Page 40 of Nightshade

“Still a Jane Doe.”

“Anything that can help with identification?”

“They took X-rays. Dental work and two pins in the left arm from surgery to repair a break. Based on the hardware, the pins were set within the past ten years.”

Stilwell was heartened. Both could lead to identification if the victim’s medical records could be located.

“What else?” he asked. “Sampedro ordered a rape kit, I hope.”

“Let’s see…” West said. “It does say the victim was fully clothed. But, yes, here it is. No indications of sexual assault, but foreign DNA was collected for analysis. They did a rape kit.”

“Collected from where?”

“The vagina.”

Stilwell thought about what that could mean. If she was fully clothed when she was put into the water and there were no bruises or other injuries from a sexual assault, it was possible she had had consensual sex prior to her death.

“What about TOD?”

“Factoring in decomp and water temp, time of death is a range of days, not hours. Six to eight days.”

“That’s from today or from day of recovery?”

“Six to eight days before recovery of the body.”

“Okay.”

Stilwell did the math and put the day Leigh-Anne Moss was fired from the BMC at the front of that range.

“Anything else flagged in the report?” he asked.

“Nope,” West said. “That’s it.”

“Okay, thanks, Monty. I owe you one.”

“That’s what you said last time. So you actually owe me two. Question is, when you going to pay up?”

“Soon, Monty. Soon.”

Stilwell disconnected and considered things for a few moments. His sub-rosa investigation was leading to a kill theory—that is, an emerging picture of what happened and why. He knew he was very short on details, but his instincts told him that Leigh-Anne Moss was the woman in the water and that she had been killed by a blow to the head with the sculpture of the leaping black marlin. Her body had then been secreted aboard theEmerald Seaand taken out of the harbor and into the bay to be weighted and submerged.

Stilwell knew that not one part of his kill theory was provable at the moment, not even the identification. But he was undaunted. He would continue his efforts, if only to show up Ahearn and make Corum realize he had transferred the wrong man out of homicide. He would push the boundaries, even though he knew that the next moves he needed to make would take him off the island and back to the mainland, where he would be unprotected and anything could happen.

15

STILWELL CALLED TASHfrom the ferry dock, where he had secured passage on the next boat to the Port of Los Angeles.

“I won’t be home tonight,” he said. “I’m heading across to do a couple interviews and should be back sometime tomorrow.”

There was a hesitancy in her voice when she asked, “Where are you going to stay?”

“Not sure yet,” Stilwell said. “I’ll try Gary Saunders, see if he can put me up, or I’ll just get a motel.”

“What interviews?”

“I think I have a line on the victim, and her overtown address is in Belmont Shore. I have to knock on that door, see if there’s anybody there. Then I want to talk to the guy you gave me, Mason Colbrink, up in Malibu.”

“You can’t do those by phone?”

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