by Lisa Gardner
Kaplan narrowed his eyes, considering the possibilities. “Why would someone use a bigger needle?”
“Different-sized needles are used for a variety of different procedures.” Dr. Corben’s brow furrowed. “Sometimes to inject large amounts of a substance at a faster rate, you need a larger-bore needle. Or when mixing substances, you would use a larger needle. Now, here’s something interesting. The second injection site, the arm. Note the relatively small amount of aggravation we see here. Just the slightest swollen spot. That’s more like what we would typically see—consistent with a standard eighteen-gauge needle. Granted, the limited amount of bruising is also due to the fact she died shortly thereafter. But either way, this injection is clearly more skillfully done. Either it’s two different needles, or it’s two very different approaches toward intramuscular injections.”
“So first she’s injected in the hip,” Kaplan mused slowly. “Forcefully and/or with a very large needle. Then, later, she’s injected in the arm. But more controlled, more carefully. How much time occurred between the two?”
Dr. Corben frowned. He resumed studying the first bruise with his fingers. “Given the large size, it had time to develop. But notice the coloring is all purple and dark blues? None of the green and yellow tinges that happen later. I’d say twelve to twenty-four hours between the hip puncture and the injection into the arm.”
“Ambush,” Kimberly murmured.
Special Agent Kaplan turned on her. He had the hard stare again. “Come again?”
“Ambush.” She forced herself to speak up louder. “The first bruise … If it could be caused by more force, then maybe it’s from an ambush. How he gains initial control. Later, when she’s already subdued, he can take more time for the final injection.”
She was thinking of what Mac had said about the Georgia murders. How the girls found first always had bruises on their hips, plus a fatal injection mark on their upper left arms. She’d never heard of such an MO before. What were the odds that two different killers were using it in two different states?
Dr. Corben had the recorder back on. He rolled the body onto its back, noted the absence of bruises and contusions, then finished his initial exam by narrating the condition of the mouth. Nitsche handed him some kind of standardized form, and he quickly and efficiently sketched each one of the external injuries he’d noted in the protocol.
They moved on to her hands. They had been bagged at the scene. Now Nitsche pulled off the paper bags and both prosecutor and diener leaned close. Dr. Corben scraped beneath each nail. Nitsche collected the samples. Next Dr. Corben swabbed around each nail bed with a Q-tip, testing for traces of blood. He looked up at Kaplan and shook his head. “No signs of defensive wounds,” he reported. “No skin, no blood.”
Kaplan sighed and resumed leaning against the wall. “Not my lucky day,” he murmured.
As the victim’s hands had now been examined for evidence, Nitsche brought over an inkpad for fingerprinting. The body, however, had achieved full rigor since being found and the stiff fingers refused to cooperate.
Dr. Corben moved up to assist her. He worked the first joint of the girl’s index finger until with a faint popping sound, the rigor broke. Nitsche started inking, and Dr. Corben methodically worked his way through both hands, each popping sound echoing faintly in the cold tile room and bringing up bile in the back of Kimberly’s throat.
I will not be sick, she promised herself. And then—Oh God, this is only the external exam.
Fingerprinting done, Dr. Corben moved down the body to between the girl’s—the deceased’s—legs. While the condition of her clothing had been inconsistent with rape, he still had to examine the body itself.
“No bruising of the inner thighs, no lacerations of the labia majora or labia minora,” Dr. Corben reported. He combed the pubic hair and Nitsche collected the loose strands in another bag. Then he picked up three swabs.
Now Kimberly had to look away. The young girl was dead. Far beyond insult or injury. But Kimberly couldn’t watch. Her fingers were knotted, her breathing shallow. She was once more aware of the strong smell of the room, and the feel of sweat on her back. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Kaplan was now intently studying the floor.
“From the external exam,” Dr. Corben concluded shortly, “there is no evidence of sexual assault. Now then, let’s get her cleaned up.”
Kimberly’s eyes flew open. Nitsche had just moved into position and she and Dr. Corben were now hosing down the body. Kimberly’s bewilderment must have shown on her face, because Dr. Corben spoke up above the spray of water: “After concluding the external exam, we wash the body before making the first incision. You don’t want factors from the outside—dirt, fiber, debris—contaminating the internal organs and confusing your findings. The outside had its stories to tell. Now, it’s the inside’s turn.”
Dr. Corben matter-of-factly turned off the hose, passed out plastic goggles, and picked up a scalpel.
Kimberly went green. She was trying hard. She had seen crime-scene photos, dammit. She wasn’t a novice to violent death.
But she felt herself sway on her feet anyway. She told herself to hold it together, but then she looked at the young girl’s face, and that did it completely.
“Oh my God,” she gasped, “what is in her mouth?”
It was there, unmistakable now, the shadow of the thing Dr. Corben had sensed earlier. First the girl’s left cheek bulged, pale and waxy. Then with dazzling speed, her right cheek went, until it looked like she was puffing up her mouth while staring at them with her dead brown eyes.
Kaplan was fumbling with his holster. Kimberly was fumbling, too. He brought out a gun. She brought out a red plastic toy. Shit, damn. She dropped down to her ankle, without ever taking her gaze off the girl’s face.
“Stand back,” Kaplan said.
Dr. Corben and his attendant needed no urging. Nitsche’s gaze was wide and fascinated. Dr. Corben had that pale tight look from earlier in the day. “It could be gases from decomp,” he tried vainly. “She was out in intense heat.”
“The body just achieved full rigor. It’s not that far along,” Kaplan muttered tightly.
The cheeks bulged again. Moved from side to side.
“I think …” Kimberly’s voice came out too faintly. She licked her lips, tried again. “I think there’s something in there. In her mouth. That’s why he stitched it shut.”
“Holy shit!” Nitsche said with awe.
“Mother of God,” Kaplan murmured.
Kimberly stared at Dr. Corben. His right hand was shaking badly. She was pretty sure nothing like this had ever happened in one of his postmortems before. The look on his face said he’d retire before letting it happen again. “Sir,” she said as calmly as she could, “you have the scalpel. You need … You need to cut the stitching.”
“I will not!”
“Whatever’s in there has gotta come out. It’s better on our terms than its.”
Kaplan was nodding slowly. “She has a point. We need to do the autopsy. So whatever’s there, needs to go.”
Dr. Corben looked at them both wildly. He definitely was thinking of an argument. He definitely wanted to argue. But then his scientific mind seemed to reassert itself. He glanced at the body again, watched the horrible distortion of its face, and slowly, very slowly, nodded.
“Eye gear on,” he said at last. “Masks, gloves. Whatever it is, I want us to be prepared.” And then, almost as an afterthought, “Gina, stand next to the special agent.”
Nitsche moved hastily behind Kaplan’s large build. Kimberly straightened up and worked on her own composure. Knees slightly bent, legs ready to move. She put on her goggles, her Crayola long since discarded on the floor, and her favorite hunting knife now in her hand.
Dr. Corben moved gingerly. He got just close enough to be able to touch the girl’s stitched-up mouth with his scalpel, without his body being in the line of fire for Kaplan’s gun.
“On the count o
f three,” Dr. Corben said tightly. “One. Two. Three.”
The scalpel went slash, slash. Dr. Corben fell back from the body, his feet already scrambling. And a dark, mottled shape exploded from its unwanted prison and hurtled halfway across the tiled floor.
One moment Kimberly was alone in her corner of the room. The next, she saw the unmistakable, brown-splotched shape of a coiled rattler. The viper reared up with an ominous hiss.
Kaplan’s Glock exploded in the tiny room, and Kimberly hurled her knife.
CHAPTER 12
Quantico, Virginia
5:14 P.M.
Temperature: 97 degrees
Mac was standing outside a classroom asking Genny if she happened to know of a good botanist in the state of Virginia, when the blurred form of a blue-clad figure came roaring down the hall. The next instant, he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder, just had time to look up in surprise, and promptly got whacked again by his favorite new agent.
“You did not say anything about snakes!” Kimberly Quincy swung a solid right; he barely dodged left. “You did not say anything about leaving live vipers in their mouths!” She followed with a jab to the ribs; he fell back three steps. For a tiny thing, she really could hit.
“You lying, manipulating, cold-hearted bastard!” She took a good wind-up and he came to his senses just in time to block the blow, twist her arm behind her back, and turn her into the solid restraint of his body. She, of course, tried to flip him over her back.
“Sugar,” he murmured in her ear. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but maybe you’d like to wait ’til we’re alone.”
He felt the outrage scream through her stiffened frame, but then his words must’ve penetrated. She seemed to become aware of their surroundings. For example, as students generally didn’t assault other students in the halls of the Academy, she now had everyone’s full attention. Genny’s gaze was most amused. She had it locked on Mac’s face with blatantly unconcealed interest.
“Just practicing a little drill,” Mac drawled out loud. “You know, always happy to help out a new agent.” He gingerly released Kimberly’s arm. She didn’t hit him, or stomp on his foot, so he figured he was making some progress. “Now then, darlin’, why don’t we go outside where we can discuss other ways for ambushing a possible suspect?”
He hightailed it for the double doors. After another awkward moment, Kimberly scrambled after him. She managed to make it all the way around the corner of the building to a somewhat isolated flagstone patio before she went after him again.
“Why didn’t you warn me about the stitched-up mouth!” she yelled.
He threw up his hands in surrender. “Warn you about what? I still don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“He left a rattlesnake in her mouth. A real live rattler!”
“Well, that’ll put hair on your chest. Did you hit the rattler as hard as you hit me?”
“I threw a knife at it!”
“Of course.”
She scowled. “But I missed. Special Agent Kaplan shot it with his gun.”
Ah, no wonder she was pissed. Her big moment, and she missed throwing a knife at a striking viper. The girl did have her standards.
“I want my Glock!” she was still raging.
“I know, honey, I know.” His arms had come down. He was thinking hard. “A live snake,” he said at last. “I didn’t see that coming. Once he left an alligator’s egg down a girl’s throat. And for the last one, Mary Lynn, he used a snail. But I never … A live rattler. Damn, give a guy three years and he goes and gets mean.”
And that frightened him. God, that frightened him all the way down to his big Southern bones.
Kimberly didn’t seem to have heard him. Her hands were rubbing her arms compulsively, as if she were trying to ward off a chill in hundred-degree heat. She was also holding herself carefully, a woman made out of glass and trying not to shatter.
Shock, he realized. He belatedly pulled out one of the wrought-iron chairs and gestured to the seat. “Come on. Sit. Take a minute. Autopsy’s over, honey. Nothin’ can happen to you here.”
“Tell that to the dead girl,” Kimberly said roughly, but she accepted the chair and, for a moment, they both simply sat in silence.
Kimberly didn’t know it yet, but Mac had been doing his own investigative work that afternoon. For starters, he’d inquired all about her. And boy, it had been quite an education. In the good news department, his current partner-in-solving-crime came with a genuine law enforcement pedigree. Her father had reputedly been a brilliant profiler in his day. Handled a lot of cases, put away a lot of very bad guys.
Rumor had it that his daughter had inherited his brains and aptitude for anticipating the criminal mind.
Bad news, however—the daughter was also regarded as a little bit of a head case. Didn’t like authority figures. Didn’t like her fellow classmates. Didn’t seem to actually like much of anyone, which may explain why every time Mac ran into her, she was trying to kill him.
Of course, then there was what had happened to her family. Losing most of your relatives to a homicidal maniac was bound to make an impression on you. Perhaps Mac should just be grateful she hadn’t actually inflicted bodily harm on him yet.
Mac stole another glance beneath the cover of his eyelids. Kimberly’s gaze was off in the distance, her eyes unfocused. She appeared profoundly exhausted, haggard beyond measure, with deep shadows bruising her eyes and a patchwork of red scratches still welting her skin.
The girl definitely wasn’t sleeping at night. And that was before she’d met him.
“Was it an overdose?” he asked at last.
She seemed to rouse herself from her daze. “I don’t know the results of the tox screen. But she was hit first—and forcefully—by something in the upper left thigh. Later, probably after twelve to twenty-four hours had passed, she received the fatal injection in her upper left arm.”
“Intramuscular injections?” Mac asked.
“Yes.”
“All her clothes were intact? Her purse? No sexual assault?”
“Yes on all counts.”
“What about defensive wounds? Blood, skin, anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Shit,” Mac said heavily.
She nodded.
“They have an ID?”
“Not yet. They took her prints. They’ll need time to run them through the system.”
“We need to know who she is,” Mac murmured. “We’ll need a list of her friends and family, who she was out with last night. Where they went, what was the make and model of their car … Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair, his mind beginning to race. “It’s already been at least twelve hours … Jesus. Who’s in charge of the case?”
“Special Agent Kaplan.”
“I’d better go talk to him.”
“Good luck,” Kimberly snorted.
“He let you watch the autopsy.”
“Only because I promised to throw up.”
“Did you?”
“I was thinking about it,” she admitted. “But the rattler put a damper on things. Then Kaplan exploded its head, and then we all had to debate how carefully to clean up snake guts, as you could consider them evidence.”
“You had quite a first autopsy,” Mac said seriously.
“Yeah,” she sighed. She seemed rather surprised by the notion herself. “I think other ones will be easier after this.”
“I think they will be.”
They both lapsed back into silence, Kimberly probably thinking of the snake she still wished she’d killed; Mac contemplating past cases that once more loomed larger than life.
The heat settled in on them, rolling in like a heavy blanket and pressing them deep into their chairs while their clothing glued to their skin. Mac used to not mind heat like this. It was perfect for sitting next to his parents’ pool. Put on a little Alan Jackson, drink a lot of homemade lemonade. And later, when dusk fell, watch the fireflies flicker and dart in th
e purple-tinged air.
He didn’t think of idyllic summer days anymore. Summer had become the enemy, when heat waves would roll in, and girls would no longer be safe, even when traveling in pairs.
He needed to call Atlanta. He needed to figure out how to best approach this Special Agent Kaplan. And then they were going to need resources. ASAP. The best experts they could find. A botanist, biologist, a forensic geologist, an entomologist, and God knows what other kind of ologists. Was there an expert on snakes? They should find someone who knew everything about rattlers and what it signified when one burst out of a dead girl’s mouth.
Then there was the rock, of course, which Mac hadn’t even gotten to see. And the leaf they’d recovered this morning, but he’d had no luck tracing. And that was just the clues/evidence he knew off the top of his head.
He needed the body, that was the deal. The clothes would be good to study as well. And her purse, her hair, her sandals. This guy liked to leave clues in the damnedest places, and it sounded like he was refining his technique all the time. A live rattlesnake crammed into a body …
Shit. Just plain … shit.
Nearby doors opened. Mac heard footsteps approach, then a shadow fell across their patio. A man stood in front of them. Mac didn’t recognize him, but he could tell from the look on Kimberly’s face that she did.
“Kimberly,” the man said quietly.
“Dad,” she said with equal reserve.
Mac’s eyebrows had just disappeared beneath his hairline when the man, older, trim, and very impressive looking in a deep gray suit, turned toward him.
“And you must be Special Agent McCormack. Pierce Quincy. Pleased to meet you.”
Mac accepted the man’s handshake. And then he knew. A funny grin came across his face. The bottom dropped out of his stomach, and he heard a faint ringing in his ears. He had been so concerned that the NCIS had done nothing in the past eight hours. But, apparently, they had done something after all.