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“If you knew,” Tim barks, “why the fuck did you come looking for us in the first place?”
“Because we need a family united.” He shakes his head like we’re the idiots. “Don’t you ever listen? We need unity. We need strength.” He stops to flash a devious grin. “We need to stand as one, especially now while the old man is crapping out.”
Reaching forward, he claps my bad shoulder, and chuckles when I hiss. “Come back inside. Eat something before you fall down. Then listen to what I have to say about all this. You might be surprised by how fucking smart I am.”
MINKA
“This is Minka Mayet, Chief Medical Examiner, attending the scene of a confirmed homicide.” I rattle off today’s date, and the time—just past five in the morning—while over my shoulder, the scent of Detective Franklin’s shampoo plays across my senses.
He’s close. Too close.
But that’s because just one foot in front of me, the subject of Aubree’s incessant snap-snap-snapping camera, is a little girl.
So small.
So fragile.
So devastatingly destroyed.
“She’s between five and seven years old.” I lock the emotion from my voice. The anger. The injustice I feel at the loss of another life too soon. “Blonde hair,” I rasp. “Blue eyes. Approximately three feet, six inches tall. She wears chipped polish on her nails—toes and fingers—and torn remnants of what is likely the floral pyjamas scattered across our crime scene.”
Straightening my back, I glance over my shoulder and meet the detective’s eyes. “Expand your scene to account for the wind. It was pretty strong overnight, so you might find that things have been blown further than initially estimated.”
Bringing my attention back to the girl, I don’t stroke her silky hair, though I wish I could. I want to brush it down and make it neat, because I feel like that’s what she’d do if she was alive. She’d push it out of her eyes and maybe tie it in cute pigtails.
But of course, I can’t.
“Bruising to her shoulders and chest,” I recite for the record. “Wrists.” I check both. “Leftandright. No apparent inorganic ligature marks, but contusions consistent with hands that belong to a large adult.”
Gently, I pry her mouth open and search for anything blocking her airway. Paper? Food? Perhaps even her own tongue? But I find nothing.
Frowning, I continue my search. “No obvious fatal injury. She’s not bleeding. Her skull remains intact.”
“Possible suffocation,” Aubree inserts with a slight catch to her voice. “Hand over her mouth.”
Children are the saddest scenes to be called out to. They’re the worst way to start a day, and for the last several months I’ve lived in Copeland, they seem to have dominated my time.
Why can’t we get a few old folks dying in their sleep? Why not give us an elderly couple, lying down together and crossing over at the same time?
When Aubree and Franklin stare, waiting for my response, I shake my head and banish the thoughts that tug me away from the case I’ve been called to work.
I have another little girl destined for my autopsy room, whether I like it or not.
“Suffocation is possible,” I agree. “But it doesn’t feel right. Her face remains…” I tilt it to the side and sigh. “Untouched. Beautiful.”
“We’ll bag her hands,” Aubree murmurs. Leaning closer, she photographs the little girl’s fingertips, which glisten with something sticky. “She appears connected to the Bailee case. Both have an unidentified substance on their fingertips.”
“We’ll follow up on Bailee’s with the lab, too, when we get back,” I tell Franklin. “It’s been almost twenty-four hours, so I’ll give them a push along.”
Reaching to the device between me and the body, I kill the recording and look to the cop who hovers close. “Where was Fentone in the last six hours? Alibied?”
His eyes flicker with approval. “I’ll be paying him a visit just as soon as we clear out from here. But I need something that ties him to this, Doctor. If I can’t find a connect, he’s gonna start crying harassment. Then his lawyer will chew my face off in retaliation. I need to bring him in, lock him up, and not give them any room to wiggle.”
“So we’ll tie it up nice and tight. I’ll walk into the lab personally just as soon as we get this little one out of the cold.”
Pushing up to stand, I peel my gloves off and drop them in a bag Aubree already holds open in wait. “Find us her identity, Detective. Give us her name, her family, her history. See if Fentone crosses over just like he does with Chelsea. I assure you,” I take a step back, careful not to tread on anything or contaminate our scene, “I want him locked up as much as you do.”
Possibly more.
