The Drowned Girls (Angie Pallorino Book 1)

by Loreth Anne White

  Zach stared, a sick dread building in his stomach.

  “Drummond was left unconscious and bleeding at the feet of a statue of the Virgin Mary in the Ross Bay graveyard, during one of the coldest snaps on record …”

  His cell phone rang. He kept staring at the television as he answered it. “Yeah?”

  “You see the news?” It was Killion.

  “I’m seeing it now.”

  “We need to handle this. Before it handles us. Before this whole tough-on-crime thing blows up in our faces from day one. What is this leak on Twitter that they’re talking about?”

  “I … don’t know.” Zach moved to his computer, clicked on his Twitter bookmark. Shit.

  “It’s her,” he said quietly. “Merry Winston from the Sun. She came out with that tweet at eleven forty-five this morning.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Death, the great equalizer.

  “Media shit-storm breaking out there,” Leo mumbled around a wad of cinnamon-scented gum as they watched the two dieners weighing the bagged body of their floater. He glanced up at Maddocks. “You heard, right?”

  Maddocks nodded.

  It was almost six hours since their decedent had been retrieved from the Gorge—and here they were, already in the morgue at 4:00 p.m. on a Sunday. The room was cold, windowless, with tiled walls and floors, stainless steel tables, sinks, and backsplashes. Unforgiving fluorescent lighting hummed softly overhead. Banks of glass-fronted cabinets housing tools of the trade—bone-cutting devices, disposable face shields, other equipment—lined the back wall. Lab coats, once pristine white but now soiled with brownish-red stains, hung loosely on a stand beside a pair of electronically controlled doors that hissed softly when they opened.

  There lingered in the room an odor that Maddocks associated with all morgues. The scent was one of raw meat, blood, formalin, and disinfectant, and it reminded him of a butcher shop he’d once visited with his grandfather as a boy.

  In this jurisdiction an autopsy was usually performed within forty-eight hours of death. But a rush had been put on this one. The coroner’s office fell under the purview of the office of the attorney general, and given the breaking news, the possibility of an internal Metro PD leak, the twitchiness of the police chief, and pressure from the new mayor and police board, word had come right from the assistant deputy attorney general herself to expedite this medico-legal autopsy stat.

  If ordered by law, next of kin consent was not required for a postmortem. Besides, they had no idea who to inform yet, anyway, not until they’d opened the tarp up and unwrapped what was essentially part of a crime scene. Maddocks and Leo were present to witness that process and to take delivery of any evidence that came out of it. They did, however, already know that their DB was not Annelise Janssen, the missing student, as the newspaper had speculated.

  The Janssen family had provided Metro PD copies of their daughter’s dental records along with DNA samples when she’d first been reported missing. From those records it was evident that Annelise Janssen had undergone very limited dental work in her lifetime, and nothing cosmetic. Their lipless DB with her exposed jaw, on the other hand, had clearly undergone extensive dentistry, both cosmetic and repair—a bridge, implants at the front of her mouth, ceramic fillings in nearly all her real teeth. Her mouth had once been a mess.

  Dr. Barb O’Hagan put music on, and the sounds of soft cello rose in the sterile room while she checked her microphone above the stainless steel autopsy table and made notes, comparing the information on the body bag seal with the authorizing paperwork to make sure this was the right body. She wore voluminous green scrubs under a disposable plastic apron, booties over her shoes. The autopsy techs wore rebreather devices. O’Hagan did not. Maddocks knew pathologists like her—old school. They preferred to use their noses. Smell was important in a postmortem. It could tell you a lot.

  “Could have been anyone, that leak,” Leo said as O’Hagan snapped on her latex gloves.

  Down came the zipper on the bag. They watched the assistants lift the plastic-cocooned body with its ragged head and long strands of wet hair. They positioned her on the stainless steel table, which was slightly canted and equipped with running water to rinse fluids into the drainage holes at the bottom. Leo avoided looking at the head as he rubbed wintergreen oil under his nose. He offered the container to Maddocks.

  “Thanks.” Maddocks dabbed some of the ointment under his own nostrils. O’Hagan might need to smell the corpse, but he did not. He returned the container.

  The victim’s brown hair was still entangled with seaweed. Photos were taken before anything was touched.

  “It could have come from one of the EMTs,” Leo said. “Or someone in ER, any one of the nurses. Even one of the docs. Christ, the mother herself might have told any number of people that her kid had been mutilated like that. It’s upsetting. It’s something people need to get out, you know?”

  He was motormouthing. Maddocks suspected this was Detective Harvey Leo’s coping mechanism, his compartmentalization tool. They all had one or two such tools in their arsenals, but he wished Leo would shut the fuck up.

  “It could also have been internal,” Maddocks countered coolly as he watched the assistants carefully checking the empty body bag for trace that might have shaken lose during transport to the morgue and gotten left in the bag.

  “Yeah,” said Leo. “And that’s exactly the conclusion everyone is gonna jump on. Kick at the cops. Pallorino and Holgersen’s case—I tell ya, she’s in shit street now. First there was the Hashowsky shooting five months ago, and the death of that little kid and her parents, and now this? I tell ya, if Gunnar is looking for heads to roll, if the board is looking for a fall guy, her tight little ass is a damn fine target about now. She’s toast, I reckon.”

  Maddocks glanced down at him. A glint of glee actually flickered in the man’s eyes. Detective Leo clearly had a hate-on for the female cop working the cemetery case. Or he was using this as a diversion from the gruesome sight on the table in front of them. Maybe a bit of both.

  O’Hagan glanced up from the body. “We’re about to begin, gentlemen.” She held Leo’s gaze pointedly. Maddocks could feel the ice in it. The doc, on the other hand, clearly appeared to like the female detective. She reached up, clicked on the mike that hung above the table, and stated time and date and that she was commencing a preliminary external visual examination.

  She spoke her observations out loud, starting from the head, as her assistant meticulously took more photos from all angles.

  “The more vertical slope of the forehead and size of the head is indicative of a female. Smaller mandible and maxilla. We’ll have the odontologist look at the dental work if necessary, but extensive cosmetic dentistry is immediately apparent. Anthropophagy on face is extensive. From the feeding patterns, likely primarily saltwater shrimp, perhaps some other crustaceans and invertebrates. First site of attack appears to have been the softer tissue of the lips, eyelids, ears.”

  Maddocks stepped forward for a closer look. Leo fidgeted behind him, paper crackling as he opened another stick of gum. O’Hagan brought her magnifying glass down by an extendable arm and peered closely at the decedent’s opaque, bulbous eyes. The strings of the cello rose.

  “Petechiae,” she said quietly, bringing the magnifier with its built-in light closer. “Tiny pinpoints. Clusters.”

  Maddocks was intimately familiar with the term for the small red or purple spots—hemorrhages—that occurred when blood leaked from the tiny capillaries in the eyes. The cause of the ruptures was usually due to increased pressure on the veins in the neck when airways were obstructed. If petechial hemorrhages were present, it was a strong indication of asphyxia by strangulation as cause of death, whether by manual strangulation, hanging, or smothering.

  “Looks like multiple events,” she said.

  “As in tightening, releasing, tightening again?” Maddocks said. “As in erotic asphyxiation, or breath-control play for sexual arousal?”
>
  “Possible,” O’Hagan said. “The presence of petechiae does not prove strangulation, and their absence does not disprove it. They’re simply a marker of increased cephalic venous pressure. But in eighty-five percent of manual strangulation cases, petechial hemorrhaging presents. Takes only about thirty seconds of sustained pressure.”

  She moved her light again and looked into the other eye. “When the carotid arteries are compressed, the sudden loss of oxygen-rich blood to the brain and the accumulation of carbon dioxide can lead to feelings of giddiness and pleasure, all of which will heighten sexual sensation. Combined with orgasm, the rush is said to be no less powerful than cocaine and highly addictive.”

  The cello music rose to a crescendo, then fell to a seductive whispering as the dieners combed through their Jane Doe’s hair, removing seaweed, other vegetation, small invertebrates, and foreign particles, meticulously bagging and documenting each piece of trace. The fauna and flora trace in her hair might help determine postmortem interval, or PMI. It could also help determine where their Jane Doe might have entered the water and from where she could have drifted.

  “A lock of her hair has been cut,” said one assistant suddenly. “See? Right at the hairline, near the center of the forehead.”

  Maddocks shot a glance at Leo. Both knew about Gracie Drummond’s lock of hair. It was all over the media now. Photographs were taken of the cut sprouts of hair.

  O’Hagan turned her attention to the victim’s neck.

  “The rope securing the tarp to her neck looks to be the same kind of rope used to bind up the rest of her body. Knots also appear consistent.” She measured the length of the loose end. “Three point nine five meters from the knot cluster at her throat.”

  “Looks like polyester, maybe three-strand,” Maddocks said quietly. “Common marine equipment that you can buy anywhere. Recently bought several meters exactly like it myself. And those look like reef knots. Any mariner, climber, Boy Scout, Girl Guide, or fisherman knows how to tie those knots to join pieces of rope.”

  “You got a boat?” Leo said.

  “Hmm.” Maddocks watched closely as O’Hagan moved her attention to the plastic tarp, checking for external trace—hairs, fibers. She reached suddenly for forceps and carefully extracted something minute from the fibers of one of the knots.

  “Looks like some kind of hair has been trapped inside some of the knots and caught in the rough weave of the rope.” She brought her magnifying glass back down close again and began to painstakingly remove and examine the evidence. “Some as long as two centimeters. Some blondish, others dark brown. A white one. Coarse.” She fell silent a while. “Quite a few. Not human. More like the outer guard hairs of an animal. And what appears to be softer, finer fur.”

  “Dogs? Cats?” Leo said.

  “We’ll get the lab to tell us,” O’Hagan said. “Hairs are composed primarily of the protein keratin. Each species of animal possesses hair with characteristic length, color, shape, root appearance, and microscopic features that will enable our forensic techs to identify one species from another.”

  The hairs went individually into paper envelopes and were labeled by the dieners.

  “Might help associate her with a crime scene,” Maddocks said quietly. “On land—because I’m guessing that’s not hair from a sea creature.”

  The cello notes fell, almost silent now, creating a kind of tension in the room before the anticipated next crescendo. The minutes ticked by. Maddocks began to feel hot in spite of the cold in the morgue. Stainless steel instruments clacked against the sink.

  “There are some scratches in the tarp fabric,” O’Hagan said. “Could be traveling abrasions from being dragged along by the current.” These breaches were noted, photographed. “Let’s flip her over then, shall we?”

  The assistants aided O’Hagan in hefting the cocooned Jane Doe onto her stomach.

  “Striations on the back of her head are almost four centimeters deep and nine centimeters apart.” O’Hagan picked a tiny, wiggling shrimp out of one of the wounds. It was bagged.

  “Eating into her brain. Shit,” mumbled Leo.

  Maddocks inhaled slowly to reach for calm, but he regretted it instantly because it filled his nasal cavity with the briny smells of the woman’s death and the morgue.

  More photographs were taken. Again, O’Hagan worked her external examination from head to foot. Deep-purple marks were visible under the plastic.

  “Lividity?” said Leo.

  “Or other contusions,” O’Hagan said. “We’ll know more when we unwrap her in a few.”

  With her visual external examination complete, the assistants helped O’Hagan roll the body back onto its back.

  “So maybe she was involved in some kind of erotic breath-control game that went wrong,” Leo said quietly. “Or was plain old strangled, then trussed up in the plastic sheeting and dumped into the water somewhere. Then she drifted with currents and tides along the bottom, finally gassed up, refloated, was hit by a prop, went down again, and then she came up in the Gorge somehow, up under the Johnson Street Bridge.”

  “Why don’t we wait to see what we find inside?” Maddocks said.

  Leo eyeballed him, his mouth flattening.

  “Okay, let’s open this up then,” O’Hagan said.

  The cello strings clashed in angry discord, growing ever more strident.

  “Wish she’d turn that fucking thing off,” Leo muttered, fishing for his gum again. “Yo-Yo Moo, or Mah, or something or other. She plays the same bloody thing every time.”

  Carefully, O’Hagan sliced open the thick layers of opaque tarp, peeling it back as if a chrysalis to reveal the pupa therein. A pupa that would now never grow into the butterfly she was once destined to become. Her skin was a translucent white, blue veins evident beneath, the nipples of her breasts small and dark rose in color. A gold ring looped through the left nipple.

  “Remarkably well preserved considering the extent of anthropophagy on the head,” O’Hagan said, revealing a flat stomach upon which the decedent’s hands appeared to have been folded, one atop the other. O’Hagan cut away more rope and stripped back more of the thick plastic.

  The tattoo was instantly evident.

  Everyone fell silent.

  “Well, fuck me,” Leo whispered, coming sharply forward to the autopsy table in spite of himself.

  Writhing serpents twisted across their victim’s lower abdomen—the snakes coming from a Medusa’s head, and the Medusa’s screaming, open maw with fanged teeth was positioned right over the victim’s shaved pubic area, as if the Medusa’s mouth opened to the vagina and that anything inserted into that Medusa’s throat would be swallowed alive. O’Hagan stilled, frowned. A sense of foreboding swelled into the room.

  The doc bent closer, gently opening wider the labia majora with two gloved fingers, as if revealing the pink insides of the mouth of the Medusa.

  The cello strings softened to barely a whisper.

  She looked up, eyes clear and serious. “The clitoral hood, clitoral glans, and labia minora have been excised,” she said quietly. “She’s been circumcised.”

  They stared at the doc.

  The doors hissed open, and everyone jumped.

  “Hey, Doc. Anyone for some supper or snacks?” Leo and Maddocks spun around to see a cherub-cheeked blonde who’d entered the morgue pushing a food trolley. The detectives stared at her as if she represented the outside world that had somehow just invaded their alien alternate reality of horror and cold and dead.

  THE BAPTIST

  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

  —Psalms 5:15

  It’s Sunday evening when he places three rolls of duct tape and a box of extra-thin blue latex gloves into his shopping cart at the Druggie Mart in James Bay. He’s run out of gloves, and he likes to keep a pair in his pocket at all times, like a detective. He once tried to become a cop. But upon application, he learned that he suffers from a red-green color v
ision deficiency. Normal color vision is one of the minimum requirements listed to join the Metro PD. Until his application, he hadn’t even known he was partially color blind.

  But he’s learned to think like a cop nevertheless, in the same way police learn to think like criminals. He slows at the aisle with protein powders, selects a tin of his favorite complex. Expensive, but worth the cost. His body is his temple.

  Self-care is a sign of self-respect, Johnny boy …

  He runs at least forty Ks per week, works out using the outdoor gym equipment in the park down the road. It keeps him sharp. Focused. Strong. He likes the way exercise makes him look. Women appreciate it, too. He sees the way they stare at him when he works shirtless in the sun.

  He enters the cosmetic aisle, finds the lipstick he’s looking for—Cherry Blush Red. He takes his purchases to the checkout. The store is located on the corner just down the street from their house, and he likes to walk. The vehicle is for his more private nocturnal activities, when he needs to transport bigger things, and he keeps it safely locked away in the garage.

  “How’s your mom doing?” says the store owner, Oliver Tam, beginning to ring in the purchases. The Druggie Mart is a small family-run business, and Tam often works the checkout himself. His mother likes Tam, likes to support local businesses that have not been gobbled up by major chains.

  “Good,” he says, setting the lipstick on the counter, then the protein powder. “Getting much better.” But his attention is suddenly riveted by the headline on the newspaper on the rack beside the checkout. His hand stills.

  Violent Sexual Assault in Ross Bay Cemetery—Young Woman Left in Coma

  It’s the first he’s seen of this news.

  He was up late last night. His work made him so tired that he slept most of today, waking only around 5:00 p.m. Tam nods toward the City Sun front page. “Terrible attack on that young woman,” he says. “That’s this morning’s issue, but latest on the radio is that she died. Only sixteen years old. Drowned. How in the hell does that happen in a hospital?” He moves the first bag of goods to the end of the counter. “They said on the radio that she’d been mutilated, a crucifix carved right into her forehead. And then there was the body found this morning floating under the Johnson Street Bridge. All bound up in plastic or something. Apparently she could be that missing woman from two weeks ago. Fine way to head into Christmas—that new mayor better live up to his promises.”