Their Frozen Graves: A completely addictive crime thriller and mystery novel

by Choudhary, Ruhi

  “No.”

  “But she had tattoos,” Nick showed him pictures. “A combination of numbers and letters inked on the back of her knees.”

  Sully glowered at them. “Any idea what these mean?”

  “Looking into it.”

  “She also had signs of long-term drug use. I noted some bruises on her legs were a result of collapsed veins, most likely due to heroin use.” Becky showed a picture of Jane Doe Two’s shins under a bright light. Her twisty veins ran black and misshapen under her pale skin. “I did the hair follicle test but didn’t detect any traces of heroin or any other drug. It could only mean that Jane Doe Two had stopped using recently.”

  “How far does the test go back?” Sully asked.

  “Up to three months.”

  “Did Jane Doe One do drugs?”

  “The test came back negative for her too. But she didn’t have any physical signs of drug use so I wasn’t expecting anything.”

  “Jane Doe Two was a junkie in recovery.” Sully picked up her picture.

  “Her DNA is not on any local or national database. Her dental records didn’t find a match anywhere either,” Nick said.

  “There was no ID on her?”

  He shook his head.

  Mackenzie wasn’t as hopeful, now that the DNA and dental records couldn’t identify Jane Doe Two. At most they could print out posters urging the public to help with identification. But the face would still look bloated, unnatural and discolored. She was also a serious drug addict at some point, as was evident from her damaged veins. Based on Mackenzie’s experience, it was unlikely that anyone would come forward.

  “Jenna is going to ask around in hospitals. Maybe we’ll find the doctor who performed this procedure,” Nick suggested.

  “I know a cosmetic surgeon,” Becky said. “Dr. Rees Preston. He owns a private practice here. Used to be based in Seattle, I think. Anyway, I’ve met him a couple of times. I’d recommend asking him for his expert opinion. Maybe he’ll nudge you in the right direction.”

  “Get on that,” Sully instructed Mackenzie and Nick. “Think it’s a coincidence they were found in Woodburn Park?”

  “That place is clean now.”

  “Mack, this is Lakemore. No place is clean. There might be drug deals going on.”

  “Neither of them had drugs in their system, and Justin confirmed that no recent arrests have been made in the area. But the bodies both look like Katy. I think this is about her.”

  “Where are we on forensics?” Sully looked at Becky.

  Becky displayed pictures of the bones taken under the microscope. The gray-colored cross-section pictures were labeled as belonging to Jane Doe One and Jane Doe Two, with arrows and circles marking the important findings. “Wound analysis was conducted using scanning electron microscopy and macroscopic observations. The V-shaped incisions in the kerf floor were found in both cases, verifying that the murder weapon was a knife. Jane Doe Two died from being stabbed in the lungs. The blade slid over the rib in a zigzag pattern indicative of a straight thrust. Jane Doe One had two stab wounds. The first thrust punctured the spleen, but it was made at a downward angle, nicking the rib and leaving a cone-shaped mark. The second stab killed her. The knife was thrust into her stomach up to the hilt and then curved upward, causing a hinge fracture of the rib.” Becky’s long finger tapped at a fragment partially detached from the rest of the bone. “This caused a small portion of the tip of the knife to break.” She pulled out another picture showing a tiny piece caught in the ribcage.

  Mackenzie frowned at the picture. “It was lodged inside her body.”

  “Yes. I took it out and ran a microscopic scan. The weapon has a satin finish. But I found something more interesting. Some of the markings on the bones were unusual. It was a single blade knife, but the tears it left in the tissues and organs were consistent with there being another blade.”

  “A gut hook blade,” Mackenzie said just as Becky revealed a picture of the knife she believed to be the murder weapon. The end of the blade had a sharp hook curling back toward the shaft, technically resulting in two tips.

  “You know your knives,” she beamed.

  “I used it for gutting fish in the summer.” Sully pulled a gagging face. “Never picking up that hobby again.”

  “It’s used for a lot of other things too,” Mackenzie said. “Roofing, opening beer bottles.”

  Nick looked at Becky. “But you said you think the killer has some knowledge of human anatomy?”

  “I believe so. He knew exactly where to strike them. Especially with Jane Doe Two. The stabbing was precise, in between the sternum ribs. And with Jane Doe One he knew to finish the job. If he’d left her after the first stabbing, she could have survived.”

  “Any idea about the physical characteristics of the assailant?” Sully asked.

  “The killer is right-handed based on the distribution of the thrusts. Height is a little difficult to gauge because I have to factor in that there was a struggle involved. But I can confidently say he is between one point five to one point eight meters.”

  “So five-nine tops? That could be a man or a woman,” Nick sighed. “Did you find any other trace evidence?”

  “Some tests are still running, but don’t be too hopeful. The clothes of the victims have been sent to Anthony at the crime lab. There’s a backlog, might take weeks, even. They were underwater for days. That changes things. I found some textile fabric on that broken portion of the blade. It had blue and brown woolen strands from the clothes of the victims.”

  “The blade was found in Jane Doe Two, who was dressed in the blue sweater.” Nick twirled a pen between his fingers. “This means that Jane Doe One was killed first. That’s why the brown wool from her sweater dress ended up on the blade. And then Jane Doe Two was killed, leaving traces from both sets of clothes inside her.”

  Mackenzie imagined the struggle go down. The two Jane Does and an assailant. He killed Jane Doe One first, with precision and speed. Death would have been painful. Her lungs would have filled with blood. She would have dropped to her knees, choking, clutching her throat as blood flooded out of her mouth. Jane Doe Two was with her. The assailant stabbed her on the side but not with the correct technique. A struggle ensued, and he ended up striking her in the face, knocking out her teeth. Cutting into her stomach and curling the knife upward was the fatal blow. He knew that’s what would kill her.

  “Our killer could be a woman,” Mackenzie pointed out. “Statistically unlikely, but there was no sexual assault.”

  Becky checked her watch. “I have to run and buy pie. I don’t have any more updates. Is it okay if I leave?”

  Sully dismissed her begrudgingly and tweaked the ends of his mustache. “When are you going to talk to Katy’s parents?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” Mackenzie said.

  “I have to apprise Rivera of the latest developments tomorrow. It will help if you have identified at least one of the victims.” When he saw Mackenzie raise her eyebrow, he grunted. “You don’t know her, Mack. This one is very hands-on.”

  “Are you hiring more detectives? We’ve needed someone since Bruce left.”

  “There is someone over at Port Angeles I have my eye on. Comes highly recommended. Has over five years of experience in the field. But I don’t want to say anything right now. We’ll see.” Absentmindedly, Sully picked up a paper he’d just folded and grazed its edges. He kept brooding at the pictures of the corpses.

  Mackenzie knew his mind was racing. “What are you thinking, Sully?”

  Sully dropped the paper with a sigh. “I’m not sure about this.”

  “About what?”

  “Jane Doe Two.” His face was white as chalk. “Around sixteen years ago, there was a suicide. Hikers found the body of a woman in her early thirties washed up on the shore of the Fresco River. No signs of sexual assault. Her face had signs of cosmetic procedures.”

  The light fixture overhead hummed.

  A fly buzzed.
r />   Nick scratched his scruffy jaw.

  “What happened?” Mackenzie asked.

  “She was never identified. She was a drug addict like this one—that’s all we knew. We never found out why she killed herself.”

  Nine

  Mackenzie trailed her fingertips over the crime scene photos of the blonde woman found dead by the shore sixteen years ago. She had accessed their record management system and printed out the case details. They stored digital files of the cold cases separately. Cold cases weren’t considered “closed,” it was just that were no active lines of inquiry. Considering they were never able to ID the woman, it was still a cold case.

  The victim’s frail body was curled in a ball, concealed by the growing shrubbery around her. She was dressed in a long, flowing white dress. Her lips were parted, her eyes half open. She hadn’t been underwater long.

  Her face and arms were covered in fresh lacerations. The coroner had concluded that they were sustained from her body being carried by the currents.

  There was water in her lungs—drowning killed her. But why did she drown herself? Mackenzie knew those waters. They were famously tumultuous, being downstream of a dam. She closed her eyes and saw the unnamed woman sinking down into the black water. Her arms flailed wildly. Her hair floated around her like seaweed. The inky water dragged her down.

  “That’s an uncommon way to kill yourself,” Nick said from her side.

  “Maybe she didn’t. What if someone pushed her off the bridge?”

  “No. They have multiple witness accounts and a video of her jumping.” He passed another part of the investigative report.

  She read over the statements. “Some of them said she was standing and staring at the water for a few minutes before taking the leap. No one tried talking her out of it?”

  “One person did. By the time he called for help she’d jumped.”

  “Just one?” Mackenzie was aghast.

  “It’s the bystander effect.” Nick crossed his arms. “Sometimes people don’t intervene if there’s a group of people present.”

  Her heart sank as she recalled the theory. “They think that someone else will, or already has, and delay acting.”

  “Yep. Were there any drugs or alcohol in her system?”

  “No,” she confirmed. “Toxicology screen was clean. But she used to be an intravenous drug user based on the needle marks on her arms.”

  Nick paused. “An ex-addict. Like our Jane Doe Two.”

  “They ran the Fresco River woman’s DNA but didn’t find any matches.”

  He patted his pockets for a cigarette pack. Realizing he was out, he waggled his jaw. “Have they run it against updated databases?”

  Mackenzie quickly skimmed the document. “A few years ago. Still no match. Do we still have the body?”

  “Nope. Seven years ago it was released to a funeral home with a government contract.”

  “Damn it,” she muttered. “They didn’t find any ID on her. No tattoos. And it was ruled a suicide.”

  He tapped his finger against his lip. “Sixteen years ago, a drug addict with a surgically modified face committed suicide. And now, someone like that is murdered. What’s the connection?”

  Mackenzie showed him the ViCAP alert issued by the FBI sixteen years ago. Someone in Lakemore had called in a tip that the victim looked like her neighbor. “Carrie Breslow. She was thirty years old at the time. A schoolteacher. The police went to her house and found her alive, playing with her daughter. Her husband, Owen, is an engineer and was out of state at the time of the suicide.”

  “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

  “Yup.” She drummed her fingers on the edge of her desk. “I might have thought it a coincidence, but signs of cosmetic work? That’s oddly specific. There has to be some other connection.”

  She took out disinfectant wipes from a drawer and began scrubbing her desk clean, to Nick’s amusement.

  “Do you want to ask Katy if she knows Carrie?”

  Ignoring the teasing smile in his voice, she bent down and wiped the underside of her desk. “We can go now. I want to show Katy pictures of the clothes the victims were wearing. We should speak to Carrie too, if possible.”

  A quick search through their database coughed up Carrie Breslow’s address. It was the same as before. Maybe she would know why a woman would go through the trouble of looking like her, only to kill herself.

  Ten

  Mackenzie knocked loudly on the door and rocked back and forth on her heels.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Nick asked.

  “How many more times will you ask me that?”

  “Until you tell me the truth. You look like you’re high on caffeine. Which you don’t drink.”

  “It’s the cold,” she blurted. She had accidentally worn the wrong boots and the cold puddle water had seeped into her socks, threatening to freeze her toes. “Don’t you have big Thanksgiving plans?”

  “Yeah. Me and bourbon watching the parade rerun.”

  “You don’t have Luna this year?”

  “I have her for Christmas so she’s spending today with Shelly.”

  Katy opened the door, looking healthier than the day before. Dressed in a baggy sweater and yoga pants, her hair looked untangled and her skin devoid of blackheads.

  “Please come in.”

  “I like your earrings,” Mackenzie said. “You look better today, Katy.”

  She touched her gold earrings and smiled. “Yeah, it’s been a relatively good day. Cole made sure I did some yoga this morning.”

  “Sorry for disturbing you on Thanksgiving.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Katy waved her hand. “I’m too weak to do anything really. And the smell of poultry makes me nauseous, so turkey is out of the question. We’re just going to stay in and watch a movie.”

  Cole was in the kitchen chopping vegetables. Mackenzie’s eyes flashed to the sharp knife in his hands. Cole was about the right height to be the killer, according to the range predicted by Becky. He took off his apron and greeted them with a nervous nod. “Did you find anything?”

  “Not yet. We’ll let you know.” Mackenzie spotted a book of baby names on the table.

  Katy followed her eyes and smiled brightly. “We’re shortlisting some names for her.”

  “Her?” Nick asked.

  “We’ll find out in a couple of weeks.” Cole put an arm around Katy.

  “It’s just a feeling I have. That it’s a girl,” Katy said softly.

  Mackenzie’s face fell. The intimate exchange between Katy and Cole couldn’t be missed. The softness in their eyes and the nervous gulps they took. They were scared but happy. The good kind of butterflies. The kind Mackenzie had when she was about to marry Sterling.

  “Do you know who those women are?” Cole asked.

  “Not yet. We should have some answers by tonight,” Mackenzie said. “I wanted to show you the clothes and jewelry the victims were wearing. Because they look like you, we’re just ticking off some boxes.”

  “S-sure,” Katy shuddered.

  They sat down as Mackenzie pulled out the pictures of the sweater dress, wedding band, and necklace with a Gemini zodiac pendant. She handed them over. Katy’s lips were pursed in concentration as she took her time. “That looks like my wedding band. The rest, I don’t recognize.”

  “Wait,” Cole said from her side. “Go back to the previous one. This dress!”

  “What about it?”

  “Katy, isn’t this the one you bought a month ago from that factory outlet close to Everett?”

  “Is it?” She looked again at the picture, and her eyes widened. “Oh my God! It looks exactly like that.”

  It was the dress Jane Doe One had been wearing, the pregnant doppelganger that could be Katy’s twin.

  “Do you want to check if you still have it?” Nick suggested.

  Katy rushed up to her bedroom at lightning speed—a stark contrast from her slumbering the day before. They heard closet doo
rs open and shut and footsteps shuffle. A few minutes later, Katy reappeared with a trembling chin.

  “It’s not there,” she whispered.

  She almost lost her balance on the stairs, and Cole hurried to hold her. “Careful.”

  “Are you sure you checked everywhere?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Even the laundry room.”

  “Maybe you gave it to someone?”

  “I didn’t!” she cried. “What does this mean?”

  Mackenzie and Nick looked at each other uneasily. Nick cleared his throat when he spoke. “It could be a coincidence, or someone could have been here.”

  “And stole my clothes?” She raised her eyebrows. Her eyes were teary and her knuckles red as she clutched Cole’s shirt in her fists. “That’s insane.”

  “We can get a patrol officer to guard your house,” Nick offered.

  “Please.” Cole clenched his jaw.

  “It will help if you can go through the house and make us a list of anything else you think might be missing,” Mackenzie said. “There is another matter we’d like to discuss.”

  “Do you know anyone by the name Carrie Breslow?” Nick asked.

  They shook their heads.

  “Around sixteen years ago, a woman killed herself. She had undergone cosmetic procedures to look more like Carrie. Like in this case: one of the woman’s faces was made to look like yours. With surgery.” Nick paused, giving them a moment to absorb the information.

  Cole’s jaw hung open. “What? I don’t know what to think.”

  “We don’t have enough information yet, but this is a big coincidence.” Mackenzie looked at Katy. “Are you sure you haven’t heard of this person?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I’m s-sure I haven’t.” Her forehead crumpled. “Did they find out who that woman was?”

  “No. It’s a cold case. We’re going to start looking into that and hopefully find a connection.”

  Mackenzie and Nick spent more time going over the Beckers’ statements again and their activities over the past week. They didn’t contradict anything they mentioned before. If anything, Katy was more verbose and confident.