bodies turned up over night that her assistants simply left the paperwork on her desk along with an edition of the morning paper and her cup of coffee, which must have been brought by in a cup carrier along with coffees for everyone else. Isla sat down, signed the body transfer papers without really looking at them, and handed them back to an assistant to file them away. She took a sip of her coffee and glanced at the paper in the few moments she had before she needed to get the autopsies started.

The paper was graced with a picture of the crime scene surrounding the first body as it was dug up. She herself was shown on one side of the frame, waiting for the crime lab to finish with the scene. The headline told her more about the paper itself than the article: Queen of Hearts Strikes Again: How Many More Victims Will She Claim? Isla scanned the article to see why it was assumed that the killer was female. Evidently, an anonymous source from inside the police department leaked the existence of the DNA evidence.

"Hey, Mel?" Isla called out to her assistant.

Mel appeared at her desk from the front area of the office. "Yes?" She answered a little nervously.

"Can you call up Dr. Garza and ask him when his report on those DNA samples will be on my desk?" Isla asked. "He told me they would be here today and I do not see them."

"Of course," Mel went to her own desk to make the call.

Isla took another sip of her coffee. The caffeine was doing the trick: she noticed the writing on the side of the cup. Date No. 2? Laura. It had to be Laura.

"Hey, Mel?" Isla called out again.

Mel appeared in her office again. "To answer your question: Dr. Garza's assistant—you know, the one who actually does her job, Vanessa—says that he did not show up for work today. He did finish the report, though, so she is sending it over."

"Excellent, thank you. Did you see who brought in the coffee?" Isla asked.

"Uh, well," Mel—her composed, professional, perfect assistant—turned bright red at the mention. "I was sworn to secrecy."

"Mel?"

"Come on, I'll show you." Mel led her back to the quad of desks where her investigators worked. "Cough up the cups," Mel told them.

With grins they couldn't hide, one by one, everyone forked over their cups. Mel arranged them how she had found them in the cup holder still left on her desk. Isla's cup showed the first half of the message. The second cup gave her a time: 8 o'clock. The third gave her a location: I'll pick you up. The fourth gave her a clue: Wear a dress fit for a queen. The fifth gave her a name: Love, Laura.

"Oh my god," Isla's hands flew to cover her face.

Everyone took their coffee cups back. "We approve, by the way. She seems like a good one," Mel chimed in.

"Thank you," Isla didn't really know why she was even saying that.

A knock on the door snapped her back to the job she was supposed to be doing. A very winded Vanessa had indeed brought over Felix Garza's reports. Somehow Isla did not need to read through the packet of papers to know that the DNA found on the first two bodies was vaginal fluid belonging to the same woman. Knowing this, Isla swabbed the two newest bodies before starting her official autopsy.

By the time Isla had cleaned up the morgue and had both reports filed, her investigators had already headed home. She refused to be one of those bosses who kept everyone extra late without a real reason. They had left her all the new paperwork that had come in on her desk. Most of it was just death certificates that required her signature and transfer papers for a few of the bodies that were set to be picked up by the funeral directors the next day. On the very bottom of the stack of papers was a message that someone must have taken for her while she was doing the autopsies. The official message form dictated that the assistant jot down the message, the person's name, the number they called from, and the exact times the call started and ended. This form only told her that the call had been taken at three fifty seven, lasted three minutes, and was over by four o'clock exactly. No name was written on the reserved line, nor was the phone number written down. The message itself merely contained thirteen names: Dylan Huckabee, Bill Johnson, Jeff Miller, Michael Purdue, Curtis Clawson, Alcee Fisk, Ted Frankel, Harris Carter, Raul Kelley, Luke Messer, Bob Brady, Robert Scheller, Trey Baylor.