McCrae gave her a reassuring look. “I’m going to take Douglas here to talk to someone and then I’ll come back to see how you’re doing. Do you need something?”
She looked down at the paper at her feet and picked it up.
It was a report from the crime scene technicians identifying the body as that of a woman.
Noelle nodded and looked up. She gestured to the paper. “I was waiting for this from the Crime Scene Technicians. I’m good for now. Thank you.”
He gave her a quick nod and then tipped his head toward the door. “I’ll come back just to check on you after I have someone talk to Douglas here.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
The look in his eyes said that he’d be happy to do more than ‘talk’ to Douglas.
“I’ll be here when you’re done,” she explained. “I can get started in earnest now.”
“Okay,” he dipped his chin in a hint of a nod, “lock the door when I leave.”
He turned then and crossed to the door, pulling the heavy glass and metal door open. He held it and moved Douglas through the opening.
It had to be an impressive show of strength. Douglas wasn’t a small man and he wasn't really cooperating.
Noelle waited until both men were out of sight down the hallway before she moved to the door and locked it again.
With a slow exhale she leaned her hip and shoulder against the door until she was out of air.
She used her next indrawn breath to push herself off of the door and back to work.
She had to have steady hands to work. The next stage of her recreation was to place depth markers to indicate the height of the skin away from the skull.
General characteristics that belonged to men versus women. Caucasian or other races differed. Everything from eye shape to how prominent of a chin a person has was all determined with anatomy and genetics.
There would always be room for error and variation, but she always started with the basic building blocks of a person’s facial features.
The depth markers that she used had a printed number on the top of each and a tacky, sticker adhesive on the bottom. She used them to give herself that base to begin from.
From there, it was a little like an art project.
Taking bone and adding flesh wasn’t an exact science, but it was the art she’d studied the most. The work she poured her heart into.
With the music playing over the air conditioner droning on an on, she worked, her mind building and erasing layer by layer and then inch by inch.
Like the tides of the ocean that she’d only seen in tv and videos, the images in her mind built and unbuilt over the skull in front of her, but the more she did it… The more frustrated she became.
The eyes.
The eyes were missing.
Just dark shadows, dark empty pits looked back at her.
Noelle sat back and sagged against the chair wondering if she would ever find the face that belonged to that skull.
That woman.
Could she give her a chance to rest in peace with her own name on a stone marking her grave?
Was this the first time that a face was… out of her reach?
A soft click in the door lock turned her head.
