At sunrise the Perez Cabinets truck was still on East Temple, though now a bad smell leached into the soft early light. Blow flies crawled across the rear rolling door toward a crack, and Marquez watched them and then crossed the street and called LAPD from downstairs in the DEA building. He got transferred to a Detective Broward.
‘Have you run the plates?’ Broward asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘Give them to me.’
He read them off and said, ‘Why don’t you get a patrol car out here and I’ll meet the officer.’
‘Are you that sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you been around this before?’
‘I have.’
Broward thought about that for a few moments and said, ‘I’ll need you to wait there.’
A handful of construction workers gathered to watch the lock on the roll-up door torn off as a pry bar lifted the door. Tortured metal wrenched and snapped and as the door went up the heavy smell of death rolled out like a breaking wave. When the detective saw the body he started clearing everyone.
But Marquez didn’t leave. He backed up and then remained where he had a view of a male body lying on its side with its back to them. He studied the pants, shirt, short brown hair, and the shoulders. When he turned, he saw two reporters who’d been hanging around the Field Office waiting for word on Osiers cross the street as they saw crime tape strung.
Detective Broward walked over to Marquez, put a hand on his shoulder, said, ‘Thanks, but I need you to step outside the perimeter now.’
‘When will you turn the body over?’
‘When we’re ready.’
‘Call me when you do.’
‘Why?’
Before the call came Marquez let his squad know that the body in the truck looked too familiar. Hidalgo and Green came with him as he went back out. The truck’s bed was almost waist high and the police had placed a stepladder there. He followed the detective up into the truck and stood where he was told to. He heard the detective ask him, but for a few moments Marquez felt like he was outside his body looking at Jim Osiers. He leaned and looked at the face again, made himself do it, the eye socket, the blood that had run down to his collar. He saw the bruising and where a piece of Osiers’ skull had erupted through his scalp. He saw Jim had bled, so had been alive when it happened. Rage and deep sorrow rose in him and pushed away the shock and disbelief.
‘This is our missing agent, Jim Osiers. He was on my squad. We started at the DEA the same year. We came in together. He’s the agent missing in Baja.’
Marquez was aware that the detective already knew who it was and that he’d only confirmed it for him. He heard Detective Broward say he was sorry, but it didn’t really matter who was sorry. It was the scale of the thing they were up against. The money was too large, the demand for drugs too big, and it seemed to him that the world was different than it had been when he’d started at the DEA. The violence had been there, but it was more accepted now, just as it was accepted as normal that more people had guns that spit more bullets faster. He turned to Broward.
‘His wife is going to insist on seeing him, but she shouldn’t see him like this.’
‘We’ll take care of her.’
Broward managed to say it like he meant it, though of course no one could take care of her or the kids, or protect them from the other stories that would come out now. From behind him, Hidalgo asked, ‘Is it Jim?’ When Marquez didn’t turn, he called again, ‘John, is it him?’