Karin Slaughter - Faithless

Jeffrey gave Lena a second, closer look. “You feeling okay?”

Lena ’s eyes flashed to Sara’s, something like guilt in them. Lena said, “I’m fine.” She indicated the dead girl. “You got a name on her yet?”

Jeffrey’s jaw tightened. She could not have asked a worse question. “No,” he managed.

Sara indicated the sink, telling him, “You need to wash out your hand.”

“I already did.”

“Do it again,” she told him, dragging him over and turning on the tap. “You’ve still got a lot of dirt in there.”

He hissed between his teeth as she put his hand under the hot water. The wound was deep enough for sutures, but too much time had passed to sew it up without risking infection. Sara would have to butterfly it closed and hope for the best. “I’m going to write you a prescription for an antibiotic.”

“Great.” He shot her a look of annoyance when she put on a pair of gloves. She gave him the same look back as she wrapped his hand, knowing they didn’t need to have this discussion with an audience.

“Dr. Linton?” Carlos was standing by the lightbox, looking at the girl’s X-rays. Sara finished with Jeffrey before joining him. There were several films in place, but her eyes instantly went to the abdominal series.

Carlos said, “I think I need to take these again. This one’s kind of blurry.”

The X-ray machine was older than Sara, but she knew nothing was wrong with the exposure. “No,” she whispered, dread washing over her.

Jeffrey was at her side, already picking at the bandage she had wrapped around his hand. “What is it?”

“She was pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Lena echoed.

Sara studied the film, the task ahead taking shape in her mind. She hated infant autopsies. This would be the youngest victim she had ever had in the morgue.

Jeffrey asked, “Are you sure?”

“You can see the head here,” Sara told him, tracing the image. “Legs, arms, trunk…”

Lena had walked up for a closer look, and her voice was very quiet when she asked, “How far along was she?”

“I don’t know,” Sara answered, feeling like a piece of glass was in her chest. She would have to hold the fetus in her hand, dissecting it like she was cutting up a piece of fruit. The skull would be soft, the eyes and mouth simply hinted at by dark lines under paper-thin skin. Cases like this made her hate her job.

“Months? Weeks?” Lena pressed.

Sara could not say. “I’ll have to see it.”

“Double homicide,” Jeffrey said.

“Not necessarily,” Sara reminded him. Depending on which side screamed the loudest, politicians were changing the laws governing fetal death practically every day. Thankfully, Sara had never had to look into it. “I’ll have to check with the state.”

“Why?” Lena asked, her tone so odd that Sara turned to face her. She was staring at the X-ray as if it was the only thing in the room.

“It’s no longer based on viability,” Sara explained, wondering why Lena was pressing the point. She had never struck Sara as the type who liked children, but Lena was getting older. Maybe her biological clock had finally started ticking.

Lena nodded at the film, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. “Was this viable?”

“Not even close,” Sara said, then felt the need to add, “I’ve read about fetuses being delivered and kept alive at twenty-three weeks, but it’s very unusual to-”

“That’s the second trimester,” Lena interrupted.

“Right.”

“Twenty-three weeks?” Lena echoed. She swallowed visibly, and Sara exchanged a look with Jeffrey.

He shrugged, then asked Lena, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, and it seemed as if she had to force herself to look away from the X-ray. “Yeah,” she repeated. “Let’s… uh… let’s just get this started.”

Carlos helped Sara into the surgical gown, and together they went over every inch of the girl’s body, measuring and photographing what little they found. There were a few fingernail marks around her throat where she had probably scratched herself, a common reaction when someone was having difficulty breathing. Skin was missing from the tips of the index and middle finger of her right hand, and Sara imagined they would find the pieces stuck to the wooden slats that had been above her. Splinters were under her remaining fingernails where she had tried to scrape her way out, but Sara found no tissue or skin lodged under the nails.

The girl’s mouth was clean of debris, the soft tissue free from tears and bruising. She had no fillings or dental work, but the beginning of a cavity was on her right rear molar. Her wisdom teeth were intact, two of them already breaking through the skin. A star-shaped birthmark was below the girl’s right buttock and a patch of dry skin was on her right forearm. She had been wearing a long-sleeved dress, so Sara assumed this was a bit of recurring eczema. Winter was always harder on the fair-skinned.

Before Jeffrey took Polaroids for identification, Sara tried to press the girl’s lips together and close her eyes in order to soften her expression. When she had done all she could, she used a thin blade to scrape the mold from the girl’s upper lip. There wasn’t much, but she put it in a specimen jar to send to the lab anyway.

Jeffrey leaned over the body, holding the camera close to her face. The flashbulb sparked, sending a loud pop through the room. Sara blinked to clear her vision, the smell of burning plastic from the cheap camera temporarily masking the other odors that filled the morgue.

“One more,” Jeffrey said, leaning over the girl again. There was another pop and the camera whirred, spitting out a second photograph.

Lena said, “She doesn’t look homeless.”

“No,” Jeffrey agreed, his tone indicating he was anxious for answers. He waved the Polaroid in the air as if that would make it develop faster.

“Let’s take prints,” Sara said, testing the tension in the girl’s raised arm.

There was not as much resistance as Sara had expected, and her surprise must have been evident, because Jeffrey asked, “How long do you think she’s been dead?”

Sara pressed down the arm to the girl’s side so that Carlos could ink and print her fingers. She said, “Full rigor would happen anywhere between six to twelve hours after death. From the way it’s breaking up, I’d say she’s been dead a day, two days, tops.” She indicated the lividity on the back of the body, pressing her fingers into the purplish marks. “Liver mortis is set up. She’s starting to decompose. It must’ve been cold in there. The body was well preserved.”

“What about the mold around her mouth?”

Sara looked at the card Carlos handed her, checking to make sure he had gotten a good set from what remained of the girl’s fingertips. She nodded to him, giving back the card, and told Jeffrey, “There are molds that can grow quickly, especially in that environment. She could have vomited and the mold set up on that.” Another thought occurred to her. “Some types of fungus can deplete oxygen in an enclosed space.”

“There was stuff growing on the inside of the box,” Jeffrey recalled, looking at the picture of the girl. He showed it to Sara. “It’s not as bad as I thought.”

Sara nodded, though she could not imagine what it would be like to have known the girl in life and see this picture of her now. Even with all Sara had tried to do to the face, there was no mistaking that the death had been an excruciating one.

Jeffrey held the photo out for Lena to see, but she shook her head. He asked, “Do you think she’s been molested?”

“We’ll do that next,” Sara said, realizing she had been postponing the inevitable.

Carlos handed her the speculum and rolled over a portable lamp. Sara felt they were all holding their breath as she did the pelvic exam, and when she told them, “There’s no sign of sexual assault,” there seemed to be a group exhalation. She did not know why rape made cases like this that much more horrific, but there was no getting around the fact that she was relieved the girl hadn’t had to suffer one more degradation before she’d died.