Josie and Noah finished up their reports and went home to try to catch a few hours of sleep, much to Trout’s delight. They took a hot shower together and Noah fell instantly to sleep the moment his head hit the pillow. Every time Josie started to drift off, she felt the woman’s fingers on her wrist. That final touch. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamt of her grandmother. She’d had nightmares nearly every night since Lisette’s murder. They were always the same: a dream-memory of the night she died, Josie unable to save her. This time, Lisette was trapped between the boulders at the Russell Haven Dam. Josie tried to save her before the water descended on them, but there was no chance. She woke gasping for breath, Trout licking her face and whimpering worriedly.
Knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep restfully, she went downstairs and booted up her computer. She pulled up the photos of the numbers that Amber had written in her diary. Trout snoozed at her feet, opting to keep her company rather than stay in bed with Noah. He must have sensed her agitation. He usually did. Josie started by entering each number into Google but got nothing. She counted up the digits in each number, making lists and charts to try to find some pattern. She made a list of possible formats the numbers could correspond with. Bank accounts were at the top of that list, but it would be impossible to ask each bank in the country to search their records for each number. Even if she wanted to do that, Josie would need a warrant and there wasn’t enough connecting the mysterious numbers to either Jane Doe’s death or Amber’s disappearance to get one.
By the time Noah appeared in the kitchen, freshly showered, sunlight streamed through the windows. “Hey,” he said. “Did you get any sleep at all?”
“A couple of hours,” Josie sighed. She checked the time. They were due to meet Dr. Feist at the city morgue in less than an hour.
Thirty minutes later, Josie and Noah were back in his car headed to Denton Memorial Hospital. The large brick building sat atop a rock-strewn hill overlooking the city. As they turned up the long road to the parking lot, Noah changed the radio station again and again, but they were all playing the morning news, and it was all about the unidentified woman who had been pulled from the river near Russell Haven in the middle of the night. “Police are describing her as a Caucasian female in her mid-twenties, about five foot four, one hundred thirty pounds, long auburn hair and blue eyes. If anyone has any information, please contact Denton Police Department.”
Noah turned the radio off. “Guess the Chief gave them the description. Maybe we’ll get some leads.”
They parked and made their way inside. The morgue was located in the windowless basement of Denton Memorial Hospital. The hallway leading to the suite of rooms presided over by Dr. Feist was dreary. Its walls were grimy with age and dirt, and its once-white tile floors were now a sickly jaundiced yellow. As always, the entire floor was eerily silent. Dr. Feist stood at the stainless-steel counter that lined one of the exam room walls, tapping away at her laptop. She wore blue scrubs. Her silver-blonde hair was tucked into a skullcap. Josie’s stomach churned at the smell of chemicals and decomposition. She’d been in this room countless times, but the smell never failed to jar her. Dr. Feist looked up as they walked in, offering a thin smile. Dark circles smudged the pale skin under her eyes.
Noah walked over and handed her a coffee which turned her smile much wider. “We know you’ve been up all night.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “I was already here on another case for the county sheriff. Figured I’d just make a night of it.”
Josie looked over to the exam tables. Only one of them held a body, covered in a white sheet. She could see auburn curls peeking out from under it.
“That’s your Jane Doe,” Dr. Feist said. She took a swig of coffee and set the cup down next to her laptop, walking over to the exam table. “You have any idea who she is?”
“No,” Josie said. “We think she could be Amber’s sister but without next of kin to identify her, we can’t say for sure.”
“No word on Amber?” asked Dr. Feist.
“Nothing yet,” Noah said.
Dr. Feist sighed and folded the sheet down to Jane Doe’s shoulders. Here, in the stark and unforgiving light of the autopsy room, the woman looked much paler, her skin waxy now, the large lump on her temple a starker purple than the last time Josie saw it.
“Your Jane Doe was brought in wearing a pair of jeans, bra, panties, and a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt with no markings on it. Plain, white cotton socks. One sneaker. She likely lost the other one in the river. No coat, gloves or winter hat. I had Officer Hummel from your Evidence Response Team come over and take her clothes into evidence, but we didn’t find anything that would help us identify her. She appears to be a very healthy twenty-something. No underlying conditions that are evident on exam or autopsy. No scars, no birthmarks, no tattoos. No signs of sexual assault. Cause of death is drowning. Typically, a diagnosis of drowning can be given once every other possibility has been excluded. Since this woman was pulled from the water, and since I was told that one of you confirmed that she was alive before she was swept away, it was a pretty sure bet that she drowned. Nevertheless, I did a full exam and autopsy. As I would expect, I did find froth in her upper and lower airways; fluid in her sphenoid sinus as well as emphysema aquosum.”
Noah said, “What’s that?”
Josie put in, “It means that her lungs were overinflated and waterlogged.”
“Basically, yes,” Dr. Feist confirmed. “As is also typical in certain drowning cases, there were indentations of her ribs on her lungs as well as Paltauf’s spots, which are subpleural hemorrhages, on the surface and margins of her lungs. I did a test to see if she had diatoms in the fluid found in her lungs, but the results of that will take a couple of days.”
Noah said, “You mean you’re testing to see if she took in algae from the river?”
“That’s a gross oversimplification but for our purposes, yes. Diatoms are a group of algae. Single-celled organisms. They can usually be found in the tissue or organs of victims who have aspirated diatom-rich water. It’s a very effective tool for determining drowning as a cause of death. I took tissue samples from her brain, liver, and kidneys to forward to the lab as well. If she was still alive when she aspirated, we would expect to see diatoms in the tissue samples because they would have circulated through her body. If she was already dead when the water entered her lungs, then diatoms will not be present in the tissue samples, only in the lung fluid. I also sent out samples for toxicology but as you are aware, those results take weeks.”
“We’re confident in your assessment that this woman drowned,” Josie said. “Did you find anything else we should know about?”