Heat picked up a pen and sat at her desk. “We’re upgrading to pretty good news, Laur. Keep going.”
“First off, this tells us our Doe is not frozen solid.” The detective pictured a Thanksgiving turkey coming rock-hard from the freezer and nudged the thought aside. “The significance of this is helpful in multiples, Nikki. I put her in front of oscillating fans to bring her gradually to ambient temp so I wouldn’t destroy tissue, and the joint movement means we should be able to test sooner than later.”
“How soon?”
“This afternoon.” And then the ME added, “But beyond that, her semifrozen state tells us she did not get put aboard that truck at midnight at the food packer. That many hours inside an insulated container at subzero would have solidified her pretty good, so you can hypothesize—at least for now—that she was loaded somewhere along the route after the truck left early this morning.” Heat considered pulling Detective Hinesburg off her assignment at the loading dock and then rejected it. Better Sharon do a little wheel-spinning there than a lot of damage elsewhere. “This also means there’s a shot I can give you a more accurate time of death since there may not be any rupturing of cell walls by ice crystals. If we’re lucky there, I can get a decent measurement of melatonin from the pineal gland and urine for an accurate TOD window.”
Detective Heat had worked enough autopsies to grab hold of all the indicators and form the right questions. “Are you seeing any hypothermia?”
“Negative.”
“So we also can assume she was already dead when she became exposed to the frigid temps?”
“I’d definitely make that bet,” said Dr. Parry. “One more thing. I should have enough digital flexibility to get some fingerprints for you soon. I know you need these yesterday, but I’m being patient so I don’t tear tissue by being hasty.”
“How soon?”
“Hasty girl.”
“How soon?”
“Within the hour, for sure.”
“Hey, Lauren?”
“Yeah?”
“This is good news,” said Nikki. “Thanks for being a pest.”
After she hung up, Rook came over to join her and said, “You do know that if we weren’t in your workplace, I’d give you a shoulder rub or a hug or both.”
“Thank you for not.”
“You’re my hero, seriously. I don’t even know how you are coping.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Please, not here, not now.”
“‘Nuff said.” He raised both hands in a surrender gesture. Rook knew her well enough to know that, in spite of all the passion that boiled inside, Nikki came factory-equipped with a firewall that kept it locked up. Her feelings ran deep and hot, which made it a life’s work for her to compartmentalize. Jameson Rook unexpectedly held some keys to those locks and wisely let the subject drop. He switched gears with a survey of the room, which buzzed with a level of activity he’d never seen before. “Looks like you’ve got the taskmaster thing down, Detective Heat. Or is it taskmistress? So hard to know these days.”
“It’s a start” was all she allowed.
“And what are you planning to do?”
“Me? Keep riding herd. Beg, borrow, and steal a bunch of uniforms to get out and canvass with the Jane Doe photo, as soon as I have a clue where to show it. Maybe I’ll take a drive down to Thirtieth Street to surf the autopsy when she thaws.”
“I think you and I have more important work to do.”
Nikki gave him the wary squint he’d seen so often. “Why am I not liking this already?”
“Cute,” he said. “Always your first reaction. Until what? Sweet vindication.” He left for the Murder Boards, and, after hesitating, she surrendered and followed. When Nikki got there, he faced the two boards, balancing his hands like scales. “Is it I, or does there seem to be a bit of an imbalance?”
“First off, plus ten for grammar.”