“Sure. Have fun and stay safe.”
Have fun? She doubted it. Staying safe was easy among a mob of police. She waved goodbye to Steven and headed to the scene with her equipment in tow.
John was on his knees looming over the victim’s body. She walked up behind him and looked over his shoulder. Apparently, he was so engrossed in taking notes, he didn’t notice her shadow hanging over him.
Kerry studied the female. Her face was flat, her skin decaying. The woman looked like she’d been in the water a good month. Small holes and tears appeared at random intervals in her mostly intact clothes. Those might have been the result of fish feasting on her. The sea creatures had already had a celebration with her eyeballs.
Kerry stepped to the side and her shadow moved. The medical examiner jerked around. “Hey. Thanks for coming. I thought you’d like to see what a dead body with her soft tissue looks like.” He smiled.
“Thanks, but I think I’d rather stick to skeletal remains. They’re cleaner and easier to handle.”
“Your loss.” He chuckled. “Hey, at least she only smells like salt water.”
“Agreed. Any identification on her?”
He shook his head. John adjusted the female’s light brownish-red hair, which had begun to slip off her scalp. Kerry placed her case on the ground and knelt beside him.
“How can I help?” she asked.
“Tell me what you see?”
John was the expert. She only did bones, but there was a small thrill in being asked to give her opinion. “I’m afraid Steven filled me in on her age. He told me the vic was between thirty and thirty-five, but I’m betting the bloating would help reduce the facial wrinkling somewhat, which would give her a more youthful, if not dead, appearance. I’d say she’s closer to forty than thirty-five.”
He gave her a small smile. “Quite good. What else?”
Kerry took her time studying the body. “From the shape of her face, I’m guessing Hispanic.”
“I agree. And her height and weight?” John seemed to enjoy her impromptu evaluation.
“Taking the bloating into consideration, I’d say five foot three and weight about one seventy.” Kerry gloved her hand and tilted the head to one side, and then the other. A fresh, red scar went from the victim’s right ear to half way under her chin. “From the neat stitch job, I’d say she had some kind of plastic surgery quite recently.”
Her gut reacted in a bad way. Maybe the heat was getting to her.
Hunter’s comment about plastic surgeons raced back to her. Surely there wasn’t a connection between this woman who’d been dumped in the Bay and those she’d found buried in the construction site. Killers didn’t usually change their MOs, or so Hunter had claimed.
“Good catch.” John lifted the vic’s shoulder and leaned the body away from Kerry. The woman’s cause of death was evident. “One shot to the back of the head probably killed her. If she wasn’t dead when she hit the water, she was shortly thereafter.”
Kerry sat back on her haunches. The effect of the salt air mixed with the heat made her stomach queasy. Next time, she’d bring a large brimmed hat to help keep the sun off her face. The cap she wore to prevent leaving any trace at the crime scene was enough to raise her core temp by a couple of degrees.
Once the crime scene techs finished measuring and photographing the area, John zipped up the victim. “Let’s bring her back to the morgue for an autopsy,” he said to one of the techs. His gaze remained on the men until they’d finished loading the body into a van. He swiveled back to her. “Anything else you noticed?”
“It’s hard to be sure, but I’d say the woman spent little on her wardrobe. The wear pattern on the soles of the sneakers implied she’d owned them for quite some time.”
“I noticed the clothes didn’t match either. From the workmanship, I’d say she was wearing hand-me-downs.” John closed his med kit and ratcheted his body to a stand.
“Your arthritis getting to you?”
“A little.”
Kerry gathered her instruments. “Are you thinking she might have been a regular visitor to Goodwill or maybe even a women’s shelter?”
“Shelter?” He shielded his eyes with one hand.
“I guess I’m having difficulty separating my four buried bodies from this one.” Kerry gave him the rundown of possible theories.
He walked toward his van, his job over for now. “I’ll keep your idea in mind when I autopsy her. I guess she’s Jane Doe #5.”
Kerry was quite happy to be back at the morgue. At least in the cool room, she wouldn’t suffer from heat exhaustion. While John began the autopsy on the new victim, Kerry pulled #4 from the body bag and turned the burner to low.
As she cut and scraped the dead tissue from the bones, she dropped the finished bones in the warm, soapy water. The chore required concentration since she had to cut close enough to remove the skin, but not so close to mar the bone.
Before she knew it, over an hour had passed. Not wanting to keep Hunter from Melissa any longer than necessary, she called it a day. Kerry phoned Hunter to tell him she was ready for him to pick her up.
She turned off the burner and decided to let the bones soak overnight. The stench of the cooked flesh gagged her, forcing her to adjust her mask and closed the hood.
Next she rewrapped what was left of the body and placed #4 in the morgue cooler. Tomorrow, she’d finish the bone cleaning. Only then would she have time to work on the plaster mold of the skull. No way would she chance losing the original head again to the thief.
The clean up took close to a half hour. As she wiped the last of the counters, someone knocked on her autopsy door and the pushed it open.
Hunter. Though he looked tired, his broad shoulders and chiseled jaw sent her hormones soaring. Her face heated.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Good Lord. Could he tell she’d had a momentary fantasy? “Wrong? Nothing. I was outside in the heat for a long time. Do I look pink or something?” She was proud of her good catch.
“No, you look...”
Her mom always told her she never could hide her deepest emotions. “Sad perhaps?” she asked.
“I am. The police found a body floating in McKay Bay today. The female victim had been shot once in the back of the head and dumped in the water with a cement block around her waist to cover the crime.” Kerry pushed back the despair. “Her death seemed so senseless.”
“Welcome to Tampa. You ready to go?”
Apparently, he wasn’t the type to become personally involved with every victim. She needed to learn that skill.
“Hunter, there was something about this woman that made me think she might be related to my Jane Does.”
“Why don’t you tell me on the way home?”
Kerry grabbed her purse, shut off the light, and locked the door. She trailed after him.
“The victim was dressed poorly.” He turned around, and when he opened his mouth, she rushed on. “John and I believe she might have been a recent visitor to a shelter. And get this. There were fresh scars behind her ear, which implied she’d had surgery. Plastic surgery perhaps.”
His face showed no reaction. In fact, he didn’t seem to get the connection. Aw hell, maybe her imagination was getting the best of her.
He lifted a hand and placed it on her shoulder. Warmth spread straight to her groin. “We’ll take her photo to the shelters to see if anyone can identify her.”
“Really? So you think the same person might have killed all five women?”
He opened the front door of the building. “Now that’s a stretch. If she was shot in the head, then dumped in the Bay, the MOs aren’t anything alike. But I won’t discount your gut feeling.”
They exited the building. Even though it was close to six at night, the heat blasted her. “Thank you.”
“I received the lab results back on the break-in at your house.” Hunter placed his hand on the small of her back to guide her across the street.