THE TRUTH
Kate sees Camille Shannon’s family seated in the medical examiner’s waiting room, white-faced and tight-lipped, so she does an about-face and walks out the door, around the building to the back entrance, where discreet OCME vans deliver their cargo to the morgue.
She starts to badge the guard at the door, hand drifting to her waist until she remembers her creds are in her boss’s drawer. She tries a smile instead.
“Kate Wood. Charlottesville Homicide.”
The magic words work. The guard nods a greeting. “Heya. We aren’t expecting you, are we, Detective?”
“I’m here for my uncle. Sheriff Wood, Marchburg. The body from The Goode School?”
“Oh, yeah. Go on in. Dr. Singh’s got her. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”
“Thanks, man.”
The autopsy is wrapping up when Kate arrives. The ME is a young woman, they get younger and younger, it seems. The old-school, cigarette-smoking, tuna-fish-sandwich-eating, gray-haired men are becoming obsolete, making way for shiny new MEs fresh out of school with expertise in cutting-edge forensics and more. Kate wonders for a moment if Tony feels the creep of white-male-privilege obsolescence in his department, then decides no, he’s too young and progressive. He has a high number of female staffers because he respects their abilities, not because he wants a nice view day in and day out.
Irrelevant, Kate. Focus.
“You want to ask the parents, or should I?” the dark-haired ME is asking a redheaded tech in a stained coat as Kate enters the autopsy suite.
“Ask them what?” Kate gives the ME a wave. “Kate Wood, Charlottesville Homicide. I was on scene last night. Dr. Singh?”
“Call me Jenn, please. This is my lead investigator, Ron.” Ron gives her a peace sign. “And this is a sensitive case, so I’ll need you to sign a nondisclosure if you want to get read in.”
“Seriously?”
“Family’s request. Unusual, but it happens. They’re pretty high profile.”
“All right.”
“The forms are on the counter. Ron, can you get her squared away?”
“Sure.”
It’s a standard NDA, so Kate signs her life away.
“You’re Tony Wood’s niece?” Singh asks when she rejoins her.
“I am. I assume he’ll need to sign one, too?”
“Already has, he faxed his an hour ago. So, I’ve just finished up. I see no defensive wounds, we scraped her nails and there’s no tissue. There was a good set of fresh, developing bruises on her left biceps, one oval in the front, four in the back. Someone had a hand on her arm, holding her pretty tight. That could have happened anytime in the past forty-eight hours. Can’t say one way or the other if she was manhandled over the edge, though. Some small fibers in her throat, too.”
“Was she gagged?”
“Don’t know. No sign of fibers anywhere but in her throat, no abrasions around her mouth. Could be something was shoved in her mouth to keep her quiet, could be she inhaled something hugging a friend. Without any other indications, there’s no real way to know, but I took samples. My most surprising finding, though, was a fetus, approximately seven, eight weeks. That’s what we need to ask the family about. Paternity DNA. Whether they want to know who got their daughter pregnant. I was told they don’t know who might be responsible.”
“Oh, wow. We found a prescription for Cytotec, the pills were missing. We assumed she’d taken them.”
“She may have. It’s possible the pills didn’t work. Normally, they’ll discover that on a follow-up and do a scrape. She might not have gone for the follow-up.”
“Or she did and when she found out the pills didn’t work, she changed her mind. Or didn’t take the pills in the first place. Unless we find some more data, it will be hard to tell.”
“Which is why paternity will help. Find the baby daddy, find out more of the story.”
“I can’t imagine they’re going to say no. I’m hearing the mother is trying to make a case against the school already. If it’s someone with ties to the school, that will help her lawsuit. Nothing else remarkable?”
“I’m afraid not. The trauma from the fall is pretty typical, she had a skull fracture, subarachnoid hemorrhage, cervical fractures, spine compression, and deep lacerations to the back of her head, all consistent with a fall from a height. The fall caused her death, for sure. We’re running a standard toxicology. BAL was elevated, she’d had a couple of drinks. Can’t say she was drunk, but there was alcohol on board. Without any other data, I’m going to withhold the ruling on suicide or homicide until we get the toxicology back.”
“What’s your gut?”
“Mmm. Not enough data to determine. I’ll have the report typed up from dictation and sent to your uncle.”
Cagey lady. Kate doesn’t blame her, she wouldn’t want to be the one making this determination. “I appreciate it.” They shake, and Kate heads out the back again, trying to avoid the family. She doesn’t want to face them, to see the emptiness, the grief she knows she will find.
She calls Tony from the car, fills him in. Debates whether to head straight home or drive another hour into town. She hasn’t been to DC in a while. She could grab a hotel and a show. Chances are there’s a band she’ll like at one of the venues. Maybe a cute guy.
In the end, though, she heads back to Marchburg. She’s curious enough about whatever Oliver has sent her that she wants a glass of wine and her laptop. See if there’s anything else to be gleaned from this case, see if she can answer her instincts, explain to them that they aren’t getting the whole picture.
It is late when she gets back. Tony is gone, off handling a car accident down the mountain. She finds an anemic red wine in the back of his pantry, puts it back, and pours herself three thick fingers from his bottle of Lagavulin.
Tony’s place is comfortable, simple. A bachelor pad. He needs a girlfriend, the woman’s touch to make it a bit homier.
She curls up on the sofa with her laptop and the scotch, opens the email from Oliver, laughs at the dirty limerick he’s written—so sly, Oliver is—then clicks open the file.
It is on the third page that she finds the photo. It’s part of the crime scene shots from the day of Damien Carr’s death. It is a reproduction of a painting, a classic family portrait. The label says Sylvia and Damien Carr with their daughter, Ashlyn.
Goose bumps parade down her arm.
She looks closer.
Sits back and lets her mental imagery go to work, decides she’s going mad. Looks again. No, it’s there. The shoulders aren’t as wide. The nose is a little longer. The chin is a different shape.
The Ash Carlisle she met could be this girl’s sister. Her cousin.
But she’ll bet good money that it’s not the same girl.