Tess Gerritsen - The Silent Girl

With a deep breath, she pushed through the door.

Her assistant, Yoshima, had already transferred the body bag onto the table. On a tray beside it was the severed hand, covered by a drape. Acutely aware that Yoshima was listening to their conversation, Maura gave Jane a businesslike nod and said, “Isn’t Frost joining us?”

“He’s going to miss this one, but Johnny Tam’s on his way here. In fact, I think he can’t wait to watch you start slicing.”

“Detective Tam seems eager to prove himself.”

“I think he’s got his eye on joining homicide. From what I’ve seen so far, he may have what it takes.” She glanced up. “Speak of the devil.”

Through the viewing window, Maura saw that Tam had arrived and was tying on a surgical gown. A moment later he entered, jet-black hair hidden beneath a paper cap. He approached the table, his gaze calm and impassive as he focused on the draped body.

“Before we start, Tam,” said Jane, “I just want to point out to you that the barf sink is right over there.”

He shrugged. “I won’t need it.”

“You say that now.”

“We’ll start with the easy part,” said Maura, and she uncovered the tray with the severed hand. It looked plastic. No wonder the Chinatown tour group had mistaken it for a Halloween prop with fake blood. It had already been swabbed and found positive for gunshot residue. Fingerprints from this hand were found on the grip of the Heckler & Koch, leaving no doubt that the victim had fired the bullets, scattering five casings on the rooftop. Maura swung the magnifier over the hand and examined the severed wrist.

“The cut sliced right between the distal radius and the lunate bone,” she said. “But I can see a good chunk of the triquetral here.”

“And that would mean?” asked Jane.

“Whatever made this cut divided a carpal bone. And these bones are very dense.”

“So it had to be a sharp blade.”

“Sharp enough to amputate with a single slice.” Maura looked up. “I don’t see any secondary cut marks.”

“Just tell me this hand matches that body.”

Maura turned to the table and unzipped the body bag. The plastic parted, releasing the stomach-turning smell of refrigerated meat and stale blood. The cadaver inside was still fully clothed, the head tipped backward, exposing the gaping wound in her neck. As Yoshima took photos, Maura’s gaze was drawn to the woman’s auburn hair, caked in blood. Beautiful hair, she thought, and a beautiful woman. A woman who was armed and shooting at someone on that rooftop.

“Dr. Isles, we’ve got some hair and fiber evidence staring at us,” said Yoshima. He was bending over the corpse’s black sweatshirt, peering at a single pale strand that clung to the sleeve.

With a pair of tweezers, Maura plucked up the hair and examined it under the light. It was about two inches long, silvery gray and slightly curved. She glanced at the cadaver. “This obviously is not her hair.”

“Look, there’s another one,” said Jane, pointing to a second strand clinging to the victim’s black leggings.

“Maybe animal hairs,” said Yoshima. “Could be a golden retriever.”

“Or maybe she got whacked by a gray-haired grandpa.”

Maura slipped the strands into separate evidence envelopes and set them aside. “Okay, let’s undress her.”

First they removed the only item of jewelry she was wearing, a black Swiss Hanowa watch, from her left wrist. Next came the shoes, black Reeboks, followed by the hoodie sweatshirt and a long-sleeved T-shirt, leggings, cotton panties, and an athletic bra. What emerged was a well-toned body, slim but muscular. Maura had once heard a pathology professor assert that in his many years of performing autopsies, he’d never come across an attractive corpse. This woman proved there could be exceptions to that rule. Despite the gaping wound and dependent mottling of her back and buttocks, despite the glassy eyes, she was still a stunningly beautiful woman.

With the corpse now fully stripped of clothing, Maura and the two detectives stepped out of the room so that Yoshima could take X-rays. In the anteroom, they watched through the viewing window as he donned a lead apron and positioned the film cartridges.

“A woman like that,” said Maura, “is going to be missed by someone.”

“You saying that because she’s good-looking?” Jane said.

“I’m saying it because she looks incredibly fit, she has perfect dentition, and those are Donna Karan leggings she was wearing.”

“Question, please, from an ignorant man,” said Tam. “Does that mean they’re expensive?”

Jane said, “I’ll bet Dr. Isles here can quote you the exact retail price.”

“The point is,” said Maura, “she’s not some penniless stray off the street. She was carrying a lot of cash, and she was armed with a Heckler and Koch, which I understand is not your usual street gun.”

“She also had no ID,” said Tam.

“It could have been stolen.”

“But the thief leaves behind three hundred bucks?” Tam shook his head. “That would be weird.”

Through the viewing window, Maura saw Yoshima give a wave. “He’s done,” she said, and pushed through the door back into the lab.

Maura examined the incised neck first. Like the cut that had amputated the hand, this wound appeared to be a single slice, delivered without hesitation. Inserting a ruler into the wound, Maura said: “It’s almost eight centimeters deep. Transects the trachea and penetrates all the way to the cervical spine.” She reoriented the ruler. “Wider than it is deep, around twelve centimeters side to side. Not a stab but a slash.” She paused, studying the exposed incision. “Odd how smooth it is. There’s no bread-knifing, no secondary cuts. No bruising or crushing. It was done so quickly, the victim never had a chance to struggle.” She cradled the head and tilted it forward. “Can someone hold the cranium in position for me? I want to approximate the wound edges.”

Without any hesitation, Detective Tam stepped forward and cradled the head in his gloved hands. While a human torso can be viewed as merely impersonal skin and bone and muscle, a corpse’s face reveals more than most cops want to see. Johnny Tam, though, did not shy away from the view. He stared straight into the dead woman’s eyes, as though hoping they might provide answers to his many questions.

“That’s it, right there,” said Maura, sliding the magnifier over the skin. “I don’t see any serration marks. Nothing that would tell me what kind of knife…” She paused.

“What?” asked Jane.

“This angle is strange. It’s not your usual slashed throat.”

“Yeah, those are so boring.”

“Consider for a moment how you’d go about cutting a throat,” said Maura. “To penetrate this deep, all the way to vertebrae, you’d approach it from behind. You’d grab the victim’s hair, pull the head back, and slice across the front, from ear to ear.”

“The commando method,” said Tam.

“The rear approach gives you control of the victim and maximizes exposure of the throat. And it usually results in a curved incision when the wound’s later approximated. But this slash is angled slightly upward, right to left. It was delivered with the head in a neutral position, not tilted back.”

“Maybe the killer was standing in front of her,” said Jane.

“Then why didn’t she resist? There’s no bruising to indicate a struggle. Why would she just stand there while someone practically slices off her head?”

Yoshima said: “I’ve put up the X-rays.”

They all turned to the viewing box where the radiographs were now displayed, bones glowing white on the backlit screen. She focused first on the films of the right wrist stump and the severed hand, mentally comparing the angles of the transected triquetral bone. They were a match.