Amanda’s heart was pounding as she tramped down the path to the graves. A young girl… Liam’s words kept repeating in her head.
She stopped short at the feet of the woman. She was dressed in a turtleneck long-sleeved shirt and jeans. Any exposed skin was a pale gray—her hands, neck, face. Her fingers appeared intact, and presumably her prints were as well. Whoever had placed her here wasn’t overly worried about her being identified. Her face appeared early thirties. She had shoulder-length blond hair, a thin nose that ran slightly crooked, and a subtle chin dimple. Her eyes faced the sky and were milky.
A young girl of maybe six was on her side, her right arm draped over the woman’s stomach. Her facial features had her looking like a miniature version of the woman, and her eyes were open too. She was clothed in jean overalls and a sweater.
There was a stuffed elephant, about six inches long, in the pit with them.
Amanda’s lungs froze on an exhale. Zoe had a stuffed dog, Lucky, she had carted everywhere until her seventh birthday two months ago when she’d proclaimed herself as too big for it now. Lucky had been resigned to pride of place on the bookshelf in her bedroom. Amanda shook her personal thoughts aside, focusing again on the sight before her.
Mother and daughter could have just laid down for a nap amid the rustling leaves and birdsong.
Assuming for now they are mother and daughter…
Amanda considered herself hardened by the many things she’d seen in her career but seeing that little girl in a shallow grave, curled against the woman’s side… It brought out the mother in her, a protective need to defend and protect. But those actions would all come too late. She’d be hugging Zoe extra tight tonight. “Any identification?”
“Not yet.” Rideout brushed more dirt off the victims.
No purse or phone were immediately visible.
“Do you know when or how they died?” Trent asked.
Rideout shook his head. “It’s early yet, but preliminarily I’d say they died within the last few days. Rigor has certainly come and gone. I’ll conduct more tests back at the morgue to narrow that down some.”
“So we are talking less than a week?” Amanda was desperate for some sort of timeline.
“I feel comfortable saying that, yes. Before concluding cause of death, I’ll need to take a closer look. Manner of death, I think we all know…”
Amanda nodded. “Murder. The dead don’t bury themselves.”
“Precisimo.” A fictional word, a desperate stab at levity, but it fell flat.
Amanda looked at her watch. 8:05 AM. It felt like it should be much later than that. “A few days.” She mulled that over and said, “Are there any signs animals got to either of them?” The grave was only about ten inches deep—no wonder the tips of the shoes poked from the ground.
“Not from what I’m seeing.” Rideout set down the brush that he’d been using to sweep aside dirt.
CSI Blair stepped in and snapped a myriad of photographs of the victims in situ and shortly later declared herself finished.
Rideout fished in the front pockets of the woman’s jeans and came out empty-handed. Next, he delicately removed the girl’s arm from the woman. The action had Amanda wanting to turn away, but her gaze was hooked on the nightmare in front of her.
Had the mother witnessed her daughter’s murder before her own?
Rideout checked the girl’s front pockets too and produced nothing for his trouble. Next, Liam helped him slowly turn the woman to her side on a tarp that had been placed next to the grave. Nothing was beneath her but more dirt.
Rideout checked the woman’s back pockets and shook his head.
He checked the last two pockets—the ones in the back of the girl’s overalls. He sat back on his heels, looking over the makeshift grave. “Nothing in their clothing.”
A ball knotted in Amanda’s gut. She may have been wrong about the killer wanting them discovered sooner than later. He certainly didn’t want them identified easily and their families afforded closure. Though that thought chilled her. What if it was a loved one or family member who had killed them? Were their deaths intentional or was the burial to cover an accident?
“Hopefully Missing Persons will give us something.” Desperation gripped Amanda’s chest because the database would only help if they’d been reported.
“Do you think it’s mother and daughter or…?” Trent stopped there.
“They look alike,” Rideout responded.
“I agree,” Liam chimed in. “It’s in the shape of the nose and chin. Of course, DNA testing will tell us for sure.”
Which takes time… This case was just starting, and it was already frustrating. “Surely, someone knows they’re missing.” Amanda would cling to that life raft even as it rolled over swells in the middle of the Atlantic. “They both appear to be well-nourished. Their clothing isn’t designer, but it’s in good shape…”
“The paint on the woman’s fingernails is intact,” Rideout said.
“Any signs of a struggle?” Epithelium under fingernails could lead them to the killer—if she’d fought back.
“Not that I’m immediately seeing. Obviously, I’ll scrape under the nails.” Rideout pushed up the woman’s sleeves. “Oooh. I might have spoken too soon.”
“What is it?” Amanda stepped closer. The woman’s wrists were marred by bruising.
“Not defensive necessarily, but it would seem someone gripped her hard.”
“Someone? Not the killer?”
“Sure, if he was around her a while. But see the contusions are a rainbow of hues?”
“Right. So they were inflicted at different times?”
“Yes. I’d say these bruises would indicate up to two weeks of abuse. After that contusions are no longer visible.”
Trent’s jaw was tight, his expression shadowed. His mind was likely going where Amanda’s had briefly leaped—domestic violence—but it was unfounded at this point.
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” she said. “We don’t know when they went missing or how long they might have been with their killer. We need to keep our minds open. We’ll find their identities and go from there.”
Trent was staring intently at the ground, at the bodies, as if he were avoiding making eye contact with her.
“Can you tell approximately when the most recent bruising on her wrists occurred?” she asked Rideout.
“The most recent appears to be days old.”
“So whoever inflicted those specific bruises is potentially the one who put her in the ground,” Trent reasoned.
“More than likely. Now I noticed something just now when I moved their bodies.” Rideout placed his hands on the girl’s face and gently rolled her head. “As suspected.”
“Hans.” Amanda pulled out the medical examiner’s first name, not able to stand the suspense. It was like she was walking a high wire and leaning precariously to one side, about to topple to the ground without a safety net to catch her.
“By the way I can manipulate her head, her spinal cord has been severed, likely due to a broken neck.”
Amanda laid a hand over her stomach. She thought she’d seen the worst the world offered when she’d uncovered a sex-trafficking ring. But breaking a little girl’s neck also required a next-level monster.
Rideout added, “Again, I’ll know more back at the morgue. I’ll X-ray her entire body.”
“And when do you think you’ll get to their autopsies?” One horrible realization led to another. This little girl’s next stop was being dissected and pulled apart.
Rideout looked at Liam who kept the medical examiner’s schedule.
“Dr. Rideout can perform these this afternoon,” Liam said and pulled out a tablet, pecked on the screen. “Specifically, he’ll start at one.”
“There you go.” Rideout gestured toward his assistant and nodded, firming up what he had said.
“Okay, we’ll check in with you then or shortly afterward to see what you’ve gathered.” Amanda straightened up.
“Can you tell if the woman’s neck is broken too?” Trent asked.
“It is. I noticed how it moved when I rolled her onto the tarp.”
Silence followed Rideout’s words, like a natural marker for the conclusion of a conversation. It was time to move, but Amanda’s feet were weighed to the ground. “We find out who they are, and we’re more than halfway there.”
“Let’s go check Missing Persons.” Trent started toward the parking lot, and Amanda kept stride with him.
Graves was coming at them. Trent bypassed her straight to the department car he’d brought to the scene.
Traitor…
The sergeant looked like she had a lot to offload. She was holding her cell phone cupped in both hands and flipping it back and forth from one palm to the other. Her shoulders were squared, and her face shadowed.
“Yes?” Amanda said.
“You’re leaving already?”
“Getting ready to. Why?”
“Bring me up to speed.”
“You heard about the girl… Yes?”
“The girl?” Graves’s brow furrowed in confusion. “No.”
“There were two in that grave. The woman you know about. She looks to be in her early thirties. There was a girl of about five or six with her. Presumably they are mother and daughter, though we can’t be sure without ID.”
Graves’s posture faltered, her normal self-assurance melting away like hot wax and shrinking her height. Slumped shoulders, head dipped forward and down. “So no phone or purse?” Her voice was rough, gravelly. Amanda didn’t think Graves was a mother herself, but that mattered little. Cases with children were tough on everyone involved. But this one was also allowing Amanda a glimpse of Graves’s humanity.
“No.”
“Were they sexually assaulted?”
“We’ll need to wait on autopsies to know for sure. But there are signs of physical abuse. The woman has multiple bruises, with some dating back weeks.”
“Rideout make any comment on what he believes may be cause of death?”
“Preliminarily, their spinal cords were severed by their necks being broken.”
“Dear God.” Graves stared into the woods; her eyes glazed over. The reverie lasted mere seconds before the sergeant’s face turned to stone. “We need answers yesterday. When is Rideout doing the autopsies?”
“This afternoon, one o’clock.”
Graves nodded, her eyes back to carrying that faraway haunted look. It could just be that Amanda was seeing herself reflected in them. Cases like this were tough, but also motivating.
“Trent’s searching Missing Persons right now,” Amanda eventually said, filling the silence. She glanced at Trent, who was in the driver’s seat of a department car. He’d be using the onboard computer to conduct the search. “We’ll see what comes of that. We’ll also be speaking with the person who called in the fire. What had them out here at five in the morning, that type of thing.”
“I assume you’ve cleared the teens?”
Amanda nodded. “There’s nothing to suggest any of them were involved—beyond one of them stumbling over the body. We have their information, though, if we have follow-up questions.”
“What are your initial thoughts?”
“It’s early. Victims of domestic violence? Abducted and with their killer for two weeks?”
“Could be a blend of both.”
“It’s impossible to say until we know who they are, when they died, and their last movements.”
Graves licked her lips, then pursed them, nudged out her chin. “Well, it looks like you have your work cut out for you. Keep me posted at every step along the way. I might see you at the autopsies.” The sergeant returned to her SUV and drove off.
The quick exit surprised Amanda, as she’d expected Graves would want to see the child and the grave again. And Graves had never graced the morgue for any previous investigations. Was it the little girl and/or something that smacked personal for the sergeant?
Trent was jogging toward her. “I think I got a hit.”
“You…?” She snapped her mouth shut, speechless. She’d been prepared for the regular answer—nada. Low expectations, little disappointment. “Who? When were they reported missing?”
“The report was filed this past Friday by one Roy Archer for his wife and daughter, Jill and Charlotte. Wife is thirty-four, daughter is five.”
“You’re sure it’s them?”
“Look at their pictures for yourself.”
She did just that. “Oh, yeah, it’s them all right. Let’s go talk to Roy.”
He didn’t respond but stood there, his jaw clenched.
“You heard me? It’s time to move.”
“Reported last week,” Trent hissed. “Bruising going back weeks.” His left hand formed a fist.
She didn’t like that he seemed to be internalizing and making this about his aunt, who had an abusive partner. “Let’s see what he has to say before we jump to any conclusions.”
Trent shook his head angrily. “I am looking at the evidence.”
She brushed her fingers over his fist. He drew back like a torch had burned him. “Are you? This isn’t about your aunt.” It came out all wrong.
His eyes flicked to hers. “You can’t argue with the bruising.”
“Well… Maybe Jill took her daughter and left Roy weeks ago. She’d been in communication, then more recently fell out of reach. That’s when Roy reported them missing.”
“You want me to believe a killer abducted them and held them for weeks during which time he inflicted the bruising?”
“It is entirely possible.” Silence stretched between them, which she broke. “As we’ve said many times, we need to keep an open mind until all the evidence is in.”
“Fine. But I have a sinking feeling…”
“And that’s okay. Your instincts are there for a reason. It’s just our responsibility to know when to listen and act on them.”
“You know what makes this even worse? That is, if the husband was abusive and killed his family.”
“What?”
“Roy Archer is an officer with the Dumfries PD. He must have joined after I’d left. Tell you what, I’ll meet you at Central, and we’ll take one car.” He didn’t wait for confirmation but got into the department vehicle and shut the driver’s door behind him.
She didn’t stop him. It was a solid course of action. And maybe the separation would give him a chance to cool off. Trent didn’t let his temper show often, but it was beneath a thin veil when it came to violence toward women and children. Something she admired, but with this case, depending how it played out, it could be her partner’s undoing.