The hospital basement is hushed and not as well lit as the upper floors. My boots thud dully against tile as I pass the yellow and black biohazard sign. I push through the set of swinging doors and see Doc Coblentz in his office, sitting at his desk. “Doc?”
“Ah, Chief Burkholder. I’ve been expecting you.” Wearing a white lab coat and navy slacks, he rises and crosses to me. “Any ID on the victim yet?”
“We’re checking missing persons reports.” I take a deep breath, trying to prepare for what comes next. “Do you have a prelim?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve got her cleaned up. I did the initial exam. If you’d like to take a look.”
That’s the last thing I want to do, but I need to identify this young woman. Somewhere out there, loved ones are worried. She may have children. People whose lives will be irrevocably changed by her death.
I go directly to the alcove. Hanging up my coat, I quickly don a gown and booties. The doc is waiting for me when I emerge. “The cuts on her abdomen do appear to be the Roman numeral XXII.”
“Postmortem?”
“Antemortem.” He starts toward the second set of swinging doors, and we enter the gray tiled room I’ve come to despise.
Three stainless steel gurneys are shoved against the far wall. A fourth gleams beneath a huge overhead light. I see the outline of the body beneath a blue sheet and brace.
Doc Coblentz snags a clipboard off the counter. Sliding a pen from the breast pocket of his lab coat, he looks through his bifocals and jots something on the form, then returns the clipboard to the counter. “I’ve been a doctor for the better part of twenty years. I’ve been coroner for nearly eight. This is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen.”
Gently, he pulls down the sheet. Revulsion sends me back a step as I take in the brownish-green hued skin. Her mouth sags open; I see her tongue tucked inside. The wound at her neck is a black, gaping mouth.
My eyes are drawn to the Roman numerals on her abdomen. The carving is crude, but the similarities to the wounds on Amanda Horner’s body are unmistakable. “Cause of death?”
“The same. Exsanguination. He cut her throat and she bled to death.”
I need to get a better look at her. I want to see her hair, her nails, her toes—anything that might help me identify her, but my feet refuse to take me closer.
“He raped her. Sodomized her.”
“DNA?”
“I took swabs, but there wasn’t any fluid.”
“He wore a condom?”
“Probably. I’ll know more when I get the results back.” The doc sighed. “He tortured this girl, Kate. Look at this.”
Rounding the gurney, he crosses to the counter and picks up a stainless steel tray about the size of a cookie sheet. “This was inside her rectum.”
I can’t bring myself to look at the object. I can’t even meet the doctor’s eyes. Instead, I lower my head slightly and rub at the ache between my eyes. “Postmortem?”
“Ante.”
Taking a deep breath, I force my gaze to the tray. The object is a steel rod, about half an inch in diameter and ten inches long. There’s a tiny eyehook on one end. The other is tapered. It looks homemade; I can see where whoever made it used some type of grinder to shape it.
“Foreign object rape?” I ask. In the back of my mind, I wonder if the killer is impotent. If maybe he’s gone to a urologist for erectile dysfunction treatment. I make a mental note to check it out.
“I don’t think that’s how or why he used this object.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think it’s some type of homemade electrode.” He picks up the object. “There’s copper here. See?” The doc runs a gloved finger along the length of the steel. “I worked for an electrician part-time when I was in high school. Copper is one of the best conductors of electricity.”
I don’t know much about the dynamics of electricity. I do know it can be used for torture. While in the academy, I remember reading about the Mexican drug cartels using those kinds of tactics when they wanted to make an example of someone.
I look at the doc. I see the same outrage and disbelief in his eyes that I feel clenching my chest. “So this killer may have some electrical experience. At the very least, he tinkers.” It’s much too benign a word for a person who designed an instrument of torture. Tinkering is the kind of thing your dad does on Sunday afternoons in the garage. Monsters don’t tinker.
“This explains the burns Amanda Horner sustained.”
“Yes.”
“Why would he leave it?” I wonder aloud. But in the back of my mind, I know. He’s proud of this vile device. He wanted us to find it.
The doc shakes his head. “That’s your area, Kate, not mine. I can definitively tell you he tortured her with this, probably with an electrical charge.”