Wayne slipped his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “And since you are not sure, then it’s probably not her. That’s why I have to go there myself.”
“You have to remember, this body has been outside for some time,” Denise said softly. “There has been some . . .” She hesitated. “Some predation.”
“Predation—what does that—you mean like predators?” Valerie’s voice arced higher in horror. “Do you mean animals? Animals have eaten my daughter?”
Nic nodded, her misery complete. “There’s been some damage to the face.” She cleared her throat. “Could you tell me what color your dog’s leash was?”
“Red,” Wayne said. “Why? Did you find it, too? Just because you found it in the park doesn’t mean it’s Jalape?o’s. Do you know how many people walk their dogs there? Probably hundreds. And most of them off leash, too. A leash—a leash could be anyone’s.”
“Did you find her holding it?” Valerie finally remembered the potato peeler. She put it down on the entrance table next to her and wiped her hands on her apron. And kept wiping them.
“Not exactly.” Nic wished she didn’t have to say the next words. “The leash was around her neck.”
“Oh no!” Valerie choked out. “You’re saying she killed herself. I knew she was in pain, but I never—”
“We don’t know what happened, Mrs. Converse,” Denise said. “We don’t know anything for sure. That’s why the medical examiner needs to do an autopsy.”
“I’m going out there,” Wayne repeated stubbornly. “Even if it’s not Katie, you can’t leave this girl lying out there. It’s freezing. You can’t just leave her out there in the cold.”
“The body will be removed from the scene as soon as possible,” Bob said. “And I can assure you, she will never be alone.”
Something inside Wayne seemed to crack. “But I am her father! I need to be there. I didn’t protect her when she was alive. At least I can do it now that she’s dead!”
Nic felt the hairs lift on the back of her neck. She stepped forward and touched him lightly on the arm. “What do you mean, Mr. Converse? About not protecting Katie?”
He bit his lip and looked down. “This creep took her, didn’t he? Some creep took my baby. And I wasn’t there to stop him.” He lifted his head again. “But it can’t be Katie. I would know if it was my daughter. I would know right here.” He thumped his fist over his chest. “And I don’t feel it. I don’t know it. So it can’t be true. It can’t.”
His eyes were lost. “Because if it is Katie, how am I supposed to live? How am I supposed to live?”
FOREST PARK
January 4
As Leif took photographs, the rest of the evidence response team was collecting any potential evidence, tagging it, logging it, and packaging it so that it remained intact on its way to the lab. The chain of evidence couldn’t be broken, or they risked a killer going free.
If there was a killer. Leif ’s mind kept going back to that thought.
The team also gathered soil, fauna, and insect samples. Later they would be compared with anything found on the body to see if it might have been dumped here. But Leif was pretty sure they were just going through the motions. He would bet anything that Katie had died here in Forest Park.
They found the dog collar about twenty feet from Katie’s body. Unfastened and undamaged. It went into its own evidence bag, as did the gold bracelet and every windblown candy and chip wrapper.
The ERT members also looked for signs of a struggle—tufts of pulled-out hair, trampled leaves, torn-up moss, a scrap of cloth caught on a branch, footprints in a place someone would normally avoid.
Karl Zehner waved Leif over to where he had found two footprints about fifteen feet away from the body, both, to the naked eye at least, belonging to the same set of shoes—and far too big to be from Katie’s feet. In a fight, footprints were often made at an angle as people fought for purchase, but these footprints looked flat. To make it easy to sort out which footprints belonged and which didn’t, all of the ERT members were issued the same high black Danner boots with steel toes. Everyone else who had been on the scene—the runner who had found the hand, the dog handler, Nic—would have their shoes photographed and documented as to make, model, and size.
But were these prints meaningful? Would footprints really have survived two weeks or more, including days where there had been rain or snow? Or were they much newer than that?