Anything.
-6-
Salvatore
SALVATORE HAD BARELY ENTEREDhis office before he heard about the body on the greenbelt. An anonymous 911 call had led EMTs to a dead woman by the side of an unnamed swimming hole off an unofficial trail in the middle of the Barton Hills neighborhood, where Salvatore had grown up. Cause of death was suspicious, so they wanted Salvatore to weigh in.
Salvatore put in a call to confer with Katrina as soon as possible. He made himself a cappuccino—the department had chipped in to get him a De’Longhi after he and Jacquie had canceled their anniversary trip to Rome so she could stay home for more chemo—and sipped from his dainty cup as he booted up his Dell computer. His guys made fun of his beautiful cups—joking that he should hold up his pinkie while he sipped—but the Nuova Points had been his grandmother’s. She’d been born in Naples, Italy, brought over kicking and screaming as a young bride, and had never stopped complaining about America in general and Austin in specific until the day she died. Every morning, Salvatore took amoment to hold a warm cappuccino and remember his loud and angry Nonna.
Nonna had lived to eighty-seven.
Using rage as fuel for living was a family tradition.
As he sipped, Salvatore read the daily reports from other agencies, federal and regional. He scrolled through wanted criminal reports, unidentified bodies, suspected car theft rings, and other assorted illegal operations. He caught up with paperwork, drank another cappuccino.
When Katrina paged him that she was ready, he got back in his car to head to the medical examiner’s office on Springdale.
Austin had opened the new facility in 2017, giving Katrina and her colleagues nine autopsy stations and even a CT scan machine. Katrina met him in one of the waiting rooms, her white lab coat so crisp she must have ironed it or picked it up that morning from the cleaners. She was of Pakistani descent, tall with chocolate-hued hair she wore in a low ponytail.
Salvatore himself bought suits in bulk at Men’s Wearhouse during their annual sale. Investigating homicides was a messy business: after one intense situation that had led to Salvatore’s shoes, socks, suit, tie, and evenunderweargetting soaked by blood, Jacquie had told him to just “get naked in the garage and don’t bring those nasty murder clothes into my house.” Understandably, she didn’t want the kids seeing him covered in gore, and she wasn’t interested in any laundry that might include brain matter.
Jacquie had stashed a bin of clean outfits from Thrift Town in the guest bathroom. She’d instructed Salvatore to enter via the garage, shower, and then greet the family in fresh pants and T-shirts, depositing his “horror movie clothes” directly in the wash…or even the trash can.
Although he’d been brought up to wear clothes until they fell apart, Jacquie had introduced him to the thrill of throwing things away. Sometimes, it felt as if he could toss the trauma of his days into the bin with the stained linens.
But the memories usually came back.
—
“OFFICIAL CAUSE OF DEATHis drowning,” said Katrina, bringing him back to himself. Salvatore could smell Katrina’s lotion, something clean and sensible, like Lubriderm. “But opiate levels in her bloodstream were three hundred nanograms per milliliter…”
“So she overdosed.”
“It’s hard to tell what happened. That’s why I called homicide.”
“Three hundred nanograms? There’s no way she was able to swim, right?”
“I’m not a detective,” said Katrina, “but if she drowned, she would have sunk, not ended up at the edge of the water.”
“So she wasn’t alone.” Salvatore inhaled. “And the 911 call was anonymous, untraceable phone. Did she have track marks?”
“None. And no evidence of any struggle.”
“How old is she?”
“Nineteen or twenty. No ID on her, no phone.”
“OK,” said Salvatore. APD was still searching the greenbelt trails for any belongings she may have left behind, and he’d ordered a sweep of all the trailhead parking areas. She could have lived in the neighborhood or parked a car nearby. Salvatore needed to get his team to begin interviewing possible witnesses and going door to door.
He followed Katrina into the examining room, where the victim lay on a stainless-steel table. Salvatore tried to enterthe tunnel. He scanned her body: no bruises, no burst blood vessels, the developed muscles of an athlete; if she were a junkie, she hadn’t been one for long.
He stood close, trying to hear what she could tell him.What happened to you?he asked her silently, staring at her face. Often, their eyes were open, but this woman’s were closed. She had a small tattoo of a teddy bear on her upper arm, the word “BEARY” underneath.
Who did this to you?Salvatore asked her.
Why the tattoo of a teddy bear?
Whose daughter are you?
