‘OK, count us in,’ she said.
FOUR
Jayne knew she was the first one back at the Agency when Scott dropped her off because Carol’s ‘Out to Lunch’ sign was still hanging on the front door. The phone started to ring as she walked in. She picked it up at Carol’s desk.
‘This is Ron from A-One Electrics?’
Jayne wondered if he was asking her or telling her. She sat down in Carol’s chair. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Yeah, I’m calling about the generator?’
‘The generator?’
‘Yeah!’ Chewing gum snapped and clicked. ‘I’ve got a . . . uh . . . two-stroke Give-All generator with shut-off switch to deliver and I just need to confirm your address.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, if you’re worried about the installation, that’s all included.’ He sounded pleased.
‘That’s nice but I didn’t order a generator and neither has anyone else at this address, to my knowledge.’
‘Well, ma’am, I’ve got the receipt right here.’
‘So who ordered it?’
‘Let’s see –’ snap-snap-pop – ‘I don’t have a name on the requisition sheet but there’s a note about angles.’
‘ANGLES? Is it an acronym?’
‘Or, “angels”? “Angels flight”?’
‘What?’ Jayne stood up so abruptly she almost yanked the phone off the desk by its cord as she looked to see if Scott was still in the parking lot.
‘You still there, ma’am? It is all paid for.’
She straightened the phone. ‘Ron. I’m going to put you on hold for a minute.’
She punched the hold button and dialed out on another line.
‘Houston.’ He was on speakerphone and she could hear ambient noise in the background.
‘Scott, I’ve got a guy on the other line asking me where I want my new generator. You know anything about this?’
‘No-o-o.’
‘No?’ Jayne was incredulous and her words came out like bullets. ‘I find that very hard to believe because he just told me that it’s for “angels flight”. Now that’s too much coincidence in my book.’
‘Let’s say I do know something about it. Why are you so angry?’
‘You can’t just turn up here and start giving me gifts!’
‘Let me reassure you right now that I don’t think the way to a woman’s heart is through gas-powered machinery. It’s for the Agency.’
Jayne was too hot under the collar to feel mortified. ‘I know that! What I meant was, you can’t just give me gifts for the Agency. We’re governed by five-oh-one C three regulations. And, dammit Scott, I can take care of this place myself!’
‘Well, that’s not what Steelie said to Eric in relation to this.’
Jayne faltered. ‘Steelie?’
‘Yeah. She got to talking with Eric about the brownouts, mentioned your office needs a generator but doesn’t have the funds, and Eric decided to organize a donation to the Agency. All by the book.’
Before Jayne could muster a response, Scott continued. ‘Plus, we don’t want your computers going down while you’re working on anything related to our discussion at Angels Flight.’
‘I see. Well, in that case, thank you. We’ll send you a donation receipt. Or send it to Eric . . .’ She petered out.
‘Take your time, Hall.’ He sounded amused. ‘Ten-four.’
Jayne reflected on Scott’s mellow response to the fact that she’d completely jumped the gun before she remembered gum-chewing Ron on Line 1. She pressed the button to retrieve him and politely organized the delivery of the generator for Wednesday.
She’d only been back at her desk for a few minutes when she heard Carol and Steelie enter the building. Jayne walked out her side door to meet them in the hall.
Steelie asked, ‘Good lunch?’
Jayne followed them into the small kitchen where they were putting leftovers in the fridge. ‘We need to be at the FBI’s Wilshire office tomorrow at eleven.’
She explained Scott’s theory about the body parts and his desire for a preliminary report.
Steelie sounded doubtful. ‘And the coroner’s office isn’t going to have a problem with this?’
‘Apparently not.’
Carol looked at the two anthropologists. ‘If Scott’s got it cleared on his end and you’re not compromising a future autopsy, you won’t be interfering with the wheels of justice turning down at the coroner’s office. Maybe you’ll even grease them a little. That fits into the Agency’s mission, in my view.’
The bells on the front door rang out. Carol said, ‘I’ll go.’
As she padded away, Jayne addressed Steelie. ‘Your loose lips have won us a generator.’
‘No way.’
‘Yeah. Eric and Scott have ordered one for the Agency.’
‘Wow.’ Steelie’s broad smile collapsed when she caught Jayne’s expression. ‘Don’t tell me you did one of your don’t-think-me-ungrateful-but-we-can-do-it-ourselves numbers on them? Oh, you didn’t!’ Steelie threw up her hands. ‘Y’know, not everyone is paternalistic or even chauvinistic—’
She broke off when the sound of a sob traveled back from the front of the building and then motioned with her head that she’d be in the lab. Jayne went into her office through the hall door and was relieved that the double French doors to Reception were closed; Carol’s doing, no doubt. She didn’t want to interrupt what the doors’ mottled glass panels allowed her to make out. Carol, in full grief-counselor mode, had sat down next to the visitor. The crying, which had started as though a dam had burst, was subsiding, but Jayne sensed that the force of the tears had been only dammed up again, not spent. And was it ever?
It was possible that the visitor wouldn’t stay for an interview on the first visit. Sometimes it was enough for family members to come in the front door and deal with what that represented. They’d reached the stage where they were considering the possibility that their missing relative had been found, but found dead. They returned when they felt stronger.
A darkening across the room made her look up. The visitor was leaving. A knock on the door a moment later was Carol.
‘That was Solana,’ she said, sitting in the chair opposite the desk. ‘Here about her son Roberto, missing for six months. She was referred by the Alstons in Pasadena.’
‘Some referral. We haven’t been able to find their daughter.’
‘Well, you’ll be interested in what Solana said, then. She started working for the Alstons as a housekeeper a few months ago. At some point, they asked her to live in. She said she couldn’t and then broke down. They were busy reassuring her that she wouldn’t lose her job but then she explained about Roberto and how she didn’t want to be away from home for any twenty-four hour period in case he came back and she wasn’t there.’
Jayne nodded.
‘That’s when they told her about how Kate had disappeared and how the Agency had helped them focus their energies and given them hope of some sort of answer. She agreed to pay us a visit but, as you would have heard, it took a lot out of her.’
‘Do you think she’ll come back?’
Carol considered this as she stood up. ‘I don’t know. It’s taken her weeks just to come inside, having driven past a few times. But I gave her one of our brochures to take home.’
Jayne could hear her humming quietly as she returned to her desk.