“It’s New York. What do you expect, Barnes? Kind, gentle snow?”
So now, if it does happen to snow within the next twenty--four hours, she has to take the subway to Stockton’s Bronx apartment in the morning and clean it off his car. If it doesn’t, he has to wear a Mets cap to Yankee Stadium on opening day in April.
“Now who’s sadistic?” Stockton muttered, parking the car as they arrived at the scene. “You’re a Yankee fan, too. You hate the Mets as much as I do.”
“But not as much as I love seeing you squirm.”
They went from laughingly shaking hands on their bet to suitably somber the moment they stepped out of the car half an hour ago.
“This is a damned shame,” Stockton murmurs as they gaze at the dead girl.
She’s lying on her back in the frozen mud, her fair, freckled skin spattered in her own blood and covered in multiple stab wounds. When found, she was covered in a sheet of dry cleaner’s plastic: “shrink--wrapped like a bodega cucumber” was Barnes’s poetic description when they first saw her.
The plastic shroud is a peculiar signature, one they’ve never seen before. The forensics team stripped it away after taking countless photographs, leaving the girl’s dead flesh exposed to the December chill.
Why was it there in the first place? She was stabbed, not asphyxiated. Was her killer trying to protect her from the elements? Was it some kind of fetish?
“She’s not a junkie,” Sully comments, observing no sign of needle marks and noting that the victim is slightly built, but healthy and athletic--looking as opposed to malnourished or emaciated.
“Nope. She could be sniffing, though.”
“She could. But she’s not a working girl, either. Look at her makeup and earrings.” She’s wearing very little eyeliner and no mascara to enhance her sandy lashes, and her earlobes are adorned only with tasteful studs set in silver.
“Those are diamonds, though,” Stockton says. “Maybe she’s a high--class call girl.”
Sully holds a magnifying glass up to one of the earrings, studies it for a moment, and shakes her head. “Not the real thing. They’re cubic zirconia.”
“How can you tell?”
“No inclusions,” Sully says briefly, not bothering to explain that real diamonds of this size wouldn’t be this flawless.
“I’ll take your word for it. But these days, even a high--class call girl might have fake diamonds.”
“Yeah, but she’d still get a manicure—-not to mention a pedicure.” Leaning in to examine the victim’s feet, she adds, “Those heels have never been touched by a pumice stone.”
“Again, I’ll take your word for it. Is that a tat?”
Sully follows Stockton’s pointing finger back up to the torso. At first glance, the small tattoo perched between the gashes near the victim’s collarbone is almost entirely camouflaged by blood and freckles. It’s a deeper shade of red, though: a ladybug.
“They’re supposed to bring good luck,” Stockton says as she moves the magnifying glass in for a better look.
“Guess it didn’t work for her.”
Somebody’s daughter, somebody’s friend . . .
Right now, somewhere in the city, someone might be wondering where she is. Sooner or later, with any luck, she’ll be reported missing.
Until then, without clothing or ID, she’s a Jane Doe.
There’s no clue to her identity other than the tattoo. That and the fact that she’s completely bald.
“What do you think?” Stockton asks. “Chemotherapy or fashion statement?”
“Neither.” Sully’s breath puffs white in the air as she leans in, spotting something.
“What makes you say that?”
“I think whoever killed her shaved her head,” she says, staring at the clump of long, red hair tangled amid the dead leaves on the ground.