“Prostitute?” Loomis said speculatively. “Some anonymous John had his wicked way with her, then brought her out here to die.”
“We’re a long way from the Trail.” Maggie’s comment referred to a particular stretch of Orange Blossom, notorious as one of Orlando’s hottest red-light districts.
“Make the ride in fifteen minutes,” he said with a shrug, as though he knew from experience.
“Running every red along the way.”
“Even quicker on the turnpike. Doable, either way. Not that he’d have any rush. Look where we are. Isolated. This time of night, he could take his time. Wouldn’t surprise me if they did the deed right here on the sand before he strangled her.”
Maggie glanced at him. “Strangled?”
Loomis folded his arms. “Just putting it out there.”
Maggie edged a little closer, dropping to her haunches. This close she could feel the heat still coming off the charred flesh. “The real question is, if she is a prostitute, why bring her all the way out here in the first place? There are plenty of other isolated areas closer to the Trail.”
Loomis shrugged again. “Maybe he’s local. Maybe he felt comfortable dumping her in his own backyard. Let’s face it, Novak, unless you know this place is here, you wouldn’t know it exists. I mean, come on, take a look around you. This spot is secluded, which is exactly what you need if you want to set fire to a body without anyone raising the alarm. No better place to burn off all the incriminating evidence without some hapless passerby stumbling right into it.”
“Only, somebody did.” She leaned closer, sniffing. “Do you smell that?”
“No good asking me. Everything here smells like toasted marshmallow. In fact, it’s beginning to make my stomach rumble.”
Maggie shook her head. “What is it with you and food? It smells like he used gasoline as an accelerant.”
“Only way to get this kind of party started.”
Maggie held a hand over the burned skull. “Still giving off quite a bit of heat. Can’t be more than a couple of hours.” She ran her flashlight along the part of the body in contact with the ground, where a three-inch ribbon of pink flesh and intact clothing separated the burned tissue from the sand. “Looks like he didn’t use enough accelerant, though. Most of her back appears to be intact. Clothing as well.”
“First timer?”
“Maybe.”
“I guess you’ve got to start somewhere. There’s no manual for murder.”
Maggie took photos with her phone, the flash pulling out every bit of the macabre. There was something magnetic about the burned body. Something that seemed to warp the air, pulling down on the light and drawing everything closer, including her.
Hardly breathing, she took several close-ups of the hands fused to the face, and the gold band on the remains of the ring finger.
“Looks like she’s married,” Maggie said. “Might rule out your prostitute angle, Loomis. Plus, the presence of a ring goes toward ruling out a mugging.”
“Maybe.”
“No idea if she was alive when he set her on fire, though.”
The thought was an uncomfortable one.
The truth was, until the medical examiner’s autopsy report came back, it was impossible to say one way or the other. The positioning of her hands on her face was odd, Maggie thought, and she couldn’t imagine the woman being able to keep her face protected in such a way while fire consumed the rest of her.
“Hey, Novak,” Loomis said, pointing with his flashlight at the narrow beach. “Check out the fresh prints.”
Maggie got to her feet.
A yard-wide strip of coffee-colored mud formed a clear division between the sand and the stained water. Several boot imprints were pressed into the mud, overlapping but distinct, noticeably deeper in the heel area.
“Could be size twelve,” Loomis said as they edged closer. “Thirteen at a push. Definitely recent either way. The heel impressions are deep, but haven’t completely filled with water yet.”
Maggie took a photograph, then turned her attention to the lake itself. Now that every last bit of daylight was gone, the lake was all but invisible—just an expanse of darkness punctuated by a freckling of tiny house lights on what Maggie assumed was the opposite shore a few miles distant.
“Looks like he stood here facing out,” she said. “The deeper heel impressions indicate someone leaning back, maybe as they threw something out into the water.”
Maggie swept her flashlight across the black water. Almost immediately, the beam struck a small exposed mud mound about twenty feet offshore. An elongated hump about ten yards long, covered in tall green reeds. Her beam landed on a red angular object caught in the stems.
“Some kind of bag,” Loomis said, aiming his own flashlight at it. “Could be a woman’s purse. Maybe that’s what the killer tossed?”
“Guess there’s only one way to find out.” Maggie pulled off the plastic overshoes and stepped into the water.
She heard Loomis fumble out his handgun behind her.
“What do you think you’re doing, Novak?”
“My job.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Possibly.” She took another few steps, the lukewarm water climbing above her ankles. “Relax. It’s much shallower than it looks.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. It’s the indigenous wildlife. Especially the ones with big pointy teeth.”
Another few steps and the water was halfway up her boots. Disturbed mud swirling, clouding. One or two inquisitive mosquitos flickering in her flashlight.
“You do know alligators are bulletproof?” she said, pausing midway to glance back over her shoulder at him. “I’m serious, Loomis. A gator comes close, you need to hit it right between the eyes.” She demonstrated by touching a fingertip to the slight hollow between her eyebrows. “Right here in the sweet spot. Or else it’s game over for me. Think you can do that?”
As if on cue, something made a loud splashing noise out in the darkness, and she heard Loomis release an expletive, his flashlight sweeping left and right, as though its glare would ward off any approaching predators.
She snickered. “It’s just mullet jumping.”
“Just hurry it up, Novak. You’re making me sweat here.”
Maggie took a photo of the reed mound before continuing to slosh across the narrow. She clamped the flashlight in her mouth as she reached the mound, taking another photo of the object snagged up in the reeds.
“It’s a purse all right,” she said, retrieving it from its perch.
“You think it’s the victim’s?”
“I think it’s too big a coincidence for it not to be.” Maggie examined the handbag. Red leather with a faux crocodile texture. Metal clasps, glinting in the flashlight. “It seems fairly dry. Clean. We had rain earlier. Like those footprints, it hasn’t been here long. I’ll lay odds the killer tossed it out here.”
“What brand?”
She glanced up, squinting. “Does it matter?”
“You know as well as I do, Novak. The brand of a woman’s purse says more about the kind of woman she is than what’s inside it.”
Maggie pointed at a gold-colored bag charm dangling from the handle—the letters M and K set within a circle.
“Nice,” Loomis said. “Those things aren’t cheap.”
“Which confirms she wasn’t mugged, and completely rules out the prostitution angle.”
“Thanks, Novak. Shoot my theory down in flames already.”
Maggie popped the magnetic clasp and peered inside.
She located, amid the usual absolutely necessary clutter found in every woman’s purse, a slim wallet, inside of which was a driver’s license registered in Florida.
Maggie held it under her flashlight for a closer look.
The woman in the photograph appeared to be fortyish, with saggy jowls and mousy hair. She looked slightly sad, Maggie thought, in the way that people did when life had failed to pan out how they’
d hoped it would, resulting in a lifetime of letdowns and unwinnable battles.
And something else.
Something that froze the air in Maggie’s lungs.
“What’s up, Novak?” Loomis called. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
But all at once Maggie couldn’t speak, couldn’t put into words or in context what her eyes were seeing. It was as though a disconnect had occurred between her visual and cerebral cortexes, causing her thoughts to crash into one another, hitting a mental wall and rebounding.
“Novak? Say something. You’re beginning to scare the bejesus out of me here.”
With her heart jackhammering in her chest, Maggie stared at the photo again, right into the adult eyes of her childhood friend. A friend whom she knew had burned to death twenty years earlier.
Chapter Three
ONE FOR THE TEAM
Earth calling Maggie Novak. Come in, Maggie Novak.”
It took an effort of will for Maggie to drag her gaze from the driver’s license, to break the spell that had her thoughts tripping over one another, none of them able to answer the one question burning a hole in her mind:
How was this possible?
Maggie blew out a cool breath as her initial shock began to wane, pushed aside by years of police work and her natural need to understand.
It was true: her friend had burned to death.
But not here. Not tonight.
She’d died in her sleep, in a house fire twenty years ago, along with her family.
At least, that’s what Maggie and everybody else had been led to believe.
Now, she didn’t know what to think.
This was definitely her.
Or was it?
The name on the license was different.
Had Halloween knocked her off-balance, and was her mind playing tricks on her?
Suddenly unsure, Maggie looked again at the photo, calling on her senses to be objective. As an investigator, she was trained to question everything, to trust the evidence no matter how unbelievable it might seem. Twenty years had passed since she’d last seen her friend. Plenty of time for memories to fade, or change. Yet even with the different name, she couldn’t get past the fact that her gut was insisting this was her childhood friend.
“Talk to me, Novak,” Loomis called as she stuffed the wallet and the license back in the purse. “On my own with the DB here. Feeling slightly freaked out.”
“The victim,” she said as she waded back to the beach, “I think I know her. Or at least I used to know her when we were teenagers. I haven’t seen her for twenty years. What’s strange is that the driver’s license has her down as a Dana Cullen from Paradise Heights.”
“It’s just around the lake from here. Not that strange.”
“It is when I tell you I knew her as Rita Grigoryan.”
Loomis’s flashlight tracked Maggie like a searchlight. “I don’t follow. I thought you said she’s Dana Cullen?”
“That’s what her driver’s license says. But I’m telling you her name used to be Rita Grigoryan.” She climbed out onto the beach.
“And you’re sure it’s her?
“Rita was like a sister to me. I’d recognize her anywhere. Here, hold this a sec.” She handed him the purse.
“So how do you explain the different name?”
“I can’t. Not yet, anyway.” Maggie went over to the burned corpse again. Even with her newfound knowledge of the victim’s likely identity, the body didn’t look any less ghoulish the second time around. It was an image straight out of Maggie’s nightmares.
She angled her flashlight so that it illuminated the charred fingers covering the face. Then she took a zoomed-in photograph with her phone. “Rita lost the end of her pinky when we were kids.” She pointed at the victim’s left hand. “See. The tip’s missing.”
“Okay. So why do I sense there’s more to this than meets the eye? What aren’t you telling me, Novak?”
Maggie looked up at him. “Because there’s an even bigger problem with this picture than the name issue.”
“Which is . . . ?”
“Rita Grigoryan died twenty years ago.”
She saw confusion descend over his face.
“Died?” he said. “As in dead, died?”
“She burned to death in a house fire when we were teenagers. Rita and her whole family.” She saw his confusion grow into disbelief. “I know. It makes no sense whatsoever.”
“Unless you’re mistaken.”
“I’m not. It’s her.”
“But all you’re going off is a thumbnail photograph.”
“And the missing pinky.”
“Which isn’t unique, Novak.”
“You’re right.” She stood straight, taking the purse back from him. “I can see exactly how this looks. But you have to trust me on this, Loomis. Rita and I spent the first eighteen years of our lives together. We were like sisters, virtually inseparable. I’d recognize her face even if I hadn’t seen it in fifty years.”
He seemed to think about it.
“I’m not mistaken.”
“Okay,” he said at last. “For argument’s sake, let’s say this is your childhood friend, who supposedly died twenty years ago. Aside from resurrection and cloning, how do you even begin to explain it?”
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to wrap my own head around it. I’m all out of answers right now. But I will find out.”
For several silent seconds, they both stared at the burned body.
Then Loomis said, “Come on. Let’s go. This place is seriously creeping me out.”
Back on the street, and armed with a crime scene kit and a portable lamp, Maggie set about documenting the contents of the purse, examining each item in detail before photographing, bagging, labeling, attaching a chain-of-custody receipt, and then laying the item out on the protective plastic sheet she’d spread across the hood of the Sheriff’s Explorer. Itemizing evidence wasn’t something she found herself doing all that often, but according to Smits, Forensics Squad was busy processing an incident near Windermere, and the burned body at Lake Apopka had been downgraded to second priority. Faced with the possibility of a lengthy wait, Maggie had decided that being proactive was by far the best way to keep her thoughts from running away with her.
And so, while Loomis busied himself making small talk with the deputies, Maggie processed the contents of the purse.
For the most part, the items turned out to be unremarkable. Just the usual can’t-leave-home-withouts that cause men to scratch their heads—including various store-brand makeup products, lip salves, pill bottles, purchase receipts, loose change, keys, and the obligatory smartphone. The only item that seemed unusual was an oval of curved wood with the glyph of a bear engraved into it and a small drilled hole off-center.
Why didn’t you die in that house fire, Rita?
The cell phone was a $500 iPhone in a $5 clip-on cover. Maggie powered it up. The screen brightened instantly, presenting her with the picture of a desert landscape and a lock screen that was passable only with a fingerprint.
Rita’s . . . No . . . Dana’s fingerprint.
Dana . . . Rita . . . Maggie’s head swam, trying to reconcile the two. Despite the missing finger, Loomis was still unconvinced that Dana was Rita. Maggie got it. But she was in no doubt about the victim’s true identity. Maggie recognized that sullen face, knew that sad gaze that seemed to be able to look right inside her.
However, to avoid unnecessary confusion, she decided to refer to the victim as Dana, keeping Rita confined to her private thoughts, at least for now, where she had been the last twenty years.
Why did you change your name?
Maggie turned the phone over in her hands, wondering how likely it would be for the chief medical examiner to salvage a viable print from the burned fingertips. Not that he wouldn’t give it his best shot, she was sure; Maury Elkin was nothing if not tenacious. Give him a challenge and he’d take it by the horns and run with it, sometim
es to the detriment of everything else, including his life outside the ME’s office.
Otherwise, it would be down to the Digital Forensics Unit to hack the phone, and Maggie knew such things were easier said than done.
Where have you been for all these years?
Experimentally, Maggie pressed her index finger against the sensor, but was denied access.
She heard Loomis emit a whooping laugh, and she looked around to see him sharing a joke with the deputies. In a job like theirs, some degree of gallows humor was permitted, if not essential, even if it had to be forced.
As crazy as it sounded, Ed Loomis had a hypersensitivity toward death.
For as long as she’d known him, it had always been the case that being in close proximity to a dead body for any length of time made Loomis nervous, even if that dead body wasn’t in his direct line of sight. Just knowing that it was in his general vicinity was enough to make him on edge.
The first time it had happened in her company, Maggie had found it amusing—probably because a street-hardened undercover narcotics cop, and someone who had chosen to move into homicides, could get spooked so easily over a dead body—but then she’d learned sometime later that his parents had both been killed when he was a small child, and that he’d stayed with their corpses for two whole days until help had arrived. Now, whenever his anxiety surfaced, she’d let it run its course, knowing that the best way to combat it was with distraction.
She bagged the phone and turned her attention to the bunch of keys.
Except for a Chevrolet key fob with a Minnie Mouse sticker on it, the keys appeared to belong to regular house locks. Wishful, Maggie held the car key above her head and pressed the red panic button, listening for any distant chime of an alarm, but none sounded.
Why were you here tonight?
The absence of Dana’s vehicle at the crime scene suggested that she hadn’t made her own way to the lake. Even though Dana’s home address was only a couple of miles away to the north, Maggie couldn’t imagine her walking here. Not on Halloween. Either she’d arrived by taxi, which Maggie would check, or she’d been driven here, probably by her killer.
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