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“Agreed.”
* * *
The team was well under way by the time Jo and Arnett returned to Crone Ridge. Jo spotted Janet Marzillo, who oversaw the Oakhurst lab, from the familiar brown eyes and hints of her curly black hair peeping out from the few visible portions of her PPE. Marzillo squatted next to Madison while Hakeem Peterson, Marzillo’s right-hand man, processed the twin altars.
“Jo, Bob.” Marzillo nodded to them. “We’ve been here about forty-five minutes, so I have a general sense of what we’re looking at.”
“Catch us up,” Jo said.
“Cause of death is almost certainly the slashed throat, based on the amount of blood coming from that site versus the abdomen. The incision is long and deep, most likely caused by a right-handed person kneeling behind her head while she was already lying down.”
“So not when she was still standing up?” Arnett asked.
“See the slight upwards angle at the right end of the wound? If Madison had been standing, her killer would have had to raise the knife up toward the sky at the end of the slash, which would be a very awkward angle and the opposite of what you’d normally do.” She mimicked the sharp direction the killer’s arm would have to take. “And if you look at the blood, gravity pulled it to the sides right from the start, and the pooling is contained. If she’d been standing, I’d expect to see blood spatter elsewhere on the ground. We checked with luminol, and that’s not the case.”
“No signs that she was restrained, unless we missed them?” Arnett said.
“I’ve found no evidence of that, either in terms of abrasions or bruising. In fact, there’s no bruising anywhere I can see, and no signs of a struggle or sexual assault. She may have been drugged, so I’ll have the tox screen double-check for that.”
“So our killer could easily have been a woman.” Jo gestured toward the knife in Madison’s abdomen. “Please tell me the killer did that after she was dead.”
“He—or she—did. But if you’re asking if the baby was already dead by the time it was stabbed, there’s no way to know without an autopsy. Most likely not even then. As soon as Madison was killed, oxygen would have stopped flowing to the baby, but the baby would have been alive for five to ten minutes after that.”
Bile rose in Jo’s throat, but she forced herself to push down the images flashing through her mind. “Do you have an estimate on time of death?”
Marzillo’s brow creased. “A very general one. She’s in full rigor, except for where you broke it to examine the baby figurine, which, generally speaking, would mean she’s been dead at least six hours. But given how cold it was last night, I’d expect it to take a little longer, maybe minimum eight hours.” She bent down and motioned around the face and throat. “But—and keep in mind I’m no expert here—blowflies lay their eggs on open wounds and cavities, and it takes twelve hours for those first eggs to hatch. You can see that’s well under way, with both eggs and maggots around the neck incision, the eyes, nose, and mouth. But the ones that have hatched are only about three millimeters in length; by twenty-four hours they’d be in their second instar, which would put them at about six millimeters. So the best we can narrow down time of death to is between twelve and twenty-four hours. You’d have to talk to a forensic entomologist to be sure, but I’d put it closer to twenty-four.”
“Damn.” Jo tapped a nail on the side of her leg. “That puts us right back where we were. She could have been killed last night after dark, or shortly after she left to take Ginger for a walk.”
Marzillo stood back up. “I’ve taken samples from the blood used to draw on her in case our killer was stupid or unhinged enough to use his own.”
“Can we tell anything about the knife?” Arnett asked.
“We’ll do a search; Hakeem is good with weapons. We’re doing a spiral search out from the scene for any evidence, and I sent a tech out with a park ranger to check all of the trash cans throughout the park.”
“On top of it as always.” Jo gazed out past the boulders, then back at Madison. “Hard to tell at this point if we’re looking at a serial killer or something more personal. If it is personal, my main suspect is the baby’s father, but we need to figure out who that is. Can you be sure to take a DNA sample from the baby?”
“Not a problem,” Marzillo said over her shoulder.
A voice crackled over Officer Rankin’s radio. He responded, then called out to them. “Detectives. One of the CSIs found something else in the woods.”
* * *
The CSI in question was Alicia Sweeney, a red-haired early-thirties recent addition to the lab. They found her several hundred yards from the gravestone boulders, guarding a handful of evidence markers.
“Alicia. This is the second time you’ve helped us find crucial evidence in the woods,” Jo said.
Sweeney’s smile lifted her eyes, the only thing visible through her PPE. “When my father told me I’d come to appreciate the time we spent camping as a family, I don’t think this is what he meant.”
Jo half-smiled as she followed the markers. On a small boulder the height of a chair lay a pile of neatly folded clothes, along with a cell phone and a small keychain both attached to a wristlet case. A pair of trainers were neatly settled at the base of the rock, with socks stuffed inside. “You found them like this?”
“Yup. I marked them and photographed them, but that’s it. I figured you’d want to see them before I dug in.”
“Please, carry on,” Jo said.
“Some people use those kinds of cell-phone cases as mini purses, so there may be some identification inside. I’ll start there.” She fingerprinted the outside, then swabbed it for DNA. She opened it, did the same, then held up the windowed ID for Jo and Arnett to see.
“Madison Coelho.” Jo pulled out her own phone. “I’ll let Lopez know. She’ll want to get her hands on the device as soon as possible.”
