“I’ve got a call to make,” I say.
“I bet you do.” He walks forward, gazing down at the purse. “So we’re even.”
“Right.”
Back outside, I’m limping, advancing in tiny increments, stopping to look around. I half expect the sergeant to come after me, laughing, saying it’s all some sick joke. Approaching the body once more, I get down on my knees. My hand goes to the plastic shroud, then hesitates, as if my touch had the power to profane. I decide not to look again. Instead, I put a little distance between myself and the corpse, the object of so much hope on the part of so many people.
After a storm like this, cellular reception is spotty. Houston rain showers have been known to bring a network down. But the line is crystal clear, the ringing so loud I hold the receiver away from my ear.
“March.”
Cavallo’s voice comes out like a yawn, but I don’t apologize for waking her. Instead, I give her the news, flat and detached, and she receives it in the same spirit.
“Are you sure?”
“Not from the body,” I say. “It’ll have to be tested. But her purse is here, with her identification, so it seems like a safe bet.”
“We’ll see,” she replies. Her words aren’t a form of denial, just a professional insistence on checking off the necessary boxes. “If you’re right, then I guess it’s finally over.”
Spoken like a Missing Persons investigator, but I don’t correct her. What looks like an ending to her, though, is just a start. We have a body at long last, and a body is not an end but a beginning.
“Just get over here.”
“I’m on my way.”
After I hang up the phone, I dial another number. I don’t have to. I’m under no obligation. And it’s doubtful there is anything constructive Carter Robb can do. An identification – even from someone who knew her, even if I was perverse enough to pull back that plastic and ask him for one – isn’t going to be very easy, given the state of decomposition. Maybe the clothes would be recognizable, though Cavallo will have an inventory of what she was last seen wearing.
I call anyway, not for the sake of the case, but because I know how I would feel, just blocks away, already consumed with guilt, finding out how close I’d been without realizing. I don’t owe it to him, but I can’t help feeling that on some level I do, maybe in the way we all owe each other everything, every possible courtesy, on account of what life puts us through.
He arrives first, the officers at the end of the road flagging down his car. He’s dressed like he was last night, only he’s wearing the wadded T-shirt he used to wipe his sweat. I motion for him to come through, but he approaches slowly, stopping a good distance back, cupping his hand over his mouth, closing his eyes. And then he crumples to the ground.
“What’s this?” Nix asks.
I shrug, then start off toward Robb. “I guess we all have favors to pay back.”
CHAPTER 24
“This was an act of God in every sense of the word,” Cavallo says from behind her mask, speaking to no one in particular. Wanda Mosser glances my way, lifting an eyebrow, but I make no response out of respect for the dead.
We gather around the autopsy table, waiting for Bridger, who enters with a set of X-rays in hand, pegging them up against the light table. The enlarged negative image of a chest cavity, ribs translucent against the black background, and next to it a side view of the skull. He uses a pencil eraser to point out the light-colored blemishes.
“Here and here,” he says, indicating two cone-shaped anomalies, one in the chest and one in the abdomen. “And here we have a third.” Touching the eraser against another white cone inside the cranium.
Mosser clears her throat. “So that’s two to the chest and one to the head? Like an execution?”
A Mozambique Drill is the term she’s looking for, but I don’t correct her.
“Not exactly,” he says, moving to the body. “The angles are very different. Your people will be able to tell you more, but it looks to me like one of these chest shots was fired head-on, and the others at a steep trajectory, like she was on the ground. The head shot, as you can see from this stippling, was a contact wound, probably a coup de grace. But based on the two chest wounds, I’m guessing some time passed before the second shot, at least enough for her to fall to the ground.”
I go over to the X-rays for a closer look. “The bullets look small.”
“My money’s on.22 caliber,” Bridger says, “but we’ll know for sure in a minute.”
The official identification was made this morning using dental records. Wanda and Rick Villanueva prepared the release, but it was the chief who held the actual press conference. Thanks to the power blackouts all over the city, most people in Houston still won’t know that the body of Hannah Mayhew, the girl whose disappearance riveted the nation, is now on a slab at the medical examiner’s office where, powered by generators, her autopsy is proceeding.
Wanda wanted to be here, as did Cavallo, but by rights I’m the only one obligated. This is a homicide investigation now, and thanks to my captain’s dogged insistence on protocol, it belongs to me, the first detective on the scene. Considering my experience on the task force, the decision makes sense. Not that anybody else on the squad sees it that way.
“Time of death?” I ask.
Bridger pauses, then begins the Y-incision, ignoring my question for the moment. A technician steps forward to cut the ribs, lifting the sternum free. Next to me, Cavallo’s breath seems to catch.
“I’m only speculating,” Bridger says, “but based on the amount of decomposition, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s been dead pretty much since the day she disappeared.”
Cavallo adjusts her mask. “Sixteen days.”
“Give or take. And based on the postmortem lividity, I’d say the body was moved after death. So she wasn’t killed in that house, I’m guessing, just dumped there.”
The plastic sheeting probably came from the work site across the street, and access to the building itself wouldn’t have been difficult. It was boarded up so long ago that the panels would have been easy enough to shift. The question is, who would think to place a body there? I’ve already canvassed the neighborhood, interviewing everyone I could find, and the contractor from the house across the street has promised me a list of employees as soon as he can find a way to charge his laptop. Of course, the killer could have driven by on a whim, noticed the location, and taken advantage of it.
By the end of the autopsy, Bridger confirms what the X-rays suggested. Hannah was killed by a.22 caliber gunshot to the head. The bullet entered at the temple. She’d already been shot twice before, once in the chest, collapsing a lung, and once in the abdomen, the second shot probably fired while she was in a prone position or possibly propping herself up.
“There’s no indication of a sexual assault?” Wanda asks.
He shakes his head.
“Well, thank God for that.”
It’s hard to muster much gratitude in the face of the desiccated husk of Hannah Mayhew, but somehow I find myself agreeing.
Out in the corridor I peel off my mask, happy to breathe freely again. Cavallo leans against the wall, then sinks down on her haunches, clenched arms extended over her knees. Wanda pats her absently on the head, then starts to go.
“I want to be in on this,” Cavallo calls after her.
“In on what, honey?”
She jabs her thumb in my direction. “This. If he can horn in on my case, then I can horn in on his.”
“Fine with me,” I say.
Wanda snaps back, “Well, it’s not up to you.” She’s done so much wrangling over the past two weeks it’s become second nature, but the flash of anger dissipates like smoke. “Suit yourself. I guess it makes sense for one of my people to keep an eye on things.”