“Anything under her fingernails?” Maggie asked.
“No. Actually there are no defensive wounds. Something like this would have left her arms and hands with tremendous bruises, not to mention possible broken bones. Teeth and jaw are pretty much shattered. They won’t be much help with ID. I do think she was spared and wasn’t conscious for long.”
“You think the first blow incapacitated her?”
“That’s my initial thought. I won’t be able to confirm that until I finish.”
“So what the hell did he use?” Racine asked.
“A crowbar or a claw hammer?” Maggie offered.
“Either’s a possibility. It didn’t splinter. Something metal makes sense. There’s a bit of residue inside the nasal cavity, or what’s left of it. Something oily. Hard to tell with all the caked blood. I’ve sent a swab to the lab.”
“If her fingerprints aren’t on file and we don’t have teeth, you’re not giving me much to work with, Stan,” Racine told the medical examiner. “No one’s going to be able to make a visual ID.”
Stan shrugged. That wasn’t his problem. He was finished with the outside for now. He walked over to the counter, where he had left the extracted organs. He was methodical in processing the body. It was up to Maggie and Racine to take those facts and piece them together as evidence of what happened.
Maggie watched him take what looked like a bread knife and slice open the stomach, tugging back the lining.
“Full house here,” he said.
Racine covered her nose while both she and Maggie stepped closer.
“So she’d just eaten,” Maggie said.
“Within two hours of dying.” Stan poked at the contents, slipping a glob of it onto the tray. “Actually I’d say within an hour. Kind of an odd combination here. Looks like maybe doughnuts. I’m guessing until we can test it. Maybe potato chips.” He pushed a red piece around the tray. “Licorice.”
“Licorice?”
“Sounds like road food,” Racine said.
Stan and Maggie both stopped to stare at Racine.
“I eat crap like that when I drive up to see my dad,” she explained. “Stop for gas, pick up something to munch.”
The automatic door wheezed open and Stan’s diener hurried in with the X-rays.
“Dr. Wenhoff, I think you’ll want to take a look at this.”
He slapped the pieces of film onto the front of a light box. Secured them in place and turned on the light.
Maggie immediately noticed the white oval in the chest X-ray.
Stan tapped it with his pen. “The killer evidently didn’t know the victim very well.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Racine asked.
“But there’s only one,” Maggie said.
“A single breast implant usually indicates cancer rather than just cosmetic surgery. Good news is, we should be able to figure out who she is. It’s considered a surgical device, so it’ll have the manufacturer and a serial number.”
“So they can match it in a database?” Maggie asked.
“The bastard didn’t count on that when he was bashing in her face and teeth.”
“Should be able to give us the name and address of the surgeon,” Stan said. “You’ll need to convince him to give you the patient’s name.”
“Simple as that,” Racine said.
“Not quite so simple. I’ll need to cut it out completely. The serial number’s on the other side.”
CHAPTER 37
Tully settled into the editing studio, surprised at how small it was. His long legs folded uncomfortably, his knees against a panel of knobs, switches, and keyboards. The space reminded him more of a cockpit than a television news studio.
The engineer Samantha Ramirez introduced as Abe Nadira was not pleased to have Tully beside him. He glanced at Tully, eyes only, head straight forward. His lips pressed together, a thin line that barely moved when he talked. He gave one-word replies most of the time. Tully was relieved that Sam stayed. He didn’t get the whole story of what had happened last night at Maggie’s, but it had changed the young camerawoman’s attitude. Suddenly she was willing to do whatever she could to help them.
She stood behind them, directing Nadira like a backseat driver, only with a quiet and gentle patience.
“I think you might need to go back all the way to a minute, forty seconds. I did a brief test,” Sam said, “then a full sweep of the area.”
She was referring to her film footage from the fire, the minutes before the rescue teams arrived. Tully still didn’t buy her reason for getting to the fire so quickly. She claimed she and Jeffery Cole were supposed to meet for a late dinner after finishing up what she called a “puff piece” on the District’s homeless. They had spent several hours shooting in front of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, where the evening buses unloaded the homeless who had commuted downtown for the day and were returning.