Page 74 of The Girls in the Snow

Twenty-Eight

The air bullet had hit her hard enough to draw blood, but the wound was superficial. The bruise, however, was not. By the time Nikki arrived at the medical examiner’s office in St. Paul the next morning, the welt above her ear looked like the mark from a branding iron, and the two-inch-long purple bruise along her scalp was impossible to hide. But she had received the call from Liam just after she’d dropped Lacey off at school, and she knew now more than ever she needed to solve the case and get out of Stillwater. Time away from Lacey was tearing Nikki apart and she wasn’t any safer for it.

The medical examiner’s office in St. Paul handled the death investigations of multiple smaller counties, including Washington County. Its location in the big medical complex in downtown St. Paul meant parking was usually hit and miss. Nikki finally found an open space in the east parking ramp. She walked as fast as possible in her heavy snow boots, and by the time she checked in with the front desk and joined Liam at the medical examiner’s office, her head had started to ache again. They walked in silence to the autopsy suite, Nikki’s nerves on edge. The fact that the chief medical examiner wanted to go over things with the bodies present was not a good sign, but at least she was finally getting answers now that Madison and Kaylee’s bodies had defrosted.

Dr. Blanchard was already waiting for them, impatiently tapping her foot. “You’re late.” Melissa was the state’s first African-American chief medical examiner. Nikki had worked with her on several cases, and while her no-nonsense approach intimidated some, Nikki appreciated it.

“My fault,” Nikki said. “I’m sorry.”

Blanchard raised an eyebrow. “You run into a door?”

“Something like that.”

“Right,” Blanchard said. “First, Janelle Gomez. Her family wants to give her a proper Catholic funeral, so I’ve released the body. She was hit with a blunt round object. The lamp you found at the motel is the likely culprit.”

“Did she die instantly?”

“No, given the level of frostbite on her body, I think she was alive for at least a couple of hours after she was dumped,” Blanchard said. “X-rays show a lot of healed breaks, so she’s definitely been battered. But no sign of sexual assault and nothing to suggest she had sex prior to her death.”

Nikki felt a surge of relief that Janelle hadn’t been sexually assaulted. The way she’d died, alone and in the freezing cold, was bad enough. “If her ex did this, I would expect signs of a beating. What did the Eau Claire police say?” Nikki asked Liam.

“Still looking for him as of late last night,” Liam said. “I planned to call for an update after we finished here. Dr. Blanchard, when do you expect the toxicology report?” Liam asked.

“I’ve asked the lab to rush it, but you know how that goes. As for Madison and Kaylee, you need to see the bodies.”

Blanchard unlocked the suite and Nikki tried not to recoil at the potent aroma of formaldehyde. Madison and Kaylee’s bodies lay on the steel gurneys, covered by a sheet. Their clothes had been carefully removed, the pictures taken, the autopsy performed.

Blanchard pulled Kaylee’s sheet down to her chest. Her blue, pasty skin had lost much of its elasticity. Large purple bruises covered her neck. “Kaylee died first.”

“Strangled?”

Blanchard nodded. “After what appears to be consensual sex. A condom was used, and there’s no tearing or damage; we sometimes see that with assault. She was alive when it happened. It also appears she remained on her back for a while, because lividity set in, as you can see. However, being frozen can mess that up, so it’s not an absolute. What is definite, however, is that Kaylee was coming out of rigor mortis when she was frozen.”

Nikki must have heard wrong. “Excuse me?”

“Both her knee and hips joints have clear postmortem tears,” Blanchard said. “The lower extremities stay in rigor the longest. Kaylee wasn’t completely out of rigor when she was forced into the fetal position.”

“Which means she’d been dead, what, eight to twelve hours?” Liam asked.

“On average, yes.”

“This sounds ignorant,” Nikki asked, “but there’s no way these tears could come from being partially frozen first and then secured into the fetal position?”

“It’s unlikely. A partially frozen limb would be harder to move than one coming out of rigor.”

The killer hadn’t known what to do with the bodies initially. They’d been hidden somewhere. “What about Madison?”

“The girls had pizza before departing the Bankses’ home, and that’s what I found in Kaylee’s stomach. Madison’s was empty. Her bowel, however, is full,” Blanchard said.

“So, six to eight hours to digest,” Liam said. “Usually a bowel movement within a day or two?”

“Usually, but it could be a bit longer.” Blanchard removed Madison’s sheet.

Nikki and Liam both gasped. Her frozen clothes had hidden the litany of bruises on her body. Her arms and feet had clear ligature marks.

“No sign of sexual assault, but her fingernails are broken, along with a couple of fingers.”

“She fought like hell.” Nikki jammed her hands at her waist. She’d learned a long time ago to never put herself in the victim’s shoes, but as a mother, seeing the horror Madison had endured made her want to leave the room.

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