Dust Page 9

  “Right, and we have a preliminary ID. A visual,” Machado says. “The photo that’s all over the news, it looks like her anyway. I realize we need to verify officially but in my mind this is Gail Shipton. She left the bar to talk on her phone around five-thirty, six p.m. Supposedly. That’s what we know.”

  “I doubt it was raining when she stepped outside.” I tear off the perforated top from a box of exam gloves, the kind I like, latex-free, with textured fingertips. “She was out there for a while, at least seventeen minutes, based on the duration of the first call with someone who has a blocked number.”

  “It wasn’t raining at the time she disappeared.” Machado’s deep-set eyes are curious as if he wonders what I’m getting at with my comments about the weather. “It didn’t start raining until later.”

  “Do we know exactly when? What do you mean by ‘later’? I went to sleep around eleven and it wasn’t raining then but it looked like it was going to any minute.”

  I notice Barbara Fairbanks’s crew is now in front of Simmons Hall, on Vassar Street, exactly as I expected.

  “When I uncover her you’re going to need to hold something up as a barrier,” I say to Rusty and Harold. “We don’t want her on TV.”

  “We’ve got plenty of sheets.”

  “We’ll be ready if they head this way.”

  “The storm started around midnight,” Machado answers my question. “Rain mixed with freezing rain and then just rain. But a monsoon.”

  “If we consider the possibility that she was abducted at around six p.m., then whoever’s responsible knew the weather conditions or could guess what they might be by the time he disposed of her body out here.” I find two thermometers and a sterile retractable scalpel. “It would seem bad weather didn’t matter, that this person was comfortable in wet, nasty conditions.”

  “When the mood strikes,” Andy Hunter says. “People used to these parts are used to the weather.”

  I watch Barbara Fairbanks as she follows the fence, her camera crew behind her. They’ll have to film through chain-link but I’m not going to let them get even that. Marino’s not going to allow it either. He slogs through the mud in a hurry, back in our direction, while Rusty and Harold get sheets ready for a barricade.

  “Toss me one,” Marino calls out and Rusty hurls a folded disposable sheet as if it’s a Frisbee.

  Marino catches it in one hand. He rips off the cellophane wrapping as he sloshes through mud and puddles toward the TV crew. Shaking open the sheet, he holds it up against the fence, blocking the camera.

  “Ah come on, man!” a crew member yells.

  “I’m sure you already know this,” I say to Machado, “but Gail Shipton was involved in a lawsuit that’s due to go to trial in less than two weeks.”

  I’m tempted to check my phone again but I don’t. It continues to nag at me that Lucy might have some connection to Gail Shipton, a computer engineer with a military-grade smartphone case. The fact that Lucy isn’t answering me is why I’m increasingly suspicious, and in fact I’ve about decided it’s true. Janet said she’d tell Lucy I was trying to contact her. When my niece ignores me something is up. It’s almost never good.

  “I didn’t know anything about a lawsuit,” Machado says.

  “Are you familiar with a financial company called Double S?” I ask him as Marino moves along the fence.

  He’s holding up the sheet, moving as the crew moves, blocking their view.

  “I can’t say that I am or know anything about a trial,” Machado answers and I can tell by the look on his face that I’ve given him something new to think about.

  Maybe he’ll stop stubbornly assuming this young woman’s death is an accidental drug overdose. Maybe he’ll quit worrying about public relations and potentially bad press.

  “Harold, if you and Rusty will stand right there,” I say to them, “I think we’ll be okay.”

  Their disposable-sheet barricade goes up loudly like a sailboat tacking into the wind. Plastic rustles as I pull back the yellow tarp.

  11

  I’m disturbed again by the sight of her. I get the same feeling I did when I looked at the photographs Marino e-mailed to me earlier. The body is gracefully posed, draped in white in a red sea of mud.

  Her eyes are barely open to the narrowest of slits as if she’s drifting off to sleep, her pale lips slightly parted, exposing the white edges of her upper teeth. I study the position of her arms, the dramatically cocked wrist, the hand slightly curled and resting on her belly. Plastic rustles again as I fold the tarp and hand it to Harold, instructing him to package it as evidence. I don’t want to lose any microscopic debris that might have been transferred to it.

  “That’s pretty wild,” Rusty observes. “Maybe she’s supposed to look like a virgin.”

  “How would you know what a virgin looks like?” Harold can’t resist another corny quip.

  “Give me a minute.” I want them to be silent.

  I’m not in the mood for sophomoric humor and I don’t want to hear their opinions right now. I continue studying the body, standing back, then walking around to get perspective as my misgivings grow. I scan flawless skin that is much too clean and hands uninjured and a face too peaceful and undamaged.

  There is nothing lewd or even sexual about the way she’s displayed. Her legs are together, her breasts and genitals covered by the cloth carefully arranged around her from her upper chest to her lower legs. Her throat is milky smooth with no ligature mark or bruise, just a dusky redness at the back of her neck from livor mortis, the settling of blood when her heart stopped and her circulation quit. I see no injuries to her ankles or wrists. Superficially, there’s no sign she struggled with anyone. At a glance there’s nothing to tell me she so much as resisted her own death and I find that profoundly abnormal and odd.

  I get down closer to look and I smell the earth and the rain. Decomposition isn’t apparent yet but will escalate when she’s transported to my office where the temperatures are considerably warmer. I detect perfume, a fruity floral fragrance with a hint of sandalwood and vanilla, more noticeable when I’m near her face and long brown hair. The ivory cloth looks like a woven synthetic and is remarkably clean. I touch a hemmed edge of fabric that has been arranged over the body in a manner that is thoughtful and deliberate, wrapped straight across her upper chest and under her arms like a bath towel.

  “It’s not a bedsheet,” I decide. “A synthetic blend that’s moderately stretchy, and it’s been doubled over so it’s quite long but not all that wide.”

  “Like a curtain?” Machado asks, baffled.

  “I don’t think so. There’s no lining or pocket for a rod and I see no evidence that rings or hooks were ever sewn on.” I check the cloth without rearranging it. “It’s smooth on one side and textured on the other, similar to how tights are woven, like a low-stretch tricot.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” he says.

  “A tricot material is used in gloves, leggings, very lightweight sweaters, for example.”

  I study the position of the body and the way the cloth is draped, modestly covering her from her clavicle to several inches above her ankles.

  “Evocative of ancient Rome or Jerusalem or a health spa,” I suggest as Benton’s Washington, D.C., cases nag at me. “At least that’s what comes to mind.”

  “Well, that’s why these psychos pose their victims.” Marino has wandered back and squats close by, his feet almost slipping out from under him. “They do it to make us think something.”

  “It’s been my experience that what they do isn’t about us. It’s about them.” I want to tell him about the Washington cases and the way those bodies were draped but I don’t dare. “It’s about their own fantasies, their own emotions at the time.”

  “The cloth reminds me of a shroud,” Harold says and he would know about such things. “They’re becoming popular in burials, particularly handmade shrouds that are wrapped around the body like a winding cloth. The last year or so I w
as in the funeral business we had a couple of what they call green burials. All natural and biodegradable.”

  “This isn’t a natural fabric and it wouldn’t be biodegradable.” I sit back on my heels, surveying the body, looking carefully in detail before I touch her.

  Pale fibers, possibly from the cloth, adhere to areas of exposed wan, wet flesh. I note that her short unpolished nails are intact and there are fibers under them, bluish ones, and I wonder what they’re from. Something she may have been wrapped in while she was still alive, I consider. People no longer moving generally don’t get fibers and other trace evidence under their nails all the way up to the quick. I retrieve a hand lens and small ultraviolet light from my field case.

  “Is there some funeral business around here that sells cloths like this?” Machado is taking more photographs.

  “Biodegradable items like urns, yes.” Harold cranes his neck, checking on the position of the TV crew as he and Rusty hold up the sheet, blocking the view. “I’m not sure about where you’d get handmade shrouds around here. The few I saw came from out west somewhere. Maybe Oregon. You can buy them on the Internet.”

  “A synthetic blend wouldn’t be biodegradable,” I repeat. “We don’t know what this is.”

  I switch on the UV light and the lens glows purple as it radiates black light that’s not visible. A preliminary scan of the body will alert me if there’s trace evidence, including biological fluids such as semen. I want to make sure I collect anything that could get dislodged or lost during transport to the CFC, and I direct the light over the body and fluorescing electric colors wink brilliantly. Bloodred, emerald green, and a deep bluish purple.

  “What the hell?” Andy Hunter bends closer to get a better look. Some kind of glitter, maybe Christmas glitter?”

  “It’s much finer than that and I doubt glitter would fluoresce like this in UV.” I move the light and every place it touches reacts in the same three brilliant colors. “Like a very fine fluorescent powder that’s all over the cloth and the body, a high concentration around her nose and lips, on her teeth and inside her nostrils.” I direct the light as I talk.

  “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Machado moves next to me, his boots sinking in red mud.

  “No, not exactly, but whatever it is it’s stubborn enough to survive the rain. Either that or there was a lot more of it before she was left out here.” I paint the light over the mud around her.

  Sparkles light up here and there, the same three vivid colors, and I reach for a package of swabs.

  “I’ll collect some of it now for analysis.” I do it as I talk. “Then I’ll take her temp and we’ll get her to the morgue.”

  I seal the swabs inside evidence containers that I label with a Sharpie and I touch the dead woman’s left outstretched arm with its dramatically bent wrist. She’s cold and stiff, in full rigor mortis.

  I loosen the cloth around her neck and open it. She has nothing on but panties that are several sizes too big. The hi-cut brief is peach with a lace trim around the waistband and I check the label in back, an expensive brand of lingerie called Hanro, M for medium, which would fit someone who generally wears size eight to ten. I note that the crotch is stained pale yellow and I’m uncomfortably reminded of what Benton said.

  The three murdered women in his Washington, D.C., case were wearing each other’s panties or those of someone unidentified. The panties were stained with urine. He surmises they lost control of their bladders while they were being suffocated, and there were fibers, blue and white Lycra ones that may have come from upholstery or possibly from athletic clothing the killer had on.

  With the scalpel I make a small incision in her upper-right abdomen. Oozing blood is an unnaturally dull red because it’s no longer oxygenated. The blood of the dead. Cold and dark like stagnant water.

  I insert a long thermometer into the liver and place a second thermometer on top of my field case to record the ambient temperature.

  “She’s been dead for a while,” I say. “At least six hours but I’m betting longer, depending on the conditions.”

  “Maybe since early last night when she disappeared?” Machado watches me intently, a spooked look in his eyes.

  No doubt he’s never seen a case like this. I haven’t either, not quite. But I’ve seen photographs that I can’t share with him or Marino. Benton will have to do that.

  “If she were abducted around six p.m., then that’s almost twelve hours ago,” I add.

  Palpating her scalp, I feel for fractures or other injuries and don’t note any.

  “I seriously doubt she’s been dead that long. She was alive somewhere for a while,” I explain.

  “Like maybe she was held hostage?” Machado asks.

  “I don’t know.” I check again for lesions, lifting her rigid arms and hands, examining them carefully front and back. “So far I’m not seeing any evidence that she was tied up or struggled.” Her flesh feels cold through my gloves, almost refrigerated cold but warmer than the air. “I don’t see any defense or scrimmage injuries.”

  I move down to her bare feet, shining the UV light on them and more of the same residue lights up like fairy dust. Bloodred, emerald green, and a deep bluish purple. The color combination seems to indicate a single source, a fine material comprised of three substances that fluoresce in the short wavelength of ultraviolet light. I collect more of it with adhesive stubs that sparkle electrically as I place them inside evidence bags.

  “Another thought is some funky makeup she might have had on?” Andy Hunter suggests. “These girls wear a lot of glittery stuff these days.”

  “All over her and the cloth?” I reply skeptically as I pull on fresh gloves to make sure I’m not the one transferring the residue to other areas of the body. “I’m going to speculate that her body was someplace where this residue is indigenous and it got transferred to her and the cloth she’s wrapped in.”

  I lift her rigorous lower legs, noting that the cloth is relatively clean underneath.

  “Some kind of dirt that sparkles in UV,” Machado considers.

  “I don’t think it’s dirt. A fine residue that consistently fluoresces the same way strikes me as manufactured, something commercially used,” I reply. “We’ll try the scanning electron microscope for a first-round screening. Hopefully, Ernie’s in today.”

  The bottoms of her bare feet are clean, just light spatters of mud that splashed up from the earlier heavy rain. The glittery residue is everywhere, from head to toe, as if she’s been airbrushed with something that lights up in the ultraviolet range of invisible radiation. Using a hand lens and forceps, I begin collecting bluish fibers from under her nails, knocking them loose inside a small plastic evidence bag.

  “She wasn’t dragged out here unless there was something under her.” I turn her on her side.

  “Maybe she was carried,” Andy Hunter says. “Maybe by someone strong or more than one person.”

  Her back is a deep red with areas of blanching where her shoulder blades rested against a firm surface as her uncirculating blood settled. Livor mortis is fixed. She was on her back for hours after death, possibly on a floor inside someplace warm, in the position she’s in now as she got stiff, but she didn’t die looking like this. She was posed postmortem, her legs straight and together, her arms arranged the way they are until she was as rigid as hard rubber.

  Camera flashes strobe as Machado takes multiple photographs while Marino assists with a six-inch plastic ruler for a scale and labeling. On the other side of the fence nearest Vassar Street, the curious are gathering, cell-phone cameras small sparks of light. Several uniformed officers hover nearby.

  “Maybe you should head over and help out your buddies,” Marino says to Hunter, and I know why.

  Marino’s had enough of Andy Hunter’s extreme good looks and his habit of staring at me and hovering too close.

  “Let’s make sure we know who’s looking and taking pictures.” Marino says it like an order.

/>   Hunter checks his anger and smiles. “Sure. But I don’t work for your department. Not last I checked. In fact, you barely work for yours, last I checked. Hope you’re enjoying the new job.”

  He sets out through the mud, heading for the path of least resistance through the parking lot. I remove the thermometers and check them.

  “Her body temp is fifty-eight degrees; the ambient temp is fifty-one. She’s been dead eight hours, possibly longer,” I calculate. “Much of that time she was someplace much warmer than it is out here or her rigor and livor wouldn’t be this advanced. They would have formed slowly because of the cool temperature and cold rain. The conditions out here are close to refrigeration and that would have slowed everything down considerably.”

  “Meaning she died several hours after she disappeared from the bar,” Machado says. “She went somewhere with someone, maybe knew the person and ended up dead.”

  “I can’t tell you whether she went with someone willingly or unwillingly,” I remark. “Not at this point.”

  “But she’s got no defense injuries.” Machado repeats what I said earlier. “So it doesn’t look like she struggled with whoever it was, right?”

  “There are no obvious injuries but I’ve not thoroughly examined her in a good light,” I reply. “She may have internal injuries. We’ll see what shows up when she’s scanned.”

  I change gloves again, stuffing used ones in my coat pocket.

  12

  My purple-gloved fingers gently push open the dead woman’s eyelids and the conjunctiva is florid with pinpoint hemorrhages. The whites of her eyes are almost solid red.

  “She’s not an accidental death.” I shine the UV light in her eyes and the same residue sparkles neon bright.

  Bloodred, emerald green, bluish purple.

  “Whatever this is she’s got it everywhere,” I comment. “She’s a possible smothering, although petechial hemorrhages aren’t always associated with that. I don’t see any marks or contusions of the neck that would indicate strangulation. But something happened to cause vascular rupture.”