“You can see it here. A livor pattern of hemolyzed blood.” I press my fingers into different areas of the back. “No blanching, because the blood has seeped out the vessel walls. So after she died she was flat on her back for at least as long as it took for livor to set, probably twelve hours, possibly more. It could be that she was on her back the entire time since she died, stored somewhere until she was moved and dropped into the bay.”
“You sure as hell don’t send a jacket to the dry cleaner’s if it’s got a thousand dollars’ worth of antique buttons on it.” He won’t stop talking about it. “But it’s not the money.”
“Moderate mummification, skin wet but hard and dried with faint remnants of patchy white mold on her face and neck,” I dictate, and Marino scribes. “Eyes sunken and collapsed.” I pry open her mouth. “Cheeks are sunken.” I swab the inside of them. “No lip, tongue, or dental injuries,” I say, as I check with a light. “Neck is free of any discrete discolorations.” I look up at the clock.
It’s eleven minutes past two. I move down and find more signs of moderate mummification but no injuries, and I open her legs. I ask Marino to bring me a Physical Evidence Recovery Kit, a PERK, or what a lot of cops call a rape kit, and I glance curiously at him as he walks to a cabinet, his face disgruntled and offended, as if there’s something about this dead woman he takes personally.
“We’ll definitely e-mail photos of the buttons and her jewelry to NamUs,” I say. “These details seem unique enough to be significant. Especially if it’s unusual to sew valuable antique buttons on clothing.”
“It’s damn disrespectful as hell.”
He hands me a plastic speculum and opens the PERK’s white cardboard box.
“When you find stuff like this, usually it’s because the person got killed in battle and their body was left out there in a field or the woods.”
He places bags, swabs, and a comb on a clean sheet.
“A hundred and fifty years later someone comes along with a metal detector and digs up their uniform buttons, their belt buckle, and when you find things like that you treat it like you’ve disturbed a grave, because you have.”
I glance up at the clock again as I rehearse what I’ll say to Dan Steward and Jill Donoghue when I see them, an apologetic explanation that I’ll expect one or both of them to relay to the judge. My choice was to lose possibly critical evidence or be late for court, and I’ll be very contrite.
“Even if the stuff comes from the attic,” Marino says, “it’s about respect, because it belonged to someone who made the ultimate sacrifice.”
He begins filling out forms with what scant information we have, and he rants on and on.
“You don’t sew buttons or shoulder epaulets on a jacket or put a dead soldier’s cap box on your damn belt or wear his friggin’ bloodstained socks. You don’t cut up old uniforms that still have the soldiers’ nametapes on them and make them into quilts.”
He hands me envelopes for swabs.
“If you didn’t go to Parris Island or OCS, then don’t wear official U.S. Marine cammies, and for shit’s sake don’t make them into a purse. Jesus Christ, what kind of person does shit like that?”
“Don’t see any evidence of sexual assault. Of course, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.” I remove the speculum and toss it in the trash. “But it appears her legs were shaved not long before she died.”
I look at a scattering of dark stubble that when magnified indicate a razor was used.
“Several days before she died, based on the new growth,” I add. “Obviously the hair will seem a bit longer because of her dehydration. If she was kidnapped, she likely wasn’t kept very long.”
Marino’s face is dark red, his eyes wide, as if he’s reminded of something that really upsets him.
“What’s the matter with you?” I insert an eighteen-gauge needle into the left femoral artery.
“Nothing.” He talks the way he does when it’s something.
I try the subclavian next, inserting a needle below the clavicle. No luck, and I try the notch to puncture the aorta, and manage to get a few drops. When I open her up later today, what I’ll find is that her vessels are almost completely empty, the walls stained with hemoglobin, what looks like rust. For the most part, iron is all that’s left.
I drip thick, dark blood on two sample areas of an FTA micro-card and place it under a chemical hood to air-dry.
“If you’ll get her back inside the cooler, and this room stays locked. No one’s to come in here,” I tell Marino, as I pull off my lab coat. “Call DNA, let Gloria know they can collect the card within the hour. It should be dry by then, and we want a DNA profile as fast as they can manage, and it needs to be entered into NamUs, NDIS, with as little delay as possible.”
I toss the lab coat, shoe covers, and gloves into a bright red biohazard trash can and push open the door that leads into the air-locked vestibule, then the second door that leads into the corridor. It’s twenty past two and I can’t remember the last time I was this late for court or, better put, as late as I know I’m about to be. It will be at least two-forty-five, possibly as late as three-fifteen by the time Marino gets me to Fan Pier on Boston’s waterfront, I calculate, and that’s if traffic is reasonable.
Elevator doors slide open on my floor, and I jog along the corridor, not caring what a ridiculous sight I must be in a gray drysuit liner and tactical boots, carrying an orange jacket and a garbage bag. I scan my thumb to unlock my office, hurrying inside, as Bryce emerges from my bathroom, startling me. He’s in his coat, his sunglasses parked on top of his head, and carrying the stainless-steel pitcher and demitasse cups Lucy and I drank café Cubano out of what seems light-years ago.
“I thought you were at the vet’s.” I drop my bag of wet clothes and jacket on the floor and stoop down to take off my boots. “I’m really, really late. Have you heard from Dan Steward? How’s your cat?”
“Good God in heaven, what do you have on?” Bryce stares disapprovingly at the way I’m dressed. “Did you escape from the Ozarks? From a POW camp? Are you a biohazard? Kind of sexy, actually like a warm-fuzzy dive skin, but why gray? These are going into the dishwasher. Lucy must have cleaned up, am I right? Scummy milk film, and sticky enough to attract a flock of hummingbirds.”
“I’m late for court, and you need to scoot so I can get ready. What are you doing in here, and does Dan understand what’s going on?”
“Low on coffee and bottled water avec gaz et sans, completely out of trail mix, sugar-free granola, protein drinks, and those awful little crackers you like that supposedly are whole-grain or rice or particleboard. Dan’s been dragging out cross-examining the witness who’s right before you. . . .”
“Thank God.” I pad barefoot to my desk and dig through files.
“But apparently the judge asked where you were and Dan told him but said judges don’t give a shit about excuses and to hurry and get there.”
“Have you seen my Mildred Lott file?”
“So I stopped at Whole Foods and just got here a minute ago.” He opens my closet door. “And of course noticed your little kitchenette in there is a mess just like it always is after Lucy helps herself. She needs to find a nice wife, because her domestic skills don’t exist. It’s right next to your microscope, where you left it. Under some histology reports?”
He retrieves my suit and blouse.
“I don’t know what you did with your pantyhose. Figured you pitched them. I realize they don’t have much of a shelf life.”
I have no idea what I did with them. I probably tucked them in a desk drawer. I don’t care.