Page 28 of Water's Edge

“I can tell you some of what will be in my report,” he says. “The victim is approximately twenty-two years old.” Next he gives us a physical description: height, weight, hair color, eye color.

Then he gets into what I am most interested in.

I lean closer and take in every word.

“Marks on her wrists were from hard bindings. I will say handcuffs could have made those marks, not rope or wire, but I can’t be one hundred percent sure and I’ll say that in my report. The band of bruising around her neck was caused by something an inch wide, leather, with a buckle. I say leather because I picked some pieces of material out of the scrape it left on her skin. The bruising was different depths on the left and back side of the neck as if it were pulled tightly or yanked at times. That’s why the buckle cut into the cervical bone.”

He pauses and holds his hands down like he’s gripping a golf club. “Imagine a dog on a leash and the dog is straining against it. As to cause of death: strangulation. The ligature around the neck fractured the hyoid bone and the bruising was deep around the larynx. The neck was broken afterward.”

“What about the stretch marks on her body?” I ask.

He gives me a quick nod. “She’s had a baby. More than a year ago. The stretch marks are healing and silvery in color. That would indicate it has been more than a year from the birth of the baby. Sometimes while pregnant the pubis symphysis will separate, but that won’t show on an X-ray at this point, of course. The vaginal walls were very loose. I can say definitely that she had a child.”

That is terrible news for a baby out there somewhere, but it is good news for me. If she had a child, she might have a husband, a boyfriend, someone to report her missing and identify her. I haven’t had any luck at this point. Her fingerprints have revealed nothing. The fibers on the body and the bits of leather collected will need to be confirmed. I have to call Crime Scene and make sure they’ve requested DNA testing.

“She was raped very recently before her death, Detective,” he says. “There was tearing in the vaginal wall and bruising on the labia and vulva. It may have happened during rough sex or something was inserted, causing the damage.”

That surprises me. He didn’t mention that during the autopsy while I was in the room. “Are you sure?”

The forensic pathologist nods. “I took scrapings of the area and they’re being sent to the crime lab to look for pubic hair, tissue, fibers, that kind of stuff. I swabbed her inner thighs and sent that off as well. If there is semen on her, it didn’t show up on black light. She may have been cleaned by the killer to destroy evidence.”

Dr. Andrade has been very thorough. I knew Crime Scene swabbed her hands, fingerprinted her, and scraped under her nails. Their report will show any results from the lab.

As we leave, my mind is on overload. I don’t even know how Ronnie and I got into the Taurus. I am suddenly driving. I was right about the cause of death, and apparently Dr. Andrade thought the marks on her neck were caused by a belt, even though he didn’t put that in his report. She was raped and maybe worse. And there was a baby roughly a year ago.

My mother was kidnapped and treated like Jane Snow. Confined, beaten, raped, left waiting to die.

I wonder how much empathy Ronnie can have for the victim. Probably worst thing that’s ever happened to her is not being elected homecoming queen. I know that’s not fair. She’s been a help. She’s been a pain, too, but she came through like a trouper today. She stayed through the entire autopsy, didn’t throw up, didn’t complain, and, more importantly, when I’d asked her not to mention my loss of composure to anyone, she said, “Mention what?”

Fifteen

The sun finds an opening in the clouds and sets the scenery along the highway to Jefferson County afire in a thick splinter of golden light. It’s early afternoon, and in another hour the shipyard traffic from Bremerton will crowd the roadway as workers head home after a long shift. The ferry dock isn’t far, and I think of the last time I took the boat to Seattle. It seems like eons ago. I definitely need to get out more.

The respite from the case is fleeting.

“Our only suspect at this point is Boyd,” I say. “When we get back, let’s see what more we can find on him while we wait for the evidence to be sorted out.”

“I looked him up on the Internet last night,” Ronnie says.

When were you going to tell me?

“Nice. Did you get anything?”

Ronnie punches and swipes like crazy. “Bingo. Here it is.” She stops and stares at the phone, her mouth agape. “Oh my God!”

I wait, but not for long. I don’t have to.

“This wasn’t on here last night.”

She holds the screen where I can glance at it. There is a selfie of Boyd with the state patrol vehicle behind him. Ronnie swipes again and there’s a picture of me. It’s not my best look. I concentrate on the road again. Cell phones have made people crazy. They drive crazy. Texting and driving should be a twenty-year prison sentence. Texting and hitting me while driving should be the death penalty.

She swipes several more times. “Boyd is quite the water lover. He’s got his own website. He is a tour guide for whitewater rafting, canoeing, kayaking, you name it. He’s got a section in here titled ‘Killing Box’ and has a bunch of pictures of them. Luckily for him there isn’t one of our crime scene.”

My phone rings. It’s Sheriff Gray.

“You coming back to the office?” he asks.

“We’re on the way.” I fill him in on what we learned at the autopsy. He doesn’t seem surprised. I guess with his years of service not much surprises him.

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