The show had made him antsy. He’d never sleep now that her image had been inside this motel room. Almost without realizing it, he had dressed and was back in his vehicle, back on the road, driving through the fog and the rain. Heading back to her neighborhood.
It was impossible to see inside her house, even from the back. He might have ventured closer if that damned dog hadn’t been crouched in the tall grass, growling like some rabid animal ready to pounce. A black creature with snarling white teeth, standing guard.
His mother used to talk about black creatures of the night that warded off evil. That Margaret O’Dell should have one of these guarding her made her a worthy adversary indeed.
His outing stirred him up more than ever. Driving away from Margaret O’Dell was like pulling away from a magnetic field.
He passed by the exit for the motel and kept on driving, despite the sleet. He knew the only thing that would help calm him.
CHAPTER 36
Maggie thought the dead body looked almost artificial, splayed out on the stainless-steel table, gray and waxy under the fluorescent lights. A brutally murdered body could sometimes bear little resemblance to anything human. This was one of those times.
Maggie and Racine stood side by side, gowned up and waiting now for Stan. One of his dieners had already photographed, washed, and X-rayed the dead woman. Stan had been interrupted shortly after he started, called away to take an important phone call. He’d already cut and spread opened the victim’s chest. The woman’s heart lay on a tray, her lungs on another, and the stomach on a third—all in a row on the counter like some freakish display.
Since she hadn’t been at the scene, Maggie flipped through photos that had been taken of the body back in the alley beside the Dumpster. Some of the woman’s clothes had been singed and covered with cinders, but Maggie didn’t see any burn marks on her flesh.
“Had to be someone who knew her, right?” Racine said. “Strangers don’t usually bash in the face like that.”
“Unless he wanted to destroy her identity. It’s possible he knew her. That she wasn’t a random victim.”
“The cardboard box definitely wasn’t hers.”
“She wasn’t homeless,” Maggie said. “Her legs are shaved.”
“Doesn’t cross off prostitute,” Racine said. She pointed to the purple bruising that colored the woman’s entire left side, from arm to hip to leg. “Livor mortis—she had to be on her side for several hours after she died. Wherever she died, it wasn’t in that alley.”
Racine was right. Livor mortis, called the bruising of death, was often a telltale sign of the victim’s last position. After the heart stops circulating blood, gravity pulls the blood down to settle at the lowest spot where the body meets a surface.
“Even left an imprint,” Racine added. “Looks like she was on some kind of a grate.”
Maggie took a closer look. The skin on the woman’s hip was embossed with a meshlike pattern.
“Anything found in the alley that would match that?”
“Not unless they pulled it out of the Dumpster. I’ll check later.”
They were quiet again. Maggie looked through more of the photos. Racine glanced over her shoulder for Stan. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her foot tapped out her growing impatience.
“So what are you getting Ben for Valentine’s Day?”
“Excuse me?”
It wasn’t the strangest question ever asked over a dead body. Maggie had learned long ago that law enforcement officers talked or joked about some of the oddest stuff. Their way of releasing the tension of the moment.
“Valentine’s Day,” Racine repeated. “It’s next week. This is the first time I’ve ever been with someone long enough to give a Valentine’s Day gift. I’m like Houdini when it comes to relationships—constantly looking for the trapdoor or an escape as soon as the ‘L’ word is exchanged.”
“Really? What about Jill?”
“I forgot you met her. Nope. Four months.”
“She seemed nice.”
“She was psycho.”
“I thought she was an MP in the army?”
“Yeah, I should have taken that as a warning. So what are you getting Ben?”
“Ben and I aren’t there yet.”
“Right.”
“We’re friends.”
“For real? I thought for sure you two were doing it.”
The automatic door buzzed open and Maggie tried not to look relieved as Stan returned.
“Ladies, my apologies for the delay. Where were we?”
“Weapons,” Racine said, going from Valentine’s Day to murder without missing a beat. “What does that to a face? Baseball bat?”
“No, not a bat. It had to be something with a sharp end. Maybe a claw of some sort. It gouged her flesh. Didn’t just create flyers but pulled out chunks of tissue, some of which we found in her hair and on her clothes. We didn’t find it all, though, which makes me certain she wasn’t killed in the alley.”