Karen Rose - Scream For Me

“Post. As was this bruising around her mouth.” She pointed to four fingertip-sized bruises.

Daniel frowned. “Wouldn’t those bruises be from the hand that killed her?”

Her brows lifted. “That’s what he wanted you to think. Remember the fibers I pointed out in her lungs and in the lining of her cheeks?”

“Cotton,” Daniel said. “From the handkerchief he shoved in her mouth.”

“Exactly. I’m guessing he didn’t want any of his own DNA in her teeth in the event she bit him. There are bruises on her nose that were put there before she was dead, you just can’t see them because of the beating. But after she was dead, somebody’s fingers were pressed to the side of her mouth. The distance between the finger bruises indicates it was a man’s hand, small in size. He went to considerable trouble to make this happen, Daniel. He was careful when hitting her face to leave this area around her mouth untouched. It’s almost like he wanted the finger bruises to show.”

“I wonder if Alicia Tremaine had finger bruising around her mouth.”

“That’s for you to find out. I can tell you this woman’s last meal was Italian, with sausage, pasta, and some kind of hard cheese.”

“Only about a million Italian restaurants in the city,” he said glumly.

She picked up the woman’s left hand. “She has thick calluses on her fingertips.”

Daniel leaned closer to see. “She played a musical instrument. Violin maybe?”

“Or something in the string family, something with a bow, I think. The other hand is soft, no calluses, so it’s probably not a harp or a guitar.”

“Was that the good news?”

Her eyes glinted in mild amusement. “No. The good news is that even if I can’t tell you who she was, I think I can tell you where she’d been twenty-four hours before she was killed. Come here, to this side of the table.” Felicity ran a black light wand over the victim’s hand, revealing the remnants of a fluorescent stamp.

He looked up and met Felicity’s satisfied eyes. “She’d been to Fun-N-Sun,” he said. The amusement park stamped the hands of anyone leaving and planning to return the same day. “They get thousands of visitors every day, but maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Felicity placed the woman’s arm at her side with gentle care and respect, elevating her in Daniel’s regard. “Or maybe someone will finally miss her,” she said quietly.

“Dr. Berg?” One of her assistant’s came into the room, carrying a sheet of paper. “This woman’s urine tox came back positive for flunitrazepam, one hundred micrograms.”

Daniel frowned. “Rohypnol? He used a date-rape drug? That’s not a lethal dose, is it?”

“That’s not even enough to knock her out. It’s barely enough to show up on the test. Jackie, can you run the test again? If I get called before a grand jury, I’m going to want a verification of your results. No offense.”

Unperturbed, Jackie nodded. “None taken. I’ll do it right now.”

“He wanted us to find the drug, but he didn’t want her completely incapacitated,” Daniel mused. “He wanted her awake and aware.”

“And he knows his pharmacology. It wouldn’t have been simple to achieve that low level of flunitrazepam. Again, he went to some trouble.”

“So the presence of Rohypnol is one more thing I need to check on the murder of Alicia Tremaine. I need to get that police report.” And so far, Dutton Sheriff Frank Loomis still hadn’t called him back. So much for professional courtesy. Daniel was going to Dutton to get that report in person. “Thanks, Felicity. As always, it’s been fun.”

“Daniel.” Felicity had stepped back from the body and was pulling off her mask. “I wanted to tell you that I was sorry to hear about your parents.”

Daniel drew a breath. “Thank you.”

“I wanted to go to the funeral, but…” A self-deprecating smile bent her lips. “I got to the church, but I couldn’t go inside. Funerals make me queasy. Believe it or not.”

He smiled at her. “I believe you, Felicity. And I thank you for trying.”

She nodded briskly. “I had Malcolm request the autopsy report on Alicia Tremaine after Miss Fallon left. When we get it, I’ll let you know.”

“Again, I appreciate it.” And as he walked away, he felt her watch him go.

Atlanta , Monday, January 29, 1:15 p.m.

When Daniel got back to his office, Luke was sitting in one of his chairs, a laptop in his lap and his feet up on Daniel’s desk. He looked up, studied Daniel’s face, then shrugged. “You’re making it damn hard for me to lie to my mama, Daniel. I can tell her you’re all right all I want, but those dark circles under your eyes tell a different tale.”

Daniel hung his jacket behind his door. “Don’t you have a job?”

“Hey, I’m working.” Luke held up the laptop. “I’m running a diagnostic on the chief’s machine. It’s been running ‘buggy.’ ” He quirked the air with his fingers, a smile on his face, but Daniel heard the tension in his friend’s voice.

He sat at his desk and did some studying of his own. There were no dark circles under Luke’s eyes, but within them was a bleakness few got to see. “Bad day?”

Luke’s smile disappeared, and closing his eyes, he swallowed audibly. “Yeah.” The single word was harsh and filled with a pain few truly understood. Luke was on the GBI’s task force against Internet crime, and for the last year he’d been focused on crime involving children. Daniel thought he’d rather watch a thousand autopsies than look at the obscenities Luke was forced to view every day. Luke drew a breath and opened his eyes, control restored even if serenity was not.

Daniel wondered if any cop ever got to serenity.

“I needed a break,” Luke said simply, and Daniel nodded.

“I just came from the morgue. My Jane Doe went to Fun-N-Sun on Thursday and plays the violin.”

“Well, the violin might narrow it down some. I brought you something.” Luke pulled a thick stack of papers from his computer bag. “I ran a deeper search on Alicia Tremaine and came up with all these articles. She had a twin sister.”

“I know,” Daniel said wryly. “Too bad you didn’t tell me before she walked in here this morning and scared the ever-livin’ shit outta me.”

Luke’s dark brows shot up. “She was here ? Alexandra Tremaine?”

“She calls herself Fallon now. Alex Fallon. She’s an ER nurse from Cincinnati.”

“So she lived then,” Luke said thoughtfully and Daniel frowned.

“What do you mean?”

Luke handed the stack of papers over the table. “Well, the story didn’t stop with Alicia’s murder. The day Alicia’s body was found, Kathy Tremaine, that’s their mother, shot herself in the head. She was apparently discovered by her daughter Alexandra, who then took all the pills the doctor had prescribed for the mother, who was hysterical after having to identify her daughter’s body.”

Daniel thought of Jane Doe on the table at the morgue and of a mother having to identify her child looking like that. Still, suicide was the coward’s way out… and for Alex to have discovered her that way. “My God,” he murmured.

“Kathy Tremaine’s sister had come down from Ohio because of Alicia and discovered them both. Her name was Kim Fallon.”

“Alex said she’d been adopted by her aunt and uncle, so that makes sense.”

“There’s more in the stack, obits and articles about the trial of Gary Fulmore, the man they charged with the murder. But there was no other mention of Alexandra after the article on Fulmore’s arrest. I guess Kim Fallon took her to Ohio after that.”

Daniel leafed through the pages. “Did you see mention of a Bailey Crighton?”