“I see it, but I don’t really know what I’m looking at.”
“As I mentioned, the lungs and internal organs decomposed or were eaten by scavengers while the body lay in the weeds. But as of the time of this photograph, the bottom of one foot was relatively well preserved. The extremities are away from the internal organs, slower decomposition.”
“I still don’t know what I’m supposed to see.”
“This photograph shows a rough patch of skin on the bottom of her right foot. And I believe that those striations,” Flynn said as he zoomed the image, “are abrasions.”
“Caused by what?”
“That’s where my professional opinion comes in. To me, that’s a sign of drowning.”
“I’m not following you,” said Jack.
“Abrasions of this sort can be a critically important fact if you think about what happens when you drown. Your normal reaction when the head goes underwater is to hold your breath. Eventually, you can’t do it any longer, and your body is forced to gasp for air. That presents a major problem if you can’t reach the surface.”
“Or if you panic.”
“Exactly. The victim starts gulping water into the mouth and throat, literally inhaling water into the lungs. This, of course, sends the victim into an even more frenzied panic, and the struggle becomes more desperate. If she doesn’t break the surface, her lungs continue to fill, struggling and gasping in a vicious cycle that can last several minutes, until breathing stops.”
“And these abrasions tell you what?”
“Again, the final moments of a drowning are utter terror and panic. The victim may sink and propel herself up from the bottom in the struggle. Her legs may be churning. The feet come in contact with whatever surface is below. If the surface is rough, her feet will show abrasions.”
“But Sydney’s version of events is that Emma drowned in the family swimming pool. That’s a smooth surface.”
“No, it’s not. You’re thinking of the standard white or colored plaster surfacing, which is smooth, almost slippery. The Bennett family pool has a textured, nonslip surface. My neighbors have the same thing. My kids come home with raw feet every time they swim over there. Multiply that by a factor of a thousand when a child is struggling for her life, not merely playing around in the pool.”
Jack focused his gaze on the remains, then on the photograph.
Dr. Flynn asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “I’m fine.”
What he wanted to say was that he was embarrassed for a moment, put off by the way his job made him stand beside the remains of a child, put all emotion aside, and slap on a label like “death by drowning.”
“That’s where your examination leads? Death by drowning?”
The doctor nodded once, but firmly. “It would be nice if we had lungs or some other body tissue to examine for traces of chlorine from the pool water, but we don’t. The medical examiner didn’t even have that three years ago, when the body was recovered. So, yes: Based on what remains, it is my expert opinion that the abrasions on the bottom of her feet as shown in the autopsy photos are consistent with death by drowning. Nothing I see in these remains contradicts that opinion.”
“Abrasions. That’s really all you got?”
“That’s more than you got now.”
The doctor had him there. “How soon can you get a written report for us?” asked Jack.
“A week. The cost of that is included in my retainer. But you should know that I charge four hundred dollars an hour if I have to testify at trial.”
“You realize that my client is indigent, right? The law allows me to submit a formal request to the Justice Administrative Commission to pay more than the guidelines specify, but even in a capital case, realistically we’re looking at about half that amount. I may end up asking you to cut your fee.”
“I don’t cut anything. My rate is four hundred dollars an hour. Period.”
Jack considered it. The battle of experts had always seemed like a game, but as his gaze drifted back to the sheet that was draped over Emma’s remains, the game seemed hardly worth playing.
“You know,” said Jack, “based on the way the state attorney has prosecuted this case, I might actually get you four hundred bucks an hour. On a net-net basis, it seems only fair.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m beyond confident that the state of Florida will hire two whores to call my one whore a quack.”
“Jack, come on back.”
He looked up and saw Andie standing in the open doorway.
“Have you spoken to Celeste’s parents?” he asked, rising from the couch.
“It’s not Celeste,” said Andie.
Jack felt a wave of relief. . then trepidation. “Who is it?”
“We don’t know. We were hoping you could tell us.”
Chills ran the length of his spine. Jack followed her down the hallway. She walked quickly, as if eager to be done with this, and he had to hurry to keep up.
“You think it’s. . somebody I know?”
“Possibly,” said Andie. “About my age. Female. Blond. Pretty.”
Jack continued to follow, his heart in his throat, fearing the worst.
“She had no identification,” said Andie. “A landscaper found her body, naked, next to the canal along Tamiami Trail.”
Rene would have crossed the Tamiami Trail to get from the hospital to the coffee shop in Little Havana. It took all his effort, but finally Jack managed to get a few words out. “How did it happen?”
Andie opened the door to the morgue. “Strangled,” she said.
Jack followed her inside. A wall of stainless steel drawers was before him. One to the right, three drawers from the bottom, was open. Andie led him to it. An assistant medical examiner pulled the drawer farther from the wall, drawing the sheet-covered body into the room. Jack held his breath. With a nod from Andie, the examiner lifted the white sheet.
Jack’s knees nearly buckled. Her hair was mussed, her color was flat and lifeless, but there was no mistaking that classically beautiful face.
“Her name is Rene,” said Jack.
“Then you do know her?”
“Yes. Rene Fenning. She’s a doctor at Jackson.” He paused, then added, “We used to date.”
The assistant draped the white sheet back over her face.
Jack was suddenly puzzled. “If she had no identification, no clothes, how did you know to call me to make the ID?”
On Andie’s cue, the assistant lifted the sheet again, this time from the middle, exposing Rene’s torso.
Jack froze. Below the navel, about two inches above her pubic hair, was a handwritten message in black marker:
SOMEONE YOU LOVE.
It chilled Jack, and he could almost hear the voice of his attacker as he read those three words to himself.
“That’s the reason I called you,” said Andie.
The examiner replaced the sheet. Jack was still trying to comprehend that Rene was dead, and it hit him that much harder to think that it could have been Andie under that sheet. He looked at her, speechless.
Andie seemed to be staring right through him. “When is the last time you saw her, Jack?”
“Last night,” he said, and he immediately felt Andie do a double take. “At the hospital,” he added. “Andie, this is not what you think it-”
She raised a hand, which silenced him.
“Let’s go outside, Jack. Sounds like you and I need to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-One
He called himself Merselus. It was the surname of his best friend in high school back in Paterson, New Jersey. Ironically, it was his math teacher-recognizing his tenacity, pegging him as a rare Eastside High success story-who had dubbed the two of them Merselus and Merciless. If she only knew.
Three weeks before the start of the Sydney Bennett trial, he’d used another name entirely to lease a one-bedroom apartment on the Miami River, just minutes away from the courthouse. William Teague was a week-to-week tenant in his third month of occupancy, which practically made him the mayor of a decaying village of drug addicts and prostitutes who came and went from the riverfront like water rats.