“True.” He tapped the end of the table with his finger. “I won’t keep you any longer.” He’d walked halfway to the door before he spun around. “Good job at the site yesterday. You handled yourself very professionally.”
He left before she could even say thank you, or before she could ask why he sounded so surprised. The depressing sadness of her find blocked out the expected rush of pride from his compliment.
By five, she couldn’t concentrate anymore. It was time to head home. She cleaned up, tossed her paper gown in the disposal unit, and headed out the front door. Pedestrians scurried down the street as cars whipped by in front of the building.
Gas fumes mixed with the sweltering heat sucked her breath away. Maybe taking a job in Florida in the summer wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Just as she crossed the street to the parking lot, her cell rang. It must be Grandpa wondering why his dinner wasn’t on the table yet.
Her gaze shot to the phone display. It wasn’t her grandfather, nor did she recognize the number. Her thumb hovered over the button to turn off the ringer, certain it had to be a wrong number since she hadn’t been in town long enough to know anyone.
Oh, what the hell. “Hello?”
“Dr. Herlihy?”
The voice on the phone sounded familiar. “Yes?” Kerry tried to put a name to the deep, rich tone.
“This is Detective Markum. Do you have a moment?”
She was surprised she hadn’t recognized his smooth timbre. “Sure.”
“I know it’s the end of the day, but is it possible for you to stop by the station? I have a theory I want to pass by you.
3
As Kerry entered the sheriff’s station, a somber young man sitting behind a worn desk glanced up. “May I help you?”
“I’m here to see Detective Markum.”
As the officer typed something into his computer, Kerry studied the place. Officers sat at desks, phones pressed against their head while computers clicked away. Busy place, even at six p.m. The office didn’t look anything like the snazzy FBI offices on television. Those were classy. This place needed a coat of new paint and some air freshener. The old building had some serious mold issues.
“Dr. Herlihy.”
Kerry spun around. Red veins were visible in Markum’s intense blue eyes, but an inner strength radiated around him. “Hello.”
Her pulse sped up. Don’t do this. No doubt he’s married. Her gaze shot to his ring finger. While it was bare, she detected a faint line where a ring had been. Was he divorced, or had he forgotten to slip the band on today. It made no sense to wear it to a crime scene. “Thank you for coming.”
He came across as proper and professional. Good. If he’d flirted, she wouldn’t have known how to respond.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to worry about that since his gaze didn’t even linger. He turned and strode down the hallway.
Was she just supposed to follow like a puppy? His footsteps echoed further down the hall. Guess so. Even at five foot eleven, she had to take long strides to keep up with him. He stopped in front of a door, held it open, and swept an arm for her to go in. At least he had manners.
The stark white room smelled of fresh paint. Hmm. It contained a rectangular table covered in a brown laminate, four straight back chairs, a television with a VCR, and a much-used dry erase board. On the table were photos of the human skeletons she’d helped unearth.
“Please have a seat.”
As Kerry sat, she couldn’t take her eyes off the pictures lined up in a neat row on the table. While she’d dug up the women, she’d been on automatic pilot and hadn’t considered the rather obvious pattern.
She waited for him to say something. When he pressed his lips together, she shifted her focus to the photos and studied them. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice how spread apart their legs were.”
“I didn’t either until I viewed them side by side.” Pain rippled through his voice. “Is there any way, forensically, you can tell if these woman were raped?”
Raped?
Dear God. What had these women endured before their deaths? No one deserved to die this way.
“Not for the first two women. Hipbones won’t show signs of sexual trauma and the semen would be long gone. While #2 had some soft tissue on the lower part of her body, there wasn’t enough to determine any molestation. Our only hope is this one.” She pointed to the last body found. “I’ll pass your concern to Dr. Ahern. Perhaps the autopsy will reveal something.”
Detective Markum nodded, and then opened another folder containing snapshots of women alive at the time. “I pulled all of the Missing Person’s files from the last eighteen months that meet the description of the victims. Didn’t you say you could superimpose an X-ray of the skull on top of the photo to see if there’s a match?”
“Yes, but this assumes the angle of the two faces is the same. I can scan the photo and resize it to match the X-ray, but if the head is angled differently, the comparison will be difficult. I should be able to tell you which of the women couldn’t be one of our victims.”
He dragged a hand down over his jaw. “Where does that leave us?”
“With not much. I can do a dental comparison if you can obtain dental records, but that assumes you know their identity. If they do match, and you want absolute proof, then perhaps a relative has an old hairbrush belonging to the victim we can match against the person’s DNA.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. His gaze shot down to the left, as if he were planning his next move. “What about the metal plates you found in the bodies?” He flipped open his notebook.
She couldn’t recall what she’d told him. “I thought I mentioned they can’t be traced to a specific person?”
“Then they’re no help at all.”
“That’s not entirely true.” She leaned forward, happy to be discussing academics, rather than the women themselves. “Suppose we believe the body is say, a Linda Richards, from Newport, Florida. We find proof she underwent facial surgery in Newport Hospital. If that hospital never bought any plates from our distributor, we’d know we have the wrong woman.”
He leaned back in his chair. Deep lines etched his forehead. “Then we need to find the right woman.”
“Eventually we will.”
He huffed. “How can you be so sure? We have almost nothing to go on but a bunch of old bones.”
“Hey. Those old bones can tell a powerful story.”
He held her gaze, studying her. “Tell me, how did you ended up in this line of business?”
His change of subject took her by surprise, but he truly sounded interested in the answer. “It’s not a business to me. I want to help people, help the families who lost someone they loved.”
He waved a hand. “Bad word choice. Why forensic anthropology?” The detective leaned forward, his eyes wide.
His attention made her uncomfortable, but if they were to work together, she wanted him to understand how much her job meant to her.
“I had an older brother who ran with the wrong crowd. He did drugs, gambled, raced fast cars, you name it, he did it. When he was twenty-three, he disappeared.”
Hunter Markum’s brow furrowed. “He never surfaced?” His eyes turned a darker blue, as if he’d lost someone he loved.
“No.”
“I’m sorry. How old were you when he disappeared?”
Normally, personal questions unnerved her, but his question didn’t seem invasive. “Eight.”
“That must have been tough. Did the police have any leads?”
“No. Nothing.”
His jaw clenched. “How did your parents take his disappearance?”
Kerry looked deep into his eyes. Many men had asked her questions but only as a vehicle for her to accept an invitation for a date. Hunter could be like the others, but her intuition told her otherwise.
She hesitated. Kerry had never spoken about Keith to anyone outside the family.
“Mom never accepted Keith’s death. Every holiday, she keeps a place at the table for him in the hopes he’ll return. She blamed Keith’s bad behavior on my father’s divorcing her two years earlier.”
“How did your dad handle Keith’s disappearance?”