Linda Castillo - Pray for Silence

Ensconced in gray ceramic tile, the autopsy room is maintained at a cool sixty-two degrees. Though the ventilation and air-conditioning system is state of the art, the smells of formalin and decaying flesh are ever-present. Stark fluorescent light rains down on seven stainless-steel gurneys, all of which are occupied.

“We didn’t have enough gurneys for all the bodies, so we had to borrow from another department,” the doc comments as we enter.

Stainless-steel counters line three walls. I see white plastic buckets, trays filled with instruments I don’t want to think about, and two deep sinks with tall, arcing faucets. A scale, similar to the kind you see at the grocery store for weighing produce, hangs above the counter to my left. It seems obscenely out of place here.

I’m not exactly sure why I do this to myself, this revisiting of the dead. There is some information a cop gleans from seeing a body up close and personal, but most truly useful information comes from the autopsy report. Still, I come here. I pay final homage. Maybe I do it because seeing the victims reminds me that there are real people behind every crime. I work for them now.

Two of the gurneys stand separate from the other five. I see a dark stain on the sheet cover, and I know those are the two autopsies that have been completed. “Which vics are finished?” I ask.

The technician looks at his clipboard. “Bonnie Plank. And Mary Plank.”

“Did you get slugs?” I ask.

Rohrbacher nods. “Dug one out of the mother. It was pretty wrecked, but I sent it to the lab.”

“You check for gunshot residue on the adult male?”

“We sent the clothing and skin surface residue to the lab. Should know something in a few days.”

Doc Coblentz crosses to the nearest gurney and pulls down the sheet. Mary Plank’s body looms into view. She’s lying supine. A slender-limbed girl who had once been pretty. Her face is gray now. My gaze drifts to her mouth. It’s slack and partially open, exposing straight, white teeth. Her left hand hangs limp over the side of the gurney.

I force my gaze to the rest of her body. The Y-incision is ghastly beneath the bright lights, the dark stitches running like tiny railroad tracks over pale flesh.

I move closer to the gurney. “Cause of death?”

“She bled to death.” Using a long, cotton-tipped swab, Doc Coblenz indicates the wound on her lower abdomen. “Her uterus was removed.”

Shock tears through me, like fabric being torn violently in half. “He cut it out?”

“Hacked is a better term. Cutting was extremely primitive. There was severe internal bleeding. She went into shock and ultimately expired from cardiac arrest.”

“Why would he do that?”

Doc Coblentz looks at me over the tops of his glasses, and I sense he’s about to fling something terrible my way. “Upon internal examination, we noticed what was left of the cervix was bluish in color, which is a sign of pregnancy, so we ran a few routine blood tests,” he says. “This girl was pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” Shock rattles through me, a punch that hits close to home and sinks in deep. Mary Plank was fifteen years old. She was Amish and unmarried. Premarital sex is rare among Amish teens, but it happens. They’re human beings; they make mistakes. They keep secrets. I know this secret would have borne a terrible weight.

My own past sweeps unbidden through my mind, a rogue wave churning with murky silt and debris. I know intimately what it’s like to be young and Amish and different. I remember the isolation and loneliness and the crushing weight of shame secrets can bring down on young shoulders. And I know that in the weeks before Mary’s death, she would have suffered great emotional stress.

For a moment I’m so profoundly stricken, I can’t speak. All I can think is poor, poor child.

“Kate?”

Giving myself a mental shake, I force my mind back to the matter at hand. I recall Bishop Troyer telling me that Bonnie Plank had wanted to speak to him about Mary. Had Bonnie known about her daughter’s pregnancy? No one I spoke to remembered a boyfriend. Who fathered the child? Did Mary have a lover? Was she raped and never reported it? Even to her family or bishop?

“How far along was she?” I ask.

“Without the fetus, there’s no way to tell.”

“Did anyone find the missing uterus?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” He looks at me over the tops of his glasses. “Once we realized she was pregnant, we took vaginal swabs, cervical swabs and did what’s called a vaginal wash. On the outside chance she’d had recent sexual intercourse, Jason prepared a wet-mount slide.”

“I don’t know what that is,” I say.

“The wet-mount slide revealed that she had live sperm in her vagina.”

All I can think is that we now have DNA. “So she was raped and he didn’t use a condom?”

“I don’t think so. Most of these sperm were immobile. I would guess they were over forty-eight hours old.”

Surprise lands another hard blow. “I didn’t realize sperm could live that long.”

“They can survive up to about seventy-two hours.”

I blink at him, confused. “So she had sex or was raped well before the murders?”

“Correct.”

I look from man to man. “Was she raped?”

Doc Coblentz shrugs. “There was no vaginal tearing or bruising of the pubis. Of course, that’s not definitive proof it wasn’t forcible rape. But there were no visible signs.”

My gaze darts to Rohrbacher. “At least now we have DNA.” I can’t keep the optimism from my voice. This development could break the case wide open. “I’ll have BCI check CODIS.” CODIS is the acronym for the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. Beginning in 1994, DNA samples of offenders were taken and entered into a database. If the semen retrieved from Mary Plank’s body is from an identified past offender, the FBI analyst may be able to match it with a name.

“How long will it take?” the doc asks.

“I’m not sure. A few days maybe. But if this guy’s in the system, we’ll have a name.”

The possibility bolsters me. But I know if the DNA is not in the system we’ll be back at square one. I look again at the girl’s body. So young and with so many secrets. I wish I didn’t know what that was like, but I do. And I feel a hell of a lot more than I should. I know what it’s like to be part of a close-knit group, to desperately want to belong, only to be held apart by secrets.

“Any hair or fibers on any of the bodies?” I ask.

He nods. “Both. We sent everything to BCI.”

If any of the hairs found are from the offender and include an intact root, we could have a second source of DNA. One more nail in the bastard’s coffin. “What about Bonnie Plank?” I ask.

Rohrbacher replaces the sheet. Doc Coblentz shuffles to the second gurney. “She died from a single penetrating gunshot wound to the mid-back area. The bullet transected the lower cervical and upper thoracic spinal cord.”

“She died instantly?”

“Correct.” He pulls down the sheet. For a moment the only sound comes from the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the hard thump of my heart. Bonnie Plank is a plump woman with ample body fat and breasts that sag to the left and right of her ribcage. The Y-incision has been stitched, but she hasn’t yet been cleaned up. Her head is turned slightly to one side, and I see a blood smear on her neck. Several red droplets stain the sheet.

When I close my eyes, I can still see the image of her lying in the grass, clutching the baby. She’d been running away. They shot her in the back. Who were you running from?

“Any sign of sexual assault?” I ask.

“No.”

At least she hadn’t had to endure the final insult of a rape. “What about the baby, Doc?”