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“Uh-huh, I’d say. Probably cancels out a quarter of a slice of nature’s perfect food.”
“Never mind that.” She chuckled, flopping a steaming slice onto my paper plate. “I don’t believe in making war with food. Food is not the enemy.”
“A truce on pizza,” I said.
“To the truce,” Claire said, touching her cola can to mine.
“The whole truce,” said I. “And three kinds of cheese.”
I joined in with Claire’s long, rolling laugh, one of my favorite sounds in the world. Whenever work got particularly grisly, the two of us got giddy. Sometimes, it even helped. We polished off one of Pronto Pizza’s best in about ten minutes as Claire brought me up to date on our latest Jane Doe.
“Taking into account her exposure to the low temperature last night, I’m calling Jag Girl’s time of death somewhere ’round midnight,” she said, lobbing her empty can into the trash basket.
“The clothes were gorgeous,” she said, “but a bad fit. Too small on top, too big across the hips, but this time her shoes fit.”
“And she never walked in them, right?”
“Clean soles. And just like with Caddy Girl, that funky perfume was only on her labia.”
“When are you starting the post?”
“Soon’s I get back downstairs.”
“Want some company?”
I phoned Tracchio’s office and blew off the staff meeting. Was I rebelling against authority? Yep. Then I went out to the squad room and invited Jacobi. I filled him in as we jogged down the stairs to the morgue.
Chapter 38
I ALWAYS FOUND the stark reality of the morgue, Claire’s place, a shock to the nervous system—the unforgiving white light on the dead, the sheets hiding that their insides were out. The empty faces. The harsh scent of antiseptics.
Somehow, the circumstances didn’t completely dim Jag Girl’s material beauty. If anything, she looked younger, and more vulnerable, than she had dressed up in designer clothes.
The purple bruise circling her neck and the dusting of bluish bruising on her upper arms seemed like an insult to her flawless skin. After several hours in the morgue, she was starting to have a bad hair day, too.
I watched as my friend slipped into her gear—cap, gown, plastic apron, and gloves. “It looks like another soft kill,” Claire said. “No knives, no guns.”
Claire positioned her scalpel to make the deep, Y-shaped incision that would run from shoulder to shoulder, meeting at Jag Girl’s breastbone and extending down to her pubis.
She pulled up her mask, lowered her face shield, spoke into the mike as she made a layer-wise dissection of the strap musculature of Jag Girl’s neck.
She peeled back a flap of skin with her forceps. Showed me and Jacobi the brownish stain in the shape of a thumbprint.
“This young lady was asphyxiated by two complete nutjob assailants,” Claire said.
“Just like with Caddy Girl, there’s no petechial hemorrhaging. So someone held her down and burked her. Pressed her neck right here with his thumb. This boy is strong.
“Someone else applied a ligature. Sort of crinkly-like. Looks like a patterned impression, consistent with the rolled edge of a plastic bag. Probably put his paw over her nose and mouth to seal the deal.”
I couldn’t help staring at the victim and imagining the freaking outrageous homicide.
“It’s making me think that this is some kind of porn fantasy come to life,” I said. “No peep-show booth, no magazine or computer screen. What fun. Real girls without any barriers. The perps can drug them, rape them, dress them up, do whatever the hell they want.”
“There’s no sign this young lady fought back,” said Claire. “So until I get the tox screen, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say she was probably drugged, too.”
Jacobi seethed. “Fucking cowards.”
“Keep the faith, you guys,” said Claire. “I’ll call in a favor at the lab. See if I can put a rush on the DNA.”
