The naked body of a girl found early this morning by a couple hiking along a creek in the woods beside Route 83 has been tentatively identified as Tana Damm, 15, of Villa Park. She was reported missing six days ago by her grandfather, Jeffrey Damm, with whom she lived. Miss Damm was a freshman at York High School and was last seen alive by a classmate last December 29 or 30, leaving a McDonald’s restaurant on Route 83, 500 yards south of where she was found.
According to an aunt, who also lives at the Villa Park home, Miss Damm had a history of running away. Authorities at York High School repeatedly inquired about her frequent absences, she said. Miss Damm last attended classes in early December.
The victim had been decapitated. Acting Cook County Medical Examiner Cornelius Feldott supervised a brief, preliminary autopsy this morning. It failed to determine a cause of death, or whether the girl was alive at the time her head was removed, though Feldott said it’s almost certain she’d been dead for some time. A more thorough examination is scheduled for later today, to be conducted by the same forensics experts that were brought in for the autopsies of the Graves and Day girls. Miss Damm was found less than two miles from where the Graves girls were discovered.
In a related matter, Cook County Medical Examiner Charles McGarry – rumored to have become ill following the disappearance of Richie Fernandez, a suspect in the cases of a string of recently murdered girls – was spotted at O’Hare International Airport yesterday, purchasing a ticket for a flight bound for Paris, France. It has not been determined whether his departure was planned.
Rigg watched Aria through the glass as she read what he’d forwarded to her. She looked calm enough and waved for him to come in.
‘Oh, what the hell are you doing, Milo?’
‘Reporting all the news that’s fit to print,’ he said, quoting some ancient newspaper’s motto.
‘You don’t know that McGarry was actually fleeing.’
‘I showed you the pictures Rozakis took at O’Hare.’
She shook her head. ‘He bought a ticket for Paris. He could be on vacation. And, in case you’ve forgotten, Donovan told you to lay off McGarry. He’ll cut the McGarry part. Ah, hell,’ she said, tapping a key to send the entire piece downtown.
In a perverse way, he was faintly relieved for the distraction of the latest discovery. Aria had gone home to change before coming in, and he’d left his apartment to race directly to the discovery site. Now, at the Pink, the bad breaking news swept away any opportunities for awkwardness about the previous night.
‘At least you were somewhat circumspect, only hinting at a connection to the other girls’ murders,’ she went on.
‘Another girl who disappeared at the end of December, found nude, decapitated like the last one, beside a shallow creek along a well-travelled road like the first two? When we learn Tana Damm has a tiny cluster of three freckles, the last unassigned physical mark on the yellow card, we’ll know it’s our man.’
‘Or woman,’ she said.
‘A woman?’ he asked, surprised.
‘Women kill, Milo. Surely you’ve considered our killer could be a woman?’
‘I suppose it could be, though women serial killers are extremely rare.’
‘We’re more cautious,’ she said, fingering her pearls, ‘so that probably means it’s a man. A woman would have been more worried about being spotted and wouldn’t have dumped the boys and the girls so close to a road.’
‘Now who’s speculating? You’re linking the boys to the girls.’
‘Glet seems to be speculating, too,’ she said.
‘About more than the boys and the girls, apparently.’
‘You’ve got no progress on that?’
He shook his head and stood up, anxious to leave her office before anything could be said about the night before.
‘Milo?’ she said.
He stopped and turned back around.
‘You’re not overstepping, are you? Spooking McGarry enough to flee? Newsman becoming newsmaker?’
There was nothing he wanted to say to that. The question no longer mattered to him.
Glet hadn’t been at the discovery site that morning, and he wasn’t answering his cell phone. Corky Feldott was in his office, ever accessible, and said Rigg could come in for a chat. He got to the Dead House thirty minutes later.
‘You’re sure: three freckles, tightly clustered?’ Rigg asked.
Feldott was nervous, close to being distraught. ‘Just as you expected, apparently. They look like one bigger freckle, behind her knee.’
‘Just like the yellow card said.’
‘Not for publication, Mr Rigg. Sheriff Lehman was firm about me insisting on that.’
‘Understood.’
‘This is a damned bad time for Mr McGarry to be off sick,’ Feldott said.
Rigg brought out his phone to show Feldott some of Rozakis’ drone pictures. ‘I went out to his estate, brought him soup. He came out into the snow, spry as a chicken and, as you see, carrying a shotgun. After I left, he cabbed to O’Hare.’
Feldott’s face froze. ‘None of this is on the Examiner’s website.’
Rigg had checked the website before walking into the Dead House. As expected, Donovan had clipped the mention about McGarry fleeing, as well as one of the photos of McGarry at O’Hare.
Rigg showed him more of the photos on his phone. ‘McGarry has friends at the Bastion,’ Rigg said.
‘Has Mr McGarry gone nuts?’ Feldott asked.
‘Hard to tell. He didn’t take the soup, but he didn’t shoot me, either.’
‘What does all this mean?’
‘Nothing I’m able to report, apparently.’
‘Stop with the mysteriousness.’ Tiny beads of sweat had broken out on Feldott’s unlined brow.
‘McGarry blew town for Paris and, from there, who knows? I think you’re going to be medical examiner for a long time.’
‘Nobody signs up for this kind of grief,’ Feldott said.
‘This is exactly the kind of grief you sign up for.’
‘Not headless, for God’s sake. Not butchery, not young girls.’
‘I don’t suppose Northwestern prepares you for that sort of thing,’ Rigg said, glancing at the drawing of the campus on the back wall.
Feldott fingered the day’s sleek, narrow tie, a yellowish thing with blue dots that hung a little too loose around his neck. The gesture reminded Rigg of the way Aria sometimes fingered her pearls.
‘Why wasn’t Deputy Glet there for the Damm girl this morning?’ Feldott asked. ‘Too busy at ATF?’
‘Don’t you talk to Lehman?’
‘I don’t think he knows what Deputy Glet’s up to. He always changes the subject.’
‘Speaking of changing subjects, what’s the status of comparing Wilcox’s DNA to the foreign DNA you got from Bobby Stemec and Johnny Henderson?’
‘The analysis is incomplete.’
‘How incomplete?’
‘Mr McGarry says no information is to be released—’
Rigg held up a hand. ‘McGarry’s in Paris, damn it.’
‘He’s still in charge, even if nominally, Mr Rigg.’
‘Glet’s talking like he’s solid on Wilcox killing the boys.’
‘Not because of DNA results,’ Feldott said. ‘I told you: they’re incomplete.’
‘Any hope of recovering foreign DNA from Tana Damm?’
‘We haven’t autopsied her yet. I can tell you that, based on when her family says she disappeared, I assume she was killed the same time as the others.’
‘One fast, murderous spurt?’
‘And well before your Richie Fernandez was supposedly picked up, so he could be the killer.’ He managed a small laugh, but it was nervous. ‘Have you noticed that everyone in this case seems to be betting on a different horse? Deputy Glet has Kevin Wilcox, at least for the boys. Sheriff Lehman has, or had, Klaus Lanz. You’ve got Richie Fernandez.’
‘No. Lehman and McGarry have, or had, Fernandez. I just want to know what they did with him.’
‘Beyond probably just questioning him and letting him go?’ He shook his head before Rigg could protest. ‘Actually, I believe you’re right to investigate his disappearance.’
‘I think he was questioned too aggressively.’
‘Sheriff Lehman and Mr McGarry? What are you thinking they did?’
Buried him on McGarry’s estate, beneath a mound of dirt and snow, Rigg wanted to say. It was the only scenario that explained why McGarry would play sick to stay home. He needed to guard the mound with a shotgun, to keep scooping snow on it to settle the dirt until spring brought grass to cover up the wounded earth. It must have seemed like a wise strategy, until Rigg showed up with soup.
‘I’m not sure yet,’ Rigg said, evading.
‘Whatever you’re thinking, it can’t be made public yet,’ Feldott said. ‘It will destroy our credibility.’
‘When are you going to tell me about the DNA?’ Rigg said.
‘Let’s see what Tana Damm tells us,’ Feldott said.