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“I appreciate it.” She laughs, and I take a moment to frown at her. She didn’t laugh with me in the hall. Seems like Miller is suddenly her best friend. “Special Agent Fallon Baxter. I just transferred from Reno.”
“Oh.” Miller gives a goofy half-smile. “Love that place. What brings you this way?”
I know he’s not hitting on her, but something doesn’t sit right with me, despite the fact.
Miller has a wife going on three decades and three children, the oldest of whom is wrapping up high school. He’s a good dad, and I’m guessing just as good in the matrimonial department.
“Family,” she says quickly. “And work.” Her cadence slows with that second response as she looks my way.
But the first answer was the correct one. The faster it streams from the mouth, the closer to the truth it is. I can understand the need to be around family, even with a family like my own.
Miller points my way. “Speaking of family—Mitch is here, running around.”
“That’s my brother,” I say to Fallon, not that I would have brought it up myself. Mitch is the only sane one in the family. My own sanity is still suspect even to me. “He runs the morgue out of Elmwood. Probably doing a pickup.”
“That’s exactly what he’s doing.” Miller nods to the body before us and his jaw tightens. “Forensics took the prints. You should get a report soon enough. For now, she’s Jane Doe Number One. Death was caused by strangulation. You could still see the contusions around her neck before it was severed. And it seems her head was severed after rigor mortis set in, so anywhere from two to twenty-four hours after death. You’ll notice the livor mortis, or postmortem lividity, is quite pronounced here.” He gestures toward the bluish-purple discoloration on the skin. “It indicates that the body was left in one position for a while after death before being moved. Helps us understand the timeline.”
Fallon leans in slightly. “And rigor mortis?”
Miller nods. “Rigor mortis had fully set in, which you can tell by the stiffness of the limbs.” He gently lifts an arm, demonstrating its resistance. “It starts around two to six hours after death and can last up to seventy-two hours. Given its state, I’d say she’s been dead no less than twelve hours and likely not more than twenty-four when found.” He sighs for a moment. “Her backside was covered with fresh black soil, the front half with dark clay. Most of her was submerged when they found her.”
“Two different ground soils, you think they moved the body?” I ask.
“It would seem so.” He picks up a long metal prong and tilts her knee. “The dark soil stained her clothes and clung to her skin. The clay was caked on her front side.”
“Why decapitate the woman after strangling her?” Fallon shakes her head as she examines the body. “Seems brutal even for a killer.”
“Why drive her corpse over a hundred miles away?” I counter. “I would have moved the head. A lot less grunt work.”
“Easy.” Fallon buries a smile in her cheek. “They crossed state lines. They wanted us on the case.”
Miller and I chuckle at that one. But there’s a level of unease in my stomach.
“Now that would be something,” I say. “Although they could have killed her in Colorado and moved her head to Cheyenne. Killed her out in the woods where the soil is richer, dumped her in the river among the clay.” Now that I think about it, I’m betting that’s exactly what happened. I nod over at Miller. “Any signs of sexual assault?”
He ticks his head to the side. “No signs of forced entry if that’s what you mean. She was sexually active, but no tears or contusions to report.”
Fallon looks from me to him. “You realize that doesn’t mean a whole lot. She still could have been raped. We can’t rule it out.”
“We won’t,” I’m quick to tell her. The last thing I want is to put out the wrong impression when it comes to how I feel about protecting women and bringing them justice whether living or dead. I hook my gaze to hers and nod, letting her know I can appreciate the gravity of the situation, but she doesn’t look convinced.
When I started out, I was shocked to see how jaded some of my co-workers could be, and I promised myself I’d never get anywhere near that self-righteous emotionally isolative place.
My victims are real people who deserve the exact same brand of dedication to justice no matter who they were or what socioeconomic background they came from. And that’s where my commitment lies.
Fallon pulls out her phone and begins to document the scene in pictures and I do the same. I watch as she taps away, jotting down notes as she studies the body, pausing a little too long as she takes in the woman’s face.
The woman looks about the same age as Fallon, late twenties maybe. Same bone structures, she could qualify as family. I bet it’s striking a chord with her.
“What else have you got?” I ask and Miller purses his lips as he glances at the body.
“There is something about this case that doesn’t sit right with typical homicides of this kind,” he says, tapping a metal prong against the table. “The precision in the decapitation, it’s too clean, almost surgical. You don’t see that level of expertise outside of a professional setting.”
“Oh?” Fallon pauses to look up from her screen. “Maybe the killer had some sort of special anatomical knowledge.”
Miller nods. “Which isn’t common among your average perpetrators.” His phone rings and he grunts at the screen. “I’d better take this. Stay as long as you like. Nice to meet you,” he says to Fallon before taking off into the next room.
“Not your average killer,” she says in an almost dreamlike state as she runs her gaze across the body.
