"No," Callie said. "That's separate."
She studied the body for another moment, then snapped on a pair of latex gloves from her coat pocket.
"We already checked the pockets," Daniels called from behind them. He was standing at the edge of the clearing with his arms crossed.
"I'm sure you did," Callie said. She reached down and carefully worked the pockets first, feeling along the outside. Empty, as Daniels had said. She moved to the jacket's interior,feeling along the lining. Her fingers found nothing on the left side. On the right, near the hip, she felt the edge of something stiff. She pulled the jacket back gently and saw a tear in the lining, not a cut but a seam that had come apart, creating a gap between the outer shell and the interior fabric. She worked two fingers into the tear and felt the corner of something smooth and rigid, the size of a credit card.
She pulled it out.
It was a student ID. SUNY Plattsburgh. The laminated surface was smudged with dirt but the photo was clear enough: a young woman, early twenties, light brown hair, half smile. The name printed beside the photo read Kara Ellison, followed by a student number.
"Huh," Callie said.
"What is it?" McKenzie asked, shifting closer.
Callie held up the card so he could see it. "Does that look anything like our victim?"
McKenzie studied the photo, then looked down at the body. The face was too damaged to compare, but the hair was wrong. The victim's hair was dark, almost black. The woman on the ID was lighter, sandier.
"Wouldn't know," he said. "Face is a mess."
"Look at the hair color."
McKenzie looked again. At the card, then at the body. Back to the card.
"You think that's..." he started.
Callie didn't answer. Callie turned the card over in her gloved fingers, slipped it into an evidence bag from her pocket, and sealed it. She looked at the body one more time, at the oversized jacket and the hidden ID and the destroyed face, and then she looked at McKenzie.
She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.
3
Two iced coffees sat between them on the table, sweating rings onto the wood. Fiona Spence hadn't touched hers. She was too busy talking. Her hands moved when she talked, always had, and right now they were painting the air with plans that sounded bigger than anything their little corner of the Adirondacks usually produced.
"They said the next shoot is a test run," Fiona said, leaning forward. "If it goes well, they book you for their catalog and that's where the real money is. We're talking five hundred a day, Ruby. For standing in front of a camera."
"Standing in front of a camera in what?" Ruby asked.
"Clothes. Regular clothes. It's not like that."
“Uh, huh. Are you sure?”
Fiona narrowed her eyes at her.
The Daily Grind was half full for a Thursday afternoon, which was busy by its standards. The place had started life as a coffee bar years ago and had slowly evolved into something closer to a diner, adding a lunch menu, then dinner, then homemade baked goods that the owner's mother made fresh every morning and delivered in Tupperware containers stacked on the back seat ofher Buick. The charm was old-school and genuine. Mismatched furniture. A chalkboard menu with handwriting that changed depending on who was working.
A girl in an apron came by and set a plate of lemon bars on the table between them. "On the house," she said. "Last batch before close."
"Lacey, you're going to make me fat," Fiona said.
"You're welcome." Lacey Montgomery was seventeen, still in high school, and worked the after-school shift three days a week. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and a pen tucked behind her ear that she probably didn't need but liked the look of. She glanced at Fiona. "What are you so excited about?"
"Modeling," Ruby said.
Lacey raised her eyebrows. "Seriously?"
"Don't encourage her," Ruby said.
