Mariah Stewart - Cold Truth

He carried her from the car through the bamboo, Cass thought, then she must have become heavy, and he let her down back there, right where the weeds begin to bend. He dragged her down this far; the dragging of her body made the path, such as it is. Then he dropped her here.

Why had he dropped her here?

She stood for several long moments, listening to the light breeze set the rushes in motion. The body was fresh, the young woman hadn’t been there for long. Late last night, Cass surmised. She squatted down near the depression and studied it, looking for something that would help her to see what had happened here. It took her almost ten minutes, but she found it: two sections of reeds, bunched and broken, spaced almost two feet apart, at either side of the top of the depression.

Cass could see the woman now, facedown in the marsh, her arms outstretched, hands grabbing on to the only things she could reach…

She stood and walked back up the path to the road, snapping shots of everything she felt relevant, then she caught Spencer’s eye.

“Got something, Burke?” Spencer called, and she responded by waving him over to where she stood.

“I think I found the path the killer took into the marsh,” she said when Spencer joined her.

“This is his way in, and out, I suspect,” she told him. “And down here-please watch where you walk-look here…”

She led him down the path and to the depression in the reeds.

“I think she may have been unconscious when he took her out of the car and began to carry her down here. Then, when he got about here, she either became too heavy or woke up and began to fight, and he dumped her on the ground over there.”

“What makes you think she was still alive?” Spencer asked, and Cass pointed to the bunched and broken reeds.

“I think she grabbed on to the reeds and tried to crawl away. I think this is where she was attacked. I think he hurt her here.”

Cass knelt on one knee to obtain close-up shots of the broken stalks.

Spencer stepped off the path and looked around.

“He could have taken her down this way,” he pointed toward the left, “right to the stream. He might have waded through it, just like we did, to avoid leaving footprints.”

“Let’s check it out.”

They picked their way through the marsh to the bank of the stream. From there they followed the current back to where the body lay.

“Find anything?” Tasha asked without looking up from her task, scraping under the victim’s fingernails into small plastic bags, one for each finger.

“We found evidence that she may have been alive when she was brought down here.” Cass stepped from the water onto a nearby rock and described the scene they had discovered in the marsh.

“I agree, she died here.” Tasha turned to drop the bags into a container. “Fixed lividity here on the right hip and along the thigh and upper arm. Just the way we found her. Rigor’s set in, we got the flies but no maggots yet, so we know right off the bat that we’re within twelve hours. Body temp right now is 85.1 degrees Fahrenheit, so, since we know that the body loses about one and a half degrees every hour after death, that means…”

“She’s been dead about nine hours.” Cass looked at her watch. It was just a few minutes after nine. “Which takes us to around midnight last night.”

“That’s my best estimate, though it could have been a little less. It was cool last night, could have lowered her body temp a little faster.” Tasha stood up and motioned for the county medical examiner. “Dr. Storm, she’s all yours.”

“Thanks.” The ME, a stocky woman in her early sixties, stepped forward, her expression solemn.

Tasha stripped off her gloves and dropped them into her open bag, telling Cass, “I should have something for you by tomorrow. At least by then I’ll know if he left any DNA. I’m hoping there are some skin cells under her nails, if nothing else. Then we’ll see what Dr. Storm has for us. In any event, I’ll be in touch as soon as I know something.”

Cass nodded. “I’d appreciate it.”

“By the way, cause of death appears to be manual strangulation,” the tech told Cass. “Looks like she was sexually assaulted, but we’ll have to wait for the ME’s findings to know for sure. We’ll also want to know which came first, the assault or the strangulation.”

Tasha closed the black bag into which she’d tucked the samples she’d painstakingly collected. “I’ll head on back to the lab now, and try to sort this all out.”

She smiled at Cass, then added, “Then you get to figure out what it all means.”

“With luck.”

“Anyone know who she is?” Tasha hoisted the bag over her shoulder.

“Not that I’m aware. Helms found her clothes in the marsh, they’ve been bagged for the lab. Jeans, T-shirt, bra, panties, one brown leather sandal, canvas purse,” Cass told her.

“Guess you weren’t lucky enough to find a wallet with ID in the purse?”

“No wallet.”

“Well, I guess that’s your job, right?” Tasha started toward the county van, which was parked up near the road. “To figure out who she was and why this happened to her?”

“We’ll do our best.” Cass fell in step alongside Tasha.

“When was the last time you guys in Bowers had a homicide?”

“Aside from the hit-and-run we had last month, this is it. We’ve had a few domestics over the years, but for the most part, this has been a pretty quiet town. I guess if you had to depend on us to keep you busy, you’d be pretty bored,” Cass said when they reached the van.

“Please, we have plenty to do without your homicides.” Tasha opened the back of the van and set the bag in. “We cover the entire county. There’s always something going on somewhere. And there’s no shortage of rapes, assaults, burglaries, you name it. Plus, things will start to pick up now, especially when the kids start coming for senior week.”

Tasha grimaced. “I hate senior week. Then, of course, straight through till Labor Day the entire county is hopping. All these little shore towns with their rentals-families and college kids-and then there’s the daytrippers. Over the past few years, we’ve had a bunch of homicides. I hope this is the only one you’ll have to deal with.”

Tasha opened the driver’s-side door and hopped in.

“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” she told Cass.

“Thanks. I appreciate it. I’ll make a set of photos for you and send them over.” Cass stepped back and watched the van pull onto the highway, then scanned the small crowd that gathered around the officer who had found the body, and who was now retelling the story for the newly arrived chief of police.

Denver stood quietly, occasionally nodding, until the officer concluded his verbal report. Then, without so much as a comment, the chief followed the path to the body, and stood over it, wordlessly watching the ME’s ministrations. Finally he turned and looked up to the crowd at the edge of the roadway. When he met Cass’s eyes, he held them for a very long minute before turning away abruptly and walking back to his car.

Cass watched Denver ’s Crown Vic pull away from the side of the road before motioning to Spencer, who was in deep conversation with one of the EMTs.

“I’m going to go back to the station and check for missing persons,” she called to him.

“I think I’ll stick around here for a while longer, grab a ride back with Helms,” Spencer replied.

“Okay. I’ll see you there.”

Cass walked back down toward the stream, pausing about ten feet from where the body lay sadly exposed. The limbs, where rigor mortis was beginning to set in, were covered with eager flies seeking an opening. The medical examiner was still conducting her inspection of the body, and Cass found she could not bear to watch this latest invasion of the unnamed woman. She crossed the stream and followed the trail along the other side to the two-lane road where she’d left her car. She got in and turned on the ignition, her movements becoming more and more robotic with each passing moment. She turned the car around and drove, not to the station, but to a lonely stretch of road.