Free Jayne and Steelie - 01 - Freezing by Clea Koff

do all that often,’ added Jayne. ‘Usually, we deal with X-rays taken at a known age and don’t need to examine internal structures.’
    â€˜But since we don’t have much to go on with this material, we’ll try everything we can,’ Steelie rounded out.
    â€˜OK. Want to move on to the other arm?’ He looked at her expectantly, one hand on the gurney.
    â€˜Sure.’
    As Tony switched the gurneys for the last time, Jayne felt deflated. They weren’t getting very far. All the parts appeared to be female, all had pale skin, all were post-pubescent and therefore it was more difficult to discriminate between them, especially within the parameters of their non-invasive examination. Body parts that might give a clear indication of age, like the pelvis or the teeth, were not in this batch. Jayne felt her hopes for an identification of any of the victims fading. She suddenly felt weighed down by her lead vest. She shifted it and stretched her back uncomfortably.
    Tony was moving as though he wasn’t wearing a lead vest, exposing the right arm in the body bag with efficient movements. The arm lay slightly sideways in the bag so he moved it parallel to the edges of the gurney. His gloved hand momentarily supported the fingers with their polished nails and Jayne had a sudden, violent image of a dead woman being led in a waltz. She looked at the ceiling to banish the image from her mind, causing her mask to pull on the skin under her cheeks. This brought her back to reality. She was mildly tired from this kind of concentration and the standing, and the cold was getting to her. Gruesome images fed on her fatigue, she knew that already. Just one more body part , she told herself.
    She looked down when she thought Tony had photographed the arm from every angle. It was a right arm and appeared, superficially, to be the match for the left arm they had just examined. Tony drew the fluoroscope down along the severed limb, pausing briefly to take a shot of the small humeral head. Then the fluoroscope’s lens resumed its journey, Tony carefully keeping it in line with the arm, and Jayne’s mind began to drift on to where they’d get the reference material to improve the age estimate for both humerii.
    â€˜Jesus Christ !’
    Steelie’s exclamation made Tony freeze and Jayne jump. She looked at Steelie, who was staring at the fluoroscope screen. Jayne immediately followed her lead. And there it was, the thing the killer couldn’t have known about – unless he had an X-ray machine.
    The surgical plate was screwed into the humerus at about midshaft. It would have been applied by a surgeon, could have an identifying number, and might just lead an investigator to that surgeon’s patient records. Surgical plate as homing pigeon , Jayne thought, and then immediately realized they wouldn’t find this woman’s identity in the Agency’s files. They didn’t have a single client who had reported a missing woman with a plate in an arm, nor had they received any X-rays that showed plates on examination. But it was the first real lead on the identity of this woman and thus the first real lead on her killer.
    Tony was looking at the screen. ‘I guess this is a good thing?’
    Steelie’s voice sounded excited. ‘You just got yourself a lead, Tony.’
    Eric walked into his office and sat down heavily at his desk. Scott looked at him, eyebrows raised.
    Eric shook his head.
    â€˜Everything checked out?’ Scott asked.
    â€˜Yeah. The City confirms that well after our van got hit on the freeway yesterday morning, someone put a traffic light out of commission at Winnetka and Hatteras. They had traces of white paint on the light post and had just started searching for the vehicle that did the damage. The Critters have examined the Redding woman’s van. No suspect biological traces, no work on the van besides the body work on the back doors.’ He