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17
MARK
Another morgue visit.The cold by the riverside and especially in that mansion had seeped deep into my bones, and now it’s getting compounded by the cold in this huge basement room.
The young dead woman has jet black hair and her skin is as white as snow. Eva is almost as pale and putting those two things together adds nausea to the sum of all the ways my mind and my body are trying to fail me. At least I’m not shaking and needing to sit down. But I’m chalking that solely up to the fact that I only slept for about three hours last night and then spent hours walking around in the cold. I’m mostly numb.
Dr. Marolt is bleary-eyed and hadn’t fixed her hair properly before coming in to work this morning. A strand of it has come loose from her low ponytail and is hanging down the side of her face.
“The manner of death is consistent with the others,” she says. “The hesitation marks and then the killing stab are similar to what I observed on Ana Kobe’s body. And what I saw in the files Ida showed me. I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed the similarities before.”
Ida was in here when we arrived and explained her findings to Marolt as well.
“There is also some bruising starting around her neck,” she says and points at it. Frankly, I don’t notice anything there and tell her so.
“It will become more visible as time passes,” Marolt says. “But I would definitely say that this woman put up more of a fight than the other victims. Though I would have to check the photos. Perhaps we missed this with the others too.”
“Or you hadn’t paid enough attention to it,” I say, not really trying to be confrontational, just pointing out a fact.
“Yes, we viewed it all in light of people being attacked and fighting for their lives,” she says with the barest hint of an angry edge to her voice. “We so rarely deal with these types of murders. And the time that passes between these killings is significant too.”
“That’s all a thing of the past now,” I say. “We know we’re looking for a single killer now. What we need is a clue that will lead us to him.”
The killer’s MO has more or less been confirmed now, we have a working description of the suspect, and what we could really use is a smoking gun. DNA or fingerprints would be nice too.
“I’ll perform the autopsy now and I’ll be able to tell you more soon,” Marolt says and looks at Eva with something very close to pain in her eyes. “I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you the last time you were here.”
Eva nods and tells her it’s fine and then we leave her to it, walking to the lab, where Ida and several other lab techs are hard at work.
“I don’t have anything yet,” she says in a clipped voice as we enter. “The glove turned so hard I can’t turn it inside out to try and get prints. But I swabbed it and am waiting for the DNA results. The blood type on it is AB, but I can’t yet tell you if it’s from a single source.”
The far end of the long table she’s working at is covered with all sorts of trash, from crumpled up tissues and beer cans, to cigarette butts, sandwich wrappers and empty juice boxes. Right in the middle of the mess is a bright red apple with a single bite taken out of it.
“What’s that?” I ask and my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.
Ida glances at it. “That’s the contents of the trash can where we found the victim’s ID card. It doesn’t look promising as far as evidence goes.”
“Check the apple,” I say, which causes both Ida and Eva to first look at me sharply and then the evidence.
When Eva’s eyes return to mine they’re wide and scared and sad. Ida walks over and instructs one of the techs to start working on the apple.
“Snow white,” Eva mutters. “This is definitely about me.”
Yes, and much more so than is safe for me to dwell on right now. As it is, my legs don’t feel firm enough to support my weight. But the fact that Eva comes over, takes my arm, and leans on me heavily makes that a moot point. I’ll be as strong as she needs me to be. Always. I’ve known that for a long time now.
“You do realize that this could mean we’re dealing with copycat killer,” she says quietly.
“Please, God, no,” I say and chuckle. “One psycho at a time is enough.”
I actually feel the strangest urge to laugh, but I manage to stifle that.
“Either way, we have work to do,” I add.
And we better get started. Because I need this case to be over before it takes both of us under again. Or puts Eva and our child in danger again. That’s not something I’m willing to risk. Ever.
Yet here we are. And all we really have to go on is a suspect described as a slasher movie villain. Male or female, who knows?
In other words, we have nothing much.
