CHAPTER SEVEN
Preuss’s evidence had already arrived when Veronica got to the office at nine the next morning. It was crowded around her desk, a dozen cardboard bankers boxes labeled in black Sharpie. The sight made her feel slightly claustrophobic.
“They said a few boxes,” she said incredulously.
Behind her, Mac stood cradling her coffee mug. She smirked knowingly.
“Please. Endless stacks of evidence and unsorted information to sift through? You’re thrilled. This is Veronica Mars catnip.”
“Yeah, better get your spray bottle at the ready in case I start rolling on a pile of carpet-fiber spectrographs,” Veronica said with a mock scowl. “This is why you shouldn’t hire your friends. It’s all nice and professional until the insubordination starts.” She sighed. “Well, you know where I’ll be.”
“I’ll poke some food under the door at lunchtime,” Mac said, giving a jaunty little wave.
Once she’d shut her office door, Veronica just stood for a moment, looking around the cramped office. One box was labeled MEDICAL in a barely legible scrawl; another said CRIME SCENE. Several others were unlabeled. A few seemed to be packed past capacity, bulging ominously.
One of the first lessons Keith Mars had taught his daughter about solving crimes was that their most important tool was organization. That didn’t necessarily mean keeping an immaculate system of files and notes and evidence. Keith’s own notepad was indecipherable and incomplete, his corkboard a fluttering mess of scrap paper. But his mind was a Euclidean engine of perfect order and universal recall. He had his way; she had hers. But both understood that, without some way of sorting and cataloging facts, there was no way to see patterns. No way to change scope from forest to trees and back again. Her first job was to get a sense of how the case hung together, piece by awful piece.
She pried the lid off a box and started to unpack.
The first few folders contained schematic maps and photos of the place where the victim had been discovered—a field halfway to Pan Valley, more than twelve miles from the Neptune Grand. It had been raining on the night of the attack, and dark puddles mottled the landscape in the pictures. The rain seemed to have washed any evidence away; the only boot prints they had found belonged to the man who found the victim, an antiques dealer named Frank Kozlowski. The cops had found a tire print fifty yards away, on the road above the empty lot, and had identified it as a Firestone belonging to a midsized car, but there was no way to know if that print was connected to the crime.
Behind that folder, Veronica found another file crammed with photos. At first, she couldn’t quite tell what she was looking at: a bloodied mass of flesh; a shapeless form, black-and-blue and pink. Then the image resolved and she saw that it was a girl lying in a hospital bed.
She’d braced herself for the photos of the victim’s injuries—the insurance adjustor’s circumspect language told her the attack had been brutal—but she still stiffened at what she was seeing. The girl’s skin was a patchwork of contusions. Her nose was swollen, twice its normal size. Her eyes were blackened, lashes sticky with blood. One cheek was split jaggedly open. Her left arm was in a cast; her fingers were in splints. An ovoid pattern of bruises crisscrossed her throat.
Strangled, Veronica thought. She set the photos aside and picked up the medical report.
According to the medical examiner, the victim had suffered over twenty broken bones, including her nose, clavicle, three fingers, and the hyoid bone at the base of her neck. Her left shoulder had been dislocated. The cartilage in her throat had been torn and bruised, leaving her unable to speak for days after the attack. She had a severe concussion. On top of that, the examiner noted symptoms of cerebral hypoxia, meaning her attacker had choked her long enough to cut off her air supply. Semen evidence taken from her body had been entered into the DNA database, but had yielded no matches.
Veronica placed the ME’s report next to the toxicology panel. The victim had tested negative for everything except evidence of moderate alcohol consumption and traces of Xanax, for which she had a prescription. There was no sign of anything recreational—no meth, no heroin, no Oxy, no E. Not even cannabis. No Rohypnol or GHB either, meaning her memory loss was likely a result of her brain injuries and her trauma.
Or an act, Veronica thought. Though for the girl to cover for her attacker after what he had subjected her to? Not impossible, but definitely implausible.
She worked slowly, spreading files out across her desk and labeling them, rearranging and collating as she went. There were more photos, some showing further details of the girl’s injuries, others showing details of the field. One showed the dress she’d been wearing, filthy and torn, laid out on a metal exam table. A close-up of the tag revealed that it was Versace.
Finally, she found what she’d been looking for: the police report. It was dated March 9, two days after Grace had been found. Two deputies had signed it, a Tim Foss and a Jerrell Bundrick—neither familiar to her. In cramped type, they had detailed a living nightmare in flat, bureaucratic language.
Victim currently unable to speak as a result of her injuries, but was able to answer preliminary questions with pen and paper.
Victim arrived at Neptune Grand at approx. 10:30 p.m. on March 6, 2014. Victim claimed she was there to meet her boyfriend, but was unwilling to give his name. She waited for him in the rooftop bar, but according to victim he canceled their plans at 11:15; she stayed on and ordered more drinks. Victim says she remembers entering the stairwell, which she “always uses.” Victim remembers receiving blows to her face, head, and torso, but cannot describe her attacker. She also remembers having her air cut off by someone or something crushing her throat. She is unsure where the attack took place, and doesn’t remember leaving the hotel. At this time, victim is still disoriented and confused—the medical examiner’s official report is pending but according to the ICU doctor, memory loss and confusion are normal in cases of strangulation.
Veronica read on and stray words registered—blonde, shock, evidence. Then her eyes fell on the victim’s name. Grace Elizabeth Manning. Age nineteen.
It took a moment for the name to register.
Grace Elizabeth Manning.
It couldn’t be the same Grace Manning. It just couldn’t.