O’Hagan shone a small Maglite into the exposed jaw. “Extensive cosmetic work—all her teeth have been veneered, some bridgework immediately apparent,” she said. “She’s not in rigor. I’ll need to cut away some of the tarp or make a hole to get an internal temp.”
“This tarp, those ropes, what’s inside—it’s all crime scene. I’d prefer not to tamper with anything until we get her into the morgue,” Maddocks said.
O’Hagan pursed her lips, considering her options. Leo continued to watch in heavy silence. Thick rain beat down on them.
“Can we get another close-up of the end of this neck rope here?” Maddocks indicated to the photographer. “Looks like it could have gotten caught up in a propeller or something. Maybe she was dragged into the inner harbor before the rope frayed and severed, then the currents and tide did the rest of the work.”
“She could have gone into the water anywhere in that case, come from anywhere,” Leo said. “If she refloated, then got caught up in a vessel ...”
“Okay,” O’Hagan said, closing her bag. “Establishing postmortem interval is going to be a bugger any way you look at it, without knowing more.”
“Right, guys, let’s take her in.” Maddocks came to his feet. The body guys zipped the bag up around the tarp cocoon and the ragged skull, and then they lifted their DB into the stainless steel litter basket. They carried her down the dock to where a gurney waited on the bank.
“See you guys at the morgue when I open her up, then,” O’Hagan said, pushing herself up onto her feet. She followed the body, her bag in hand.
Leo watched them go, hands still in his pockets. “Got your first day on the job cut out for you, eh, boss man?”
Maddocks glanced down at him. Those cool blue eyes looked up, met his, and Maddocks had a niggling feeling that he could go down as a scapegoat in this department if they failed to close this case, and soon, given the mayor’s posturing. Maybe it was the reason Buziak wanted the new investigator as lead on the case from the get-go. He was being positioned as the potential fall guy.
“Get a full recovery report from the dive team, Leo,” he said coolly. “Everything the diver saw down there. Opinions are of value, too, but they should be attached and noted as such.” He snapped off his gloves, and a burn of pain along his wrists reminded him suddenly of the raw ligature marks from his sexcapade at the Foxy, how a mysterious redhead named Angie had cuffed him and fucked him. He’d not been able to get her out of his mind, to the point he’d called her number first thing this morning before going to meet Ginny. No answer. He’d left a message and was probably an asshole for doing so. He wasn’t even sure why he’d gone to the club in the first place. Again, a shrink would have a field day with that. Didn’t matter now. Leo was on the money. He had his days—and nights—cut out for him for a while. He shoved her out of his mind and began to move swiftly along the dock.
“I tell ya, I really hate floaters,” said Leo, clumping along the dock after him. “One time we called in a family to make an ID on a DB that had been covered in clouds of the sea lice. Some of the bugs slithered out of an orifice right there on the table. I tell ya ... gotta plug up those orifices in cases like that before calling in family. Mother fainted right there, on the spot. Cracked her head on the morgue floor. God, I hate floaters.”
CHAPTER 10
Angie watched the woman in the ICU room through the glass. She sat hunched forward, holding her child’s hand, her back to the door, dark wavy hair pulled up in a tangled ponytail.
Angie’s thoughts turned to her own mom, to the burdens all mothers faced in keeping their daughters safe, how her mother had spent a lifetime caring for her. Guilt rushed hot into her chest. She should be with her mom now—looking after her, the tables turned. Again, Angie felt the hollow sensation of time lost, of years swept away under a bridge. The image of the Mother Mary statue shimmered into her brain. A Madonna supposedly untainted by sex, pure in body, yet fertile with child—the farce of it all. It angered her—these mixed messages that society dumped on females, the notion that sex, the act of propagation, the enjoyment of intercourse, was somehow foul, came from the gutter.Filthygirl.Dirtybooks. A flash of red filled her brain. Blood—she tasted it suddenly in her mouth, felt it hot and sticky upon her face. Pain seared through her lip. And suddenly the little girl in the pink dress was standing in the ICU room beside the mother. Angie’s heart started to stammer. The girl slowly turned her head and looked directly at Angie, but she had no face. Just a luminous white blur framed by long, dark-red hair. The child reached her hand out to Angie, and those words whispered through her brain ...
Come playum dum grove ... Come down dem ...
The hallucination vanished. Fear was ice in Angie’s chest. She took a second to gather herself before sliding open the door and stepping into the room. The hissing and beeping sounds of the machines greeted her.
“Can you hear me, honey?” the woman was saying. “Please, squeeze my hand if you can hear me, Gracie.Please.”
Angie came up to her side, cleared her throat. “Mrs.Drummond, I’m Detective Angie Pallorino from Metro PD.”
The woman glanced up, white-faced and hollow-eyed with shock and grief. It was a look Angie knew all too well in her job. The horror, the disbelief, degradation, powerlessness that could hit when violent crime intersected with everyday life, and suddenly an ordinary person going about an ordinary life had to face cops, doctors, coroners, questions, media scrutiny, criminal lawyers, people they never thought they’d have to deal with in their lifetimes.
“I ... I didn’t know that she wasn’t at work last night until I saw the news this morning. I ... went into her room, just to be certain that she ... she was there. How could this have happened? How could I not haveknown?”
Compassion washed through Angie. On the back of it came a raw, furious burn to nail this repeat offender who she believed had slipped through her and Hash’s hands. If they’d gotten him three, four years ago, this woman, this child, might not be in this hospital room.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“The doctor told me what that monster did to ... to my baby ...” Emotion choked off her words, glistened in her eyes.
“The nurses told me that your daughter’s name is Grace.”
The woman’s shaking hand went to her mouth. “My Gracie—we call her Gracie,” she said, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Gracie Marie Drummond. She’s sixteen. She’s turning ...” A sob racked her body.
“It’s okay.” Angie tentatively placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder.
But the mother soldiered on. “Seventeen. She’s turning seventeen on December twenty-ninth. When she first started to work at the Badger, I had to write her a letter of consent so that she could get that job at the bakery. She ... wanted the money. I mean, we are just getting by. I should never have let her do it, at night, catch the bus by herself. But the city is so safe, and the bus stops right outside our apartment around six in the evening. That’s not so late, and she’s safe inside the bakery until five the next morning, after which she catches the bus home, and a mother wants her daughter to have nice things, you know? I can’t buy nice things for her, let alone myself. I thought it was okay, and it was, for over a year ...” Her hand pressed down hard over her mouth, as if to keep it all in, stop herself from collapsing completely.
“Can I get you a coffee, Mrs.Drummond?” Angie said. “Some water?”
Lorna Drummond shook her head.
