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Dr. Feist gave a pained smile. “You said there were at least three raccoons in there with her, didn’t you? That was probably the rustling you heard. Hummel found all kinds of wrappers in there. Half-eaten food. It seems they brought stuff inside the cave to eat it.”
“But the moan,” Josie said. “I’ve dealt with raccoons before. They don’t make that kind of noise. Not like what I heard. It was human. She was alive.”
Now the smile turned to a full grimace. “I know you’ve seen a lot of dead bodies, Josie, but you haven’t spent as much time around them as I have. Bodies still moan, groan, and sometimes even squeak after death.”
Josie stared at her.
“Air gets trapped in the lungs. Not often, but occasionally, and then when they’re moved, the air is expelled, and it can sound like a moan. The most likely scenario is the raccoons nudged her and moved her out of position and the air escaped her lungs. That was the moan you heard.”
Josie blinked. A sinking feeling settled into her stomach. “I destroyed the scene,” she said. “When I gave her CPR, I destroyed the scene.”
Dr. Feist sighed. Behind her, the paramedics struggled out of the cave, trying to keep the backboard level. They’d secured Eve inside a body bag. Josie watched as they transferred her from the backboard onto one of the gurneys and strapped her down. Hummel and another member of the ERT came next, carrying evidence bags and lights. Dr. Feist motioned for Josie to follow her and together, they walked over to the gurney. The paramedics backed away and let Dr. Feist unzip the bag and spread it apart.
Up close, Eve Bowers’s beautiful face had been transformed into a thing of horror. Dr. Feist pulled a penlight from one of her pockets and clicked it on. She held it in one hand, shining it into Eve’s eyes. They bulged, grotesquely, pinpoint petechiae dotting the sclera. Her lips were swollen. Around her neck were angry red ligature marks.
“He strangled her,” Josie said.
“Yes,” said Dr. Feist. “Possibly with a belt. A cursory look tells me there is a patterned injury there, but I’ll know more after my exam.”
Patterned injuries occurred when the source of the injury sustained by a victim was reproduced on their skin. Sometimes the injury was a mirror image of the object used to kill the victim.
Dr. Feist zipped the bag back up and signaled to the paramedics that they could take Eve. “I’ll have the autopsy results as quick as I can.”
Hummel walked up next to Josie. He held a digital camera in his hands, the display aglow. “We’re finished here, but before you go, there’s something you’re going to want to see.”
He angled the camera so that Josie could see the photo. For the first time in several hours her heartbeat ticked upward again. Less than a foot from Eve’s body, along one of the cave walls was a rectangular wooden gift box in the shape of a wrapped present. It had probably been in her hand when the killer left her inside the cave. Either the raccoons or Josie had dislodged it.
Josie said, “The moment you get that thing open, I want to know what’s inside it. How about her phone? Did you find that in the cave?”
“Sorry, but no.” Hummel clicked through more photos. “One last thing.”
He turned the digital display toward her again. It was a close-up of one of Eve’s delicate hands. Jammed over the first knuckle of her ring finger were Claudia Collins’s engagement ring and wedding band.
Hummel said, “That looks like the jewelry missing from the scene from last night?”
“Yes,” Josie said. “It does.”
Before she could consider what it meant, a figure appeared along the path back out to the park. Josie’s knees nearly gave way when she saw her husband. She resisted the urge to run over to him and fall into his arms. She could tell by the look on his face they weren’t nearly done for the day.
Hummel said, “Fraley. What is it?”
Noah gave Josie a once-over, his brow kinking just slightly as he silently asked her if she was okay. After she gave him a barely perceptible nod, he replied. “We found Eve Bowers’s car.”
TWENTY
Josie kept the heat in the car on full blast as Noah weaved through the streets of Denton. At nearly sixp.m. the evening in South Denton was pitch-black. Only a sliver of moon punctuated the sky. Not enough to give off any significant light. Unlike the steep hills and rising mountains of the rest of Denton, the southern part of the city was flatter, giving way to rolling hills, farmland, and a smattering of stores. A branch of the Susquehanna that ran through East Denton curled along the southern border of the city. Ahead of them, Noah kept Mettner’s taillights in sight as he navigated the vehicle over the narrow south bridge and into a more remote part of South Denton. Gretchen had been sent home to rest.
They’d spent the first ten minutes of the drive catching each other up on the developments so far, with Josie doing most of the talking. She expected Noah to rib her about the raccoons, but then she realized he knew how difficult it had been for her to even go into the cave in the first place. She waited for him to admonish her for not waiting for back-up, but he said nothing.
She loved him more for his silence.
She turned the conversation to Eve Bowers’s car. “Where did they find it? We’re getting pretty close to Lenore County. Is it even in our jurisdiction?”
“I’m told it is still Denton,” Noah said. “Well, it’s actually on state gameland, but since there’s no body inside it, the state police are happy to let us handle it.”
Blue and red lights strobed ahead, lighting up the night. All Josie could see was a narrow two-lane road, two Denton PD cruisers, and lots of barren trees, their dark, spindly branches reaching in every direction. Mettner parked behind one of the cruisers. Noah pulled in after him. He put the vehicle in park and took his phone out, pulling up a map of the area. He pointed to what seemed like a random road. “We’re right here.” He used his index finger to shift the map. A red pin icon appeared off to the side of the road, in a wooded area. “The car is here.”
Josie took his phone and studied the map. She pinched her thumb and index finger together and then spread them apart to zoom out. There was hardly anything but forest for miles. She pointed to the wooded area across the road from where the car had been located and traced a line around a large tract of property that stretched from the road they were on to another road west of them that ran parallel to it. “What is this?”
