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Detective Sergeant Brian Shaw - Victoria Police Department, Major Crimes Section

Detective Constable Annette Collon - Victoria Police Department, Major Crimes Section

Detective Inspector Adam Cornell -Victoria Police Department Detective Division Commander

Jane Green - Victoria Police Department Forensics Unit

Assistant Coroner Paul Grenski - Victoria Coroners Department

Geoff Swan - Witness

Inspector Leah Starr - Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Major Kevin Anderson - Commander Military Police Detachment, Victoria

Staff Sergeant Rowan Drescal - Victoria Police Department, Patrol Division

Senior Constable Andre Evans - Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ballistics Section

Commissioner Gavin Henshaw - Commissioner Victoria Police Department

By David Schneider

1.

Detective Sergeant Brian Shaw walked into the Victoria Police Station. Shaw was a thickset man in his late forties, with a full head of black hair he typically hid beneath a hat or cap. He wasn't much over a hundred and eighty centimetres tall, but the way he moved showed that he had a stamina that belied his stocky build. He waved to the desk sergeant as he walked up to the employee's entrance and prepared to punch in the entry code. Before he could do so though, the sergeant called him over. "Hey, Brian, don't go too far, I've got another one for you."

With an inward sigh, Shaw turned from the door and walked over to the counter. "What've you got for me Andrew?"

The sergeant did sigh. "Missing girl. Celesta McKinnin, age 20, Caucasian, black hair, 180cm, slim build. Hasn't been seen by her family for three weeks. They last saw her at her apartment in the company of her girlfriend, a Zena Quirinus. Mother made the report last night, says the phone at the apartment's been disconnected, and it's uncharacteristic for the girl to be out of touch so long." As he spoke the sergeant handed Shaw the few sheets of paper, which contained the case details.

"Thanks Andrew", Shaw replied as he glanced over the paperwork. "I'll hook up with Annette and we'll check it out today." The sergeant nodded and turned to answer a phone, which had begun to bleep loudly for attention.

Shaw got through the employee entrance and walked to the detective division as he looked through the report. Another one.  The Major Crimes section was swamped with missing people, and oddly enough, most of them were young women. It had all started two months ago. Young people had simply started vanishing without trace from nightclubs and streets. So far some 36 people had vanished. All of these cases had the same general outline. The individual in question disappeared during the night without trace. Their homes were invariably found to be untouched. Food left on tables uneaten, clothes still in draws, beds unmade and so on. No sign of any planned leave taking. Except that there was seldom any cash to be found in the home.

Shaw shook his head sadly as he walked into the major crimes area. No doubt about it, this was a nasty one, and he felt that it was going to get worse before it got better.

"What's the matter Sarge?"

Shaw looked up to see Detective Constable Annette Collon sitting at her desk looking at him with a quizzical expression on her face. Annette was a skinny young woman in her mid twenties. She had black shoulder length hair, which she typically wore in a ponytail. Though not unattractive, Collon usually wore an expression of grim determination that many found off putting.

Shaw held up the missing persons report. "Another one", he said simply.

"Shit" was Annette's reply. He and Collon had been working as a team for a couple of years, ever since she came up from patrol division, and she had a quick mind which Shaw admired. They made a good team, particularly when his own eleven years in detectives, and the experience it brought, was factored in. Unfortunately these talents did neither of them much good in cases where people just plain vanished without trace.

"So what's this one?", Collon asked. Shaw filled her in and she pulled a face. "Another lesbian? Whoever these guys are, they like dykes all right. A good fifteen of our missing folks are lesbian. That's gotta be more than sheer random chance."

"I agree", said Shaw as he perched himself on the edge of her desk, "however we got no leads out of the gay clubs, and the gay & lesbian liaison officers haven't been able to turn anything up either. Damn, but I wish some bastard would slip up and leave us with some evidence. All we're doing at the moment is chasing our tails."

"Yeah", replied Collon as she got up from her chair. "Shall we go and check out the apartment? It seems like the only thing we can do at the moment, besides, I want to check out this girlfriend. If she lives with our missing girl, and hasn't made a report, I like to know what exactly she's been doing. It may well be that we've got two missing girls rather than one."

Shaw just nodded and got to his feet.

The building superintendent let them into the apartment. According to him he hadn't seen either of the women for several weeks, but as the rent was always paid up at least a month in advance, he hadn't done anything about it. An examination of the place produced uneaten food, rotting on the table. "Hmm, like many of the others", commented Shaw. "Food left uneaten, bed unmade, possessions abandoned. Same old story."

"Hold on Brian", Collon interrupted from the lounge room, "look over here. Chairs are knocked over, and the rooms in some disarray. I think that she was probably snatched from here."

Shaw came over and had a look at the room. "Yeah, I think you're right. Let's leave it for forensics. One other thing, you notice all the empty drawers in the bedroom? I think that someone came back and cleaned out a pile of stuff after the event. Mind you, it's odd that whoever came back didn't bother to clean up, almost like it was immaterial to them."

Collon looked at him. "You think the girlfriend is behind this?"

Shaw nodded. "I think that's a real possibility. Let's face it, this is probably the first suspect we've had in any of these cases. Now there's no hard evidence that these disappearances are connected, or even if this one is related. But.."

"But if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck." Shaw and Collon smiled at each other. "Let's get forensics in here, and then get onto the girls mother, she should be a mine of information about this Zena character."

A week later the forensics report was back. There were also another fifteen new missing persons. Shaw and Collon were called in to report to Inspector Cornell. Cornell sat behind his desk wearing a dark blue suit and a worried expression. "This is bad guys, I've got RCMP and provincial police on my back. The media has picked up the story and are running with it. People out there are shitting themselves and the government is freaking. They want results and they want them now."

"Boss, you've read the reports we've written", said Shaw.  "We've got dick. You know as well as we do that no investigation can go anywhere without some hard evidence. I don't know who these people are, but they're slick. They don't leave a lot for us to work with. Shit, half these people vanish off the streets."

"Okay, okay", said Cornell tiredly. "I know that it's a tough one, but we're under pressure. I'm starting to think that it might be a good idea to involve RCMP in any event. I know you two are doing what you can, but this just might be too big for us."

Collon looked at Shaw, who nodded. "Inspector, Brian and I agree. This is big, and I think we're definitely going to need the help of the RCMP forensics labs. We need to coordinate with CISC too, it's likely that this group has been active elsewhere and the criminal intelligence service should be able to get us in touch with the bigger picture."

Cornell looked at them both. "Okay, run me through what you've got at the moment."

Shaw took a breath. "At present we've got some fifty one missing people. I guarantee that there are many more who haven't been reported yet. Thirty-one of those reported missing are female, and twenty-two of these women are known to have been, well, partial to same sex relationships. At present the queer community is terrified. We're confident that we're dealing with a group here, as it appears that many of the missing people disappeared at about the same times. Additional to this it seems that all of our victims vanished after dark. We don't know for sure, but our suspicion at present is that this is the work of some sort of cult. In the cases where the victim appears to have been abduced from their home, we've confirmed that money and other valuables have vanished, but the homes haven't been ransacked. That suggests that whilst the perps are happy to pick up trinkets while they're about their business, robbery is not their primary motive. I think we'll be lucky if we find any of these people alive."

Collon took up the story. "Forensics has turned up DNA evidence from ten abduction sites, which belongs to three individuals. Thus far no match has been made with any known felon. Hopefully CISC or the RCMP labs will be able to provide us with some help in this regard. Interestingly, some of the DNA evidence we've found comes from the abduction site of Celesta McKinnin. At present our only suspect is Zena Quirinus, who was the missing girls partner. Evidence at the scene suggests that she cleaned out her possessions after the abduction and vanished. She simply stopped turning up to her job as a sales assistant, and hasn't been seen since."

Cornell leaned back in his chair. "Couldn't be a victim too?"

"It's possible", replied Collen, "but I don't think so. Firstly the abduction scenario is different from the norm, none of the other victims had their possessions cleaned out, and her past is rather different."

"How so?", asked Cornell.

"It appears that young Ms Quirinus is the daughter of a full blown cult whacko. It seems that Mr Quirinus Senior is wanted in connection to a number of ritual killings. One of his victims was our suspect's mother."

"Interesting", said Cornell in musing tones. "What happened to this upstanding member of the community?"

"Escaped from custody two years ago. It appears that a number of his followers were able to break him out of a prison van as he was being transported to court to face additional charges. The man's a cold-blooded killer. Of course it goes without saying that his present whereabouts are unknown."

"Now there's a shock", snorted Cornell. "Okay, I'll get onto the horn and get RCMP to send down a detachment to lend us a hand. Furthermore, this case has top priority. If you need manpower we'll pull it from other detective sections and patrol." Cornell leaned forward and placed his hands on his desk. "I'm forced to agree with you about the fate of our victims here. If the bulk of these people aren't dead already we'll be damn lucky. This is a nasty one all right."

Shaw nodded sadly. "For now we'll concentrate on trying to find Zena Quirinus. It's possible that once we can locate her, we'll be able to break things right open."

"Right", said Cornell, "get to it. I'll tee things up with the Commissioner and government boys. At least the media circus will work to our advantage when it comes to requisitioning resources."

Sitting in the tavern after work that night, Shaw and Collon were having a few drinks with Jane Green from forensics and Paul Grenski from the coroners department. It was a glum gathering. "If only these bastards left us with something to work with", complained Green.

Collon looked on sympathetically. She and Shaw had worked with her before, and always with good effect. Green was a damn fine forensic investigator, but like everyone involved in this case, her skills were frustrated by a lack of physical evidence.

Grenski took up the complaint. "God damn but these are efficient sons of bitches. There's no doubt in my mind that somewhere there's a big stack of bodies, but until we find out where they're hiding them, I can't get to work. What's the count now Shaw?"

Shaw paused from taking a swig of his beer. "Current counts sixty four. I'll be fucked if I know what's happening here as well! Where the hell do you put sixty four people? For that matter how can sixty four people just vanish without leaving any physical evidence?" He took a long pull at his beer. "I'll be fucked if I can see how they're pulling this off."

"Oh they're leaving behind evidence all right. We've pulled any number of fibres from the abduction scenes, and we can confirm the presence of five different perpetrators at several sites. The only problem is that we don't know who the DNA belongs to."

Collon took a swallow from her glass. "Even in the handful of abductions from homes, there's not a great deal of evidence of a struggle. It's like they were able to swiftly overcome them. Lord knows that there was little enough blood spilt."

"That's true", said Grenski filling his glass from the jug on the table. "All I can confirm from the few spots of blood at the couple of scenes I've been involved in is that they came from the victims, and that those whose blood it was were very much alive at the time. Christ, you just don't know who it's going to be next, do you?"

Shaw sat back in his chair. "No, no we don't. Their earlier fondness for lesbians seems to have died back some. Have you seen today's paper? They're calling 'em Abduction Inc." He pulled a face. "There's something here that we're not seeing. No one's this slick. I don't care how fanatical a cult they belong too. There's more to this than meets the eye. God damn it, their ability to whisk people out from under our very noses is uncanny, almost supernatural. We've got extra patrols out, we've given warnings to the public until we're blue in the face, and it's got us nowhere. In fact things are worse than ever."

Collon put down her glass. "You're right Brian", she said softly. "This lot is just too good to be real. Even so, the longer they keep this up, the greater the chance of them screwing up. Once they do, we'll nail them to the fucking wall. You mark my words, to the fucking wall."

All four of them nodded and drained their glasses.

Geoff Swan drove his van up the dirt road outside of Victoria, British Columbia. It was a fine day, with lunchtime not far off. Geoff was considering what he would have for lunch once he had completed this little errand. Some pasta might go down well he mused, there was a nice roadside inn not that far from here, which did a brilliant fettuccini alla panna. It was a while since he'd been down here, not since the last time he'd dumped a load of junk off in the old cutting. It was a little illegal, but it was a damn sight cheaper than getting it hauled off to a legal dumping ground. Still, rules were made to be broken.

Geoff pulled up next to the cutting. He hopped out and walked around to the back of the van and opened up the doors. Putting on his work gloves he proceeded to pull bits of rubbish out of the back and turf it in to the cutting. It was a nice day indeed, he thought. It was awhile since he'd been here. It's funny how things change on these waste bits of ground in a few months. Things were certainly a lot greener, and the cutting didn't look as deep. Actually, now that he came to think of it, Geoff was certain that the cutting had been a damn sight deeper before. The bottom looked fresh too. Geoff grunted to himself, it looks like someone else has been doing a bit of discreet dumping here as well. He started throwing bits and pieces into the cutting, and then paused. That didn't look right. Where he'd thrown the barbed wire, that looked like a leg, and not far from that was what looked like - "Oh sweet Jesus", he murmured, "I'm surrounded by bodies." Geoff threw up.

Shaw and Collon Sped up the dirt road towards the mass of parked police and media vehicles. Beacons flashed and uniformed officers pushed media types back behind the police line tape. Collon parked the car and got out, to be immediately assailed by reporters demanding details of the grisly find. A couple of RCMP officers helped them get through the crowd and inside the police line. Within it the cutting and surrounding area had been marked out into a huge grid with pieces of white tape attached to small pegs. Within the police line laboured Victoria Police Officers, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and emergency services volunteers. Off on the road recovered remains were laid out in body bags, and amongst the tent pegs personnel carefully dug in the ground and photographed objects with a care normally associated with archaeological digs.

As the two officers approached the grid zone, a woman in an RCMP uniform intercepted them. "Inspector Leah Starr, who might you two be?"

"DS Shaw and DC Collon", said Shaw, "Victoria Police Major Crimes Section." The RCMP inspector visibly relaxed and stuck out her hand, which Shaw and Collon shook.

"Thank Christ", for a minute there I was afraid you were a couple of political types from Ottawa. The big kids have begun to take an interest in the case now that we've found some bodies. It's all over the news, not just Canada, but worldwide. Congratulations, you are now involved in a press case."

"How truly good", observed Shaw dryly.

At that point Jane Green and Paul Grenski walked up to the group. Green began without preamble. "It's hard to say at this point, but off hand I'd say that there's at least eighty bodies, maybe more. It's gonna take awhile to work through this lot." She turned to Starr. "Inspector we're going to need help from your forensic lab services. I don't have enough staff to handle a scene this large."

Inspector Starr nodded. "I've already sent a message through to the regional bureau requesting help on this, they should be here later this evening." Starr turned to the two detectives. "In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm the help from RCMP that your Inspector Cornell requested. I'd hoped that we'd have time for you to brief me fully on your progress before we wound up in the field, but there you go. I've already taken the opportunity to introduce myself to Jane and Paul."

Collon, looked around the scene. "I notice you've already brought in some help."

"Yeah, this is a biggy", said Starr lighting a cigarette.

"All right", Shaw said, "Jane says we've got at least eighty bodies, which I will point out is a few more than we've had reported missing. Paul, what has Coroners found thus far?"

"Well, I've only had time to look over a few of the bodies that have been extracted from the ground so far, but it looks to me like the first body went into the ground around here about two months ago, though I may have to revise that depending on how deeply buried some of the other remains are. The most recent remains, I'd say went in yesterday, last night." He pulled a glove off and wiped a hand over his face. "Ill tell you something though, we're dealing with animals here, no doubt about it. All the bodies are mutilated to varying degrees, more than that; they all look to be chewed up as well. I can't tell you yet what, but some sort of animal life has been gnawing on these remains before they went into the ground."

"I'd agree", said Green, pushing back the hood of her white forensics coveralls. Some of these remains have been pretty well hacked up. In quite a few cases the corpses have been dismembered and mixed up. We're also turning up an awful lot of fleshless bones, which, well, look gnawed. I've never seen anything quite like this."

"What else have you been pulling out of the ground?" Shaw asked. "Apart from the remains that is. Anything that looks like weapons or stuff that may have been used in the abductions?"

Green and Grenski glanced at one another. "You really know better than to ask us too many questions at this point", said Grenski. "We've only been at work a couple of hours, and you know as well as anyone that it takes longer than that to work up a report on a single corpse. In spite of this, I'd say that from what I've seen so far, it looks to me like these people were killed elsewhere, and then the remains were transported here."

"As far as it goes from my side", Green began, "we haven't found too much.  A lot of articles of clothing, glasses, that sort of item. We've also turned up some bags and sacks that may well have been used in transporting the remains. We'll be able to give you a positive or not on that later. Anyway, Paul and I should get back to it. This is a big job, and I want to get as much done as possible before the light goes."

"Don't worry too much about the light" said Inspector Starr, "I've got lights, generators and tents being brought in from the RCMP barracks at Vancouver. I've also got more forensics personnel en route. We'll make sure that you'll get all you need. Unfortunately I've got a feeling that we'll be allocating an awful lot of resources to this mess before all's said and done."

Grenski and Green nodded. "Thanks", said Grenski, then both walked off and returned to their tasks. Inspector Starr turned to the two detectives. " I'll let you two have a look around the crime scene for awhile, then we can head back to your station and you can bring me up to speed with your investigations." Shaw and Collon nodded, and Starr turned and headed back towards a police communications van.

Shaw and Collon headed towards a taped off section of the dirt road. "Well, this is a fun day", commented Collon dryly. "First we finally find all our missing people, sliced and diced and fed to the dogs. Then we finally get our RCMP support in the worst possible circumstances. We're going to look a right couple of pillocks when Starr finds out how few leads we have."

"Yeah", said Shaw. "Still, I figure that Starr won't be able to criticise us too much, she can't expect us to produce evidence out of our butts. To be honest though, I'm glad to have RCMP here. Sure it tramples all over our jurisdiction, but at this point I really don't give a fuck." Collon's eyebrows raised, Shaw seldom resorted to profanity whilst on the job. "Two months this lot's been in operation here, and we've got about a hundred bodies in this cut and surrounding waste land. If we don't stop them soon there's going to be more bodies than we can count." They reached the taped off section of the road. One of the Victoria constables was marking out other nearby areas with tape. At Shaw's nod he came over. "What have you got here?", asked Shaw.

"Vehicle tracks, sarge. It looks like there are fresh tyre marks here from last night. They lead up to where the most recent bodies were dumped last night. I'm taping off the spots with the best imprints, and forensics say that they'll make imprints of them later."

"Good man", said Shaw with satisfaction in his voice. This is one of the first real pieces of evidence we have, carry on." The constable nodded and hurried back to his work. "This could be a real break for us", Shaw said in musing tones. "The RCMP lab kids should be able to identify what sort of vehicle these bastards are using. Furthermore if we can lay hands on the vehicle, we can probably confirm its location here via the tire prints. They're almost as distinctive as finger prints."

"What if they change the tyres?" asked Collon. "This lot's pretty slick." Shaw gave her a dirty look. "You're not thinking positive Annette. To be honest though, if they do change them we're probably screwed. I'm hoping that they won't think of it though. Firstly, if you look at these imprints, the tyres have still got an awful lot of tread left on them, so they may not even think of changing the tyres. Secondly, changing over four tyres at the same time can be awfully expensive and time consuming. If I owned a vehicle that I'd been hauling around a lot of human remains about in, I think that I'd be rather reluctant to take it somewhere where a lot of mechanics are going to be poking about. Thirdly, as you've said, this lot's pretty slick. However no one's infallible. I'm hoping like hell that this may be something that just slips them by."

Collon nodded. "There's method to your madness, I'm still a little pessimistic though. We haven't caught a break yet, so I don't see why we should now."

Shaw cocked his head thoughtfully. "What do you say to us putting out a bulletin to all tyre refit places, once we've identified the vehicle type, telling them to notify us of any licence numbers for that type of vehicle that is brought in for a change of all four tyres, particularly ones with a fair bit of tread left"

Collon smiled. "I think I like it."

Later that evening Shaw, Collon and Starr sat in an army tent brought up to the scene a few hours earlier. Military police personnel patrolled the perimeter of the crime scene, allowing uniformed officers to be relieved or return to patrol the streets. The Commissioner was desperately keen for a high profile police presence from now on, and had even organised for RCMP units to be brought in to supplement constabulary resources that had suddenly found themselves somewhat stretched. Plans to take Starr back to police headquarters had been shelved as everyone had become bogged down in the grim task of recovering remains and looking for other pieces of evidence. That mammoth task continued in the cold darkness outside, portable generators providing power to banks of lights set up to illuminate the site. The three officers sat in camp chairs around a folding table, drinking hot coffee from a thermos. Major Kevin Anderson, commander of the military police providing support at the scene, joined them.

"Ah, some hot coffee", he said walking into the tent in his camouflage field fatigues, a red MP brassard on his right sleeve. Anderson was a balding man in his late forties, fit and with a cheerful face, that didn't quite seem to mesh with the uniform he wore, of the service revolver in its holster on his hip. "Well your perimeter is secured and most of your uniformed boys freed up. We had a bit of a problem with a few reporters trying to get too close to the scene¸ but my lads explained it to them that things were a little too busy for them to go traipsing about the place taking pictures." He eased himself into a camp chair and sipped from a cup of coffee that Shaw handed him. "Mmm, that's better. Now I've been ordered to render you folks all possible assistance for the duration of this thing. Which is exactly what I plan to do. This is your show, I'm just here to give you whatever backup you might want on short notice. So, would any of you like to bring me up to speed?"

Inspector Starr looked at Shaw and Collon. "Okay, this is your show, you might as well bring let us know what you've been up to. Your DI Cornell has forwarded me some of your update reports, which I've read, but I'd also like to hear it all from your own mouths. By the way, forget what you can prove, tell me your gut feelings and any wild theories you have."

"That goes for me too", said Major Anderson. "You're stuck with me, so I think that it'd be good if we were all pulling in the same direction."

Shaw and Collon told the others about the progress of the investigation, and the frustration they felt at the lack of witnesses, and physical evidence. While they were talking DI Cornell came into the tent, motioned for them to go on, and sat himself down on a camp chair. Shaw and Collon had just outlined that their sole suspect, Zena Quirinus, was known to be the daughter of a man wanted for cult murders, and appeared also to be missing when DI Cornell spoke up.

"Actually, there's some new information on Quirinus", he said. "It appears that he bank account has remained active, with several transactions having occurred in the last few months. In fact there has been an influx of several thousand dollars. All deposits have been electronic, and most of the withdrawals. However, two nights ago a withdrawal was made from an ATM. Here's a photo from the security camera." Cornell produced a grainy black and white photo, obviously taken from a security video. Standing in the centre was unmistakeably Ms Quirinus, behind her two slim women could be seen, one with dark shoulder length hair, and the other with lighter short hair. All three were wearing quite fancy evening dresses, but the two women in the background had their faces turned away from the camera. "This is the best frame we got from the ATM video I'm afraid, so we can't identify the other two, which is a real pity."

"Yeah", Collon said. "You know, she's looking rather well for someone whose partner has recently vanished without trace."

"And she has such nice new friends", remarked Major Anderson. "Obviously she's a quick healer. I wonder how long it's going to take to find the body of Celesta McKinnin out in this field? I think that we need to pull in this woman as a matter of urgency."

"I agree", Inspector Starr said firmly. "Someone with no visible means of support has large amounts of money going through their bank account, just after their girlfriend vanishes." She snorted. "That's good enough for me."

"There's more", Cornell said after everyone had nodded. "Firstly we still don't know where she is, as far her bank is concerned her current address is still the flat she shared with McKinnin. We've also tried to track down some of her known associates and..."

"Let me guess", interrupted Shaw. "They're all missing too."

Cornell nodded glumly. "Got it in one. Some of them are amongst the first to be reported missing. There's something else too. The Criminal Intelligence Service reports that there are an awful lot of similar disappearances occurring in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Local PD and RCMP have even less to go on than we do at the moment, though I suppose that it's only a matter of time until they find a mass grave like this one. The media hasn't gotten hold of it yet, because the disappearances have been on a far lower level there than here. Now, the really interesting thing here is that our friend Quirinus has a brother, anyone want to guess where he was last reported to be living, and if he can be found by anyone?"

"Fuck", said Starr and reached for her packet of cigarettes on the table. "This just gets better and better." She turned towards Collon and Shaw. "Well, it looks like your cult theory is firming up."

"There's a slight snag with that theory. According to information CISC got from the team that originally arrested Quirinus's father, both the kids hated the father like the plague, and wanted nothing to do with him. As you'd expect from someone like that there were all sorts of abuses against them, and after their mother was killed both were placed in foster homes until they turned eighteen. There's also no immediate evidence to suggest that these two had any contact with their father since his escape from custody. Though I admit that there's no evidence to suggest that they haven't either."

"Interesting", Major Anderson said as he swilled his coffee around in his cup. "Still, I'm inclined to buy the cult theory for now, at least until we can come up with a better theory. Besides, just because they may not belong to the same cult as their father, doesn't mean that they haven't fallen in with some other group."

There was a general chorus of agreement around the table.

"Anyway, that's enough for now", Starr said between puffs on her cigarette. "I think that the best thing we can do now is leave the forensics and coroners people to do what they can, and go home and get some sleep. Major Anderson has site security well under control and there's nothing else we can do right here at the moment." There were general murmurs of agreement, and the meeting broke up.

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