Where All the Dead Lie

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Sam Loughley was patiently waiting for Stuart Charisse to finish his lunch so they could get back to work. She didn’t have much of an appetite, had settled for a bag of chips out of the vending machine. Salt and fat, that matched her mood.

They had three bodies to post this afternoon, one of whom was the hit-and-run victim from yesterday. Sam might have thought to recuse herself had the lab been staffed to capacity, but as it was, she was two doctors and one death investigator short. The remaining MEs were all sharing duties in order to allow them some actual time off. Which meant Sam got stuck with double shifts five days a week until she got some budget work cleared up and another couple of MEs hired. Sometimes she wondered if she should turn the shop over to someone else, an administrator, but the idea of giving that level of control to a stranger made her numb with worry.

Marcus Wade was planning to attend the post. Sam liked all of the players on Taylor’s team, but she had a soft spot for Marcus. He hadn’t gotten jaded yet. She hoped that would never change, that he could keep part of himself innocent, separate from all of the horrors they saw on a daily basis.

Plus, he laughed at her jokes.

The Jaguar, an older model XJ6, hadn’t been found. It was probably sitting in someone’s garage, groaning from the beating it took. Cars don’t like to hit people almost as much as people don’t like to be hit by cars.

She went to the computer and started reviewing the case details. A late entry by the death investigator, Keri McGee-whom she’d stolen away from Metro’s crime lab a month earlier when her favorite ’gator took a bigger and better job in Alabama-caught her eye.

Victim has $1,000 in cash in her pocket, in a plain white envelope. Ten brand-new one hundred dollar bills. One bill seems to have a stain on it, blue, as yet unidentifiable. Sent to lab for testing.

Now that was weird. The woman had been dressed in nice but utilitarian clothes, designer-label slacks and a blouse, both with the label cut, indicating she’d bought them at a steep discount from an outlet store. Her wool coat had a Macy’s label, but it was threadbare, lived in, and about five years out of style. She wore black sneakers, the soles nearly worn through but with brand-new cushioned sports inserts inside, which screamed that she was on her feet all day.

Walking around with a spare thousand bucks in her pocket? No way.

Sam went back to the woman’s body, looked at her feet. Sure enough, they were covered with calluses. Her hands were also rough and cracked, the nails short and neatly filed. Menial labor then, maybe in a restaurant kitchen. Hard way for a middle-aged woman to live. Especially if she was undocumented. The simple fact that her family had clammed up was a clue that she wasn’t in the States legally.

Not a huge surprise. Though the laws were stringent now, for a time, Tennessee had possessed the most lax immigration regulations in the country, to the point of allowing thousands of undocumented workers to get driver’s licenses with just a pay stub and water or electric bill to “prove” residency. They’d come from all over the United States, and south of the border, to purchase that little piece of plastic that said they belonged. No more; the laws had changed and were practically draconian in comparison. Proof of citizenship was required now.

But in its wake, the initial freedoms had left behind a massive gang problem. Mainly members of MS-13. Not a nice bunch of folks. Sam saw the vestiges of their march for primacy almost daily.

She heard whistling from the corridor, and a few moments later, Marcus appeared, his floppy brown hair under a University of Tennessee baseball cap, Stuart hot on his heels.

“Sorry I’m late,” Marcus said. “Crazy morning. Did you hear about it?”

Sam shook her head. She’d been well lost in her own thoughts. “No, what happened? You catch a break on our hit-and-run?”

Marcus glanced at the naked body of their Jane Doe. “No, not her. Though I do have a name, Marias Gonzalez. Guatemalan. Undocumented. She lives over in South Nashville, Antioch area, near Nolensville. I’m heading there after the post. No, the big excitement was we got the guy who left that jump drive at Cafe Coco, the one with all the kiddie porn on it? Remember?”

Sam did remember. What sort of idiot went to public computers, popped in a jump drive and looked at pornographic pictures of children, then managed to leave the jump drive behind? That was beyond her comprehension. Metro had been trying to make an arrest in the case for almost two months. Taylor had told her the man was a true sociopath and extremely dangerous-trying to get away with such a personal act in public was indicative of his narcissism.

“Yeah, he’s a grad student at Vanderbilt. Looks like an Abercrombie and Fitch model, all square jawed and handsome. He wasn’t so pretty crying his eyes out, I’ll tell you that. Stupid fool. We’re going to wrap up a whole ring of local and national pedophiles with the information on his computer. Lincoln’s combing through the hard drive for Sex Crimes right now.”

“That’s wonderful news. One less creep on the street.”

“You said it, sister. He’s a piece of work. So let’s talk about Marias here. What’s her story?”

Sam gestured toward the computer, where the file was still open. “Did you see the note Keri left about the $1,000 in her pocket?”

“Yeah, I was there when they found it. The stain? Looks like it came from a dye pack to me.”

Sam stopped and looked at Marcus. “You mean from a bank robbery?”

“Exactly.”

“Ah,” she said.

“Ah is right. So you can imagine what’s going through my head.”

She could do exactly that. In addition to phantom kiddie diddlers romancing their twisted psyches in the coffee shops, the Regretful Robber continued to wreak havoc all over Metro.

“You think she’s in on the robberies?” Sam asked, pulling on her gloves and signaling to Stuart to prep for Ms. Gonzalez. Sam went to look at the X-rays. “Typical crush injuries on the X-rays, compound fractures of the tibia and fibula on both legs, the femurs also cracked. Skull fracture. The jackpot will be her brain. I’m expecting a large subdural hematoma. All that pressure and nowhere to go.”

“I suppose it’s possible she was the robber. Though the guys in Special Crimes have been working under the assumption that it’s a man.”

“You know what happens when you assume.”

“Ass. You. Me. Got it.”

“But if she’s involved, why come to the CJC? With your family in tow?”

“They were going to force her to confess?” Marcus said.

“Maybe. Or maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to, or her car was one of the ones that had been stolen. The $1,000 could have been remuneration-that is this guy’s M.O.”

“Also possible. But I think it was something more. Did you see the fibers they collected from her pocket?”

As they talked, Sam did her external on the victim, looking carefully for anything that wasn’t consistent with the accident. She made notes of cuts and bruises, saw nothing out of the ordinary, and signaled to Stuart, who took up his scalpel and opened the woman like he was pulling down a zipper. Marcus took an involuntary step back to avoid the splash of blood that welled over the edges of the incision.

“What fibers?” Sam asked. “I didn’t see it in the report.”

“Sloppy of them not to include it. There was a wad of something synthetic, almost like a tangle of fishing line, but much more delicate. I thought it was hair, but Keri said no, it wasn’t organic. I have no idea what it could be.”

“I want to see it,” Sam said. “Keri wouldn’t have made that mistake, I probably just didn’t read far enough along in her report.”

Stuart was making quick work of Marias’s post; she could step out for a moment. She and Marcus crossed the autopsy suite to the evidence room. The door was hermetically sealed; there was blood evidence in here that needed special attention. She set her finger on the new biometric scanner. All evidence was now kept under lock and key after one of her MEs had been caught stealing marijuana from the evidence lockers. He’d been fired immediately, and new security measures put into place, including cameras and the fingerprint scanner. It helped her keep track of who went where in the morgue.

Keri had left everything for the case right where it was supposed to be. Sam smiled. She liked having a tightly run ship. No searching, no wasted time and effort. She opened the evidence locker, found the bags that matched her case, then went through smaller envelopes until she located the one labeled Left Pocket.

Using tweezers, she teased out the wad of fibers. It only took her a second to identify them.

“Wig hair. This is from a wig.”

“Was she wearing a wig?”

“No.”

“Does the Regretful Robber wear a wig?”

“That I can’t answer.”

“All right. But why would she have wig hair in her pocket?”

Sam thought about it for a minute. “Maybe she’s got a family member with cancer. They lost their hair, she buys them a wig. She obviously doesn’t have much money. She might not be able to afford the real-hair ones they’re making now, those are surprisingly expensive.”

“That’s solid. But in her pocket?”

“Locard’s theory. Plain old transference. She touched the wig, the strands came away, and either she didn’t realize it, or she didn’t want to drop them on the floor so she just tucked them in her pocket.”

“Head’s ready,” Stuart called out.

They tidied up the evidence and went back to the body. The hematoma was visible on the brain, right where Sam expected it to be.

“Okay, go ahead,” she said to Stuart, who proceeded to remove the brain from its cavity. There was a large squelch as it came away. Sam watched Marcus pale. She’d had seasoned detectives drop at autopsy plenty of times, but Marcus had always been unflinching.

He shook his head. “Never have gotten used to that sound. The pop when the skull comes free, either.”

Stuart placed the brain gently on the dissection tray. “Brain’s ready,” he said.

Sam punched Marcus lightly on the arm. “The body is a temple of noises, my friend. You want to stick around for the dissection?”

Sam’s cart was all assembled with her knives, ready for the afternoon’s work. She was very particular about her knives. She had a set of stainless steel Henckels. They were no different than the set she had in her kitchen, except for her workhorse: the twelve-inch blade she used for hearts and livers. She had a regular eight-inch chef’s knife, two smaller slicing blades, a set of forceps and a pair of long, delicate, gold-tipped Metzenbaum scissors. Her tools were her pride and joy. She carried them in a large black leather knife case, like a chef. She didn’t trust anyone else’s tools. She even had a brand-new Dremel that she was itching to try out. Simon had given it to her for her birthday. Love between scientists at its best.

Marcus shook his head. “I think you have it under control. Let me know the final findings, okay? I need to get down to her house, see if I can figure out what her life was about.”

“Good luck,” Sam said, making a long slice along the woman’s liver.

“You too,” Marcus replied, a smile on his face. “Don’t have too much fun with the organs.”

“I’ll try,” she said. Every body had a story to tell. It was her job to read them right.

She had a moment of guilt-she could use her work to heal. Despite the random flashbacks to the kidnapping, she was healing.

But Taylor was forced to run away. Sam couldn’t help but think that work would have been a better fix for her as well.