Amanda realized, “You washed her.”
“Yes. We took photographs and X-rays, then we cut off her clothes and washed her down in preparation for the procedure. She’d urinated on herself—an unfortunate by-product of strangulation. Though one could point out this pales in comparison to the intestinal prolapse.” He added, “I should point out that she was remarkably clean considering her occupation and addiction.”
“What do you mean?”
“There was the expected results of the fall—picture a water balloon being dropped from that height—but in my experience, addicts don’t favor bathing. The natural oils clog the skin. They think it holds the drug in longer. I’m not sure if there’s a scientific basis for that, but someone who injects drain cleaner into their veins isn’t necessarily troubled by facts. You can see the trimming—” He indicated the short pubic hair. “That’s unusual, but I’ve seen it before. Some men are drawn to women who appear more infantilized.”
“Child molesters?”
“Not necessarily.”
Amanda nodded, though her eyes avoided the area Pete was talking about. Instead, she studied Lucy’s hands again. The fingernail polish was perfect except for the chip. The strokes were even. It had taken a lot of time and patience to apply such a thick coat. Even Amanda, who buffed and clear-coated her nails in front of the television every night, couldn’t manage such an expert job.
Pete asked, “Did you find something else?”
“Her fingernails.”
“Are they fake? I’ve been seeing a lot of those plastic ones out of California lately.”
“It looks like—” Amanda shook her head. She didn’t know what it looked like. The nails were trimmed in a straight line. The cuticles were neat. The red polish was evenly within the margins. She’d never met a woman who could afford a professional manicure. She doubted a dead prostitute would be the first.
Amanda walked around the table and looked at Lucy’s other hand. Again, the polish was perfect, as if someone else had applied it for her.
Amanda opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself.
“Go on,” Pete said. “There are no silly questions in here.”
“Can you tell if she’s left- or right-handed?”
Pete beamed at Amanda as if she was his star pupil. “There will be more muscle attachment to the bone on the dominant side.”
“From holding a pen?”
“Among other things. Why are you asking?”
“When I paint my fingernails, one side always looks better than the other. With her, both sides look perfect.”
He smiled again. “This, my dear, is why more women should be in my field.”
Amanda doubted any sane woman would ever do this job—at least not one who ever wanted to get married. “Maybe she has a friend who painted her fingernails?”
“Do women really groom one another? I assumed Behind the Green Door was taking cinematic liberties.”
Amanda ignored the observation. She carefully put Lucy’s hand back down on the table. It was so easy to focus on the parts rather than the whole. She’d let herself forget that Lucy Bennett was an actual human being.
This was to be blamed in part because Amanda had not yet looked at the girl’s face. Amanda forced herself to do so now. She felt her early steeliness, but there was a tandem emotion of what could only be called curiosity. With the blood washed from Lucy’s face, she looked different. As in Roz’s photo, the skin still hung loosely to the side, but something beyond the obvious was not right.
“Could you …” Amanda didn’t want to sound morbid, but she pushed through it. “Can I see her teeth?”
“Most of them were broken in the fall. What are you getting at?”
“The skin on her face. Is it possible to move it back to—”
“Oh, of course.” Pete went to the head of the table. He gripped the loose flesh of the cheek and forehead and pulled it back over her skull. Lucy had bitten her lip in the fall. Pete returned it to the proper position. He used his fingers to tack the skin into place around the eyes and nose, like a baker kneading dough. “What do you think?”
Amanda realized it was exactly as she had expected. This woman was not Lucy Bennett. The scars on her wrist weren’t the only indication. The open sores on her feet had a familiar pattern, like a constellation of stars. Barring that, there was the face, which clearly belonged to Jane Delray. “I think we need to get Evelyn back in here.”
“How intriguing.”
Amanda left the room through the swinging doors. The lab was empty, so she pushed open the other set of doors leading into the hallway. Evelyn was several yards ahead, close to the entrance. She was talking with a man wearing a navy blue suit. He was tall, over six feet. His sandy brown hair touched his collar. The tailoring of his clothes was obviously professional. The jacket curved into his back. The flared pants hovered over his white loafers. He was finishing a cigarette when Amanda joined them. Evelyn shot her a look, her eyes practically bulging from their sockets.
She was talking to Mr. Blue Suit.
“Mr. Bennett.” Evelyn’s voice was pitched higher than usual, though she was doing a good job of hiding her excitement. “This is my partner, Miss Wagner.”
He barely glanced at her, keeping his eyes on his white loafers as he stamped out the cigarette. “As I said, I just want to see my sister and leave.”
“We had a few more questions,” she began, but Bennett cut her off.
“Is there a man I can talk to? Someone in charge?”
Amanda thought of Pete. “The coroner is in the back.”
Bennett’s lips twisted in distaste, whether at the thought of the coroner or what he saw in Amanda, she wasn’t sure. And it really didn’t matter. The only thing she could focus on was how arrogant and unlikable he was.
Amanda said, “Dr. Hanson is preparing the body. It’ll only be a few more minutes.”
Evelyn picked up the lie. “You won’t want to see her how she is now, Mr. Bennett.”
“I don’t want to see her period,” he snapped back. “As I told you, Mrs. Mitchell, my sister was a drug addict and a whore. What I’m doing here is a mere formality so that my mother can have some peace at the end of her life.”
“His mother has cancer,” Evelyn explained.
Amanda let a few seconds pass out of respect for the man’s mother, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Mr. Bennett, can you tell us when was the last time you saw your sister?”
He glanced away. “Five, maybe six years?” He looked down at his watch. It was a furtive movement, as obvious as Evelyn tugging the back of her hair. “I really do not appreciate your wasting my time. Shall I go back to the coroner?”
“Just another minute.” Amanda had never been good at spotting a liar, but Bennett was as easy to read as an open book. “Are you sure that’s the last contact you had with your sister?”
Bennett took a pack of Parliaments from his breast pocket and shook out a cigarette. A large gold college ring was on his middle finger. UGA Law School. Class of ’74. The Georgia Bulldog was etched into the red stone.
Amanda asked, “Mr. Bennett, are you sure about the timing? It seems like you’ve had contact with Lucy more recently.”
He showed a flash of guilt as he jammed the cigarette between his lips. “I mailed her a letter to the Union Mission. It was perfunctory, I assure you.”
“On Ponce de Leon?” Amanda asked. The Ponce Union Mission was the only homeless facility that allowed women.
Bennett said, “I tried to find Lucy when our father passed away. My mother had it in mind that she’d joined the hippie movement—you know, just dropped out for a while. She thought Lucy would want to come home, go to college, live a normal life. She could never accept that Lucy chose to be a whore.”