“What did Tate say about why she was working late that night?” Mac asked.
“Just that she was finishing up for the day. She worked as a secretary—payroll department, I think. She’d had a doctor’s appointment that morning and was trying to make up the hours. After she finished for the day, he said she went into the women’s bathroom, changed into her going-out clothes, told him goodnight, and left. Next time he sees her she’s—” Wolanski shook his head.
I flipped through the report until I found the list of Raya’s clothing. She’d been wearing a black skirt and halter top, nylons, and black dress shoes, as if she’d been planning a night on the town. She had on silver earrings and a heart-shaped necklace with a single diamond. A sparkly sweater had been found on the seat next to her; the sweater was covered with a light distribution of animal hair. I thought of the black-and-white kitten she’d been holding in the photo.
“Did she have pets?” I asked. “A cat, maybe?”
He nodded. “Her mom had cats.”
“The quality of the identifying photo in the autopsy is terrible,” Mac said.
I leaned over and saw immediately what she meant. Instead of a straight-on shot of Raya’s ruined face, the picture had been taken at an angle so that faint shadows were cast across the left side of her face. A slight blurriness suggested the photographer’s hand wasn’t entirely steady. I’d taken more than my share of photographs at Mortuary Affairs. I wouldn’t have accepted this level of work.
“Is that unusual?” I asked Wolanski.
“Wish I could say it was. That was just Gerald Roper, the coroner at the time. He had way more ambition than work ethic. He didn’t get reelected.”
Mac paused over one of the photos. “That’s startling.”
She passed the photo to me. I found myself looking at the image of a heart etched on Raya’s throat. Roper had noted it in his report as a “discrete impression abrasion.”
“You talking about the necklace?” Wolanski asked. “Roper said it was pressed into the tissue by the force of the impact.”
The image of the necklace was disquieting. But I moved on from the jewelry and studied Raya’s neck, where bruising showed under the chin—blotchy purple hemorrhages that stood out against the more general bruising.
I went back to the report to see if Roper had made note of these. His only comment referenced the all-over florid distribution of the bruising.
“Are there other shots of her face and neck?” I asked Mac.
Mac handed over more photos.
I flipped through them quickly, hunting for a specific type of injury. And there it was.
Pinpoint burst blood vessels in the conjunctivae of her eyes. I looked again at Roper’s report. He’d made note of the petechial hemorrhaging in the sclera and had also noted its presence in the inner lining of Raya’s lips and mouth. But he’d written off the injuries as being caused by the accident.
I’d learned a lot about cause and manner of death while working in Mortuary Affairs. But Raya’s photos took me back to a class I’d taken on domestic violence. Mauer had sent all of his railroad cops to the two-day course so we’d recognize the signs when we went through the homeless camps.
“Petechial hemorrhaging,” I said, handing the photos back to Mac. “And look at the bruising under her chin.”
Wolanski sat up. “She was strangled?”
“I’ll be damned,” Mac said, studying the photos. “Didn’t Roper catch that?”
“He attributed the hemorrhaging to the accident,” I said. “But with that bruising . . . there should have been an investigation.”
Wolanski flushed. “All this time, and you’re telling me it’s murder?”
CHAPTER 20
We are hardwired to be afraid. It sucks. And it saves us.
—Sydney Parnell, ENGL 2008, Psychology of Combat.
I asked Wolanski if he had a fax machine. He said he had one of those fancy all-in-one printers that should do the trick. He led Clyde and me to his study, then went to make more coffee while Mac checked in with her team. I called the medical examiner, Emma Bell, and asked if she could look at a report I was faxing to her office, along with some photos I’d send with my phone.
“If they’re linked to the Davenport case, of course,” she said. “I’ll look at them as they’re coming in and call you right back.”
It took fifteen minutes to send the relevant documents. Bell called a few minutes after that.
“You have the picture with the image of the heart in front of you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You see the patchy bruising under her chin?”
“I do.”
“That looks like injuries from external compression of her neck prior to the accident. Now look at the photograph you sent of her eyes. Petechial hemorrhaging. Another sign of strangulation. Even more damning are the photos of the oral mucosa. Not just the hemorrhaging you see there, but also the bruising of the submentum under the chin and along the jawline.”
“Couldn’t those injuries have been caused by the accident?”
“That’s what the coroner ruled at the time. Given the damage there, I can’t definitively say no. But I think it highly unlikely, especially given the location of the bruising. Plus there’s something else. Look at the photographs of her arms.”
I pulled it out. The inside of Raya’s forearms were bruised and scraped. “Defense wounds?”
“Exactly. In my opinion, the coroner’s exam was sloppy and incomplete. He should have asked a doctor to do an internal examination.”
“So you’re saying it’s possible she was dead before the train struck her?”
“If this were my case, that’s what I’d be looking at. Anything else I can help with?”
I looked at the photograph of Raya’s clothes. Lancing Tate had mentioned growing up with dogs. Raya’s top and skirt both had white hair on them, as if she’d been around animals. It was a look I was familiar with.
“The victim had animal hair on her clothing,” I said. “Can you tell from a photograph if it’s dog or cat hair?”
“I wouldn’t be able to give you a definite answer without looking at samples under a microscope. But in general, dog hair is coarser than cat hair, if it’s from the outer coat. Cat hair is finer even than human hair. You own a dog. How does the photo compare with your own clothing?”
I peered at the picture again. The quality of the photo was poor, but it looked like dog hair to me. “I can’t be sure. I’ll send you the picture, and if you can figure anything out from it, let me know.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks, Emma. You’ve been a huge help.”
“Before you hang up, I have more news. I was just about to call Cohen. We got an ID on the second body from the kiln. A man named Zach Vander.”
Well, shit. There went Cohen’s top suspect, cleared by virtue of being dead. I figured this meant we could officially clear Vander of trying to frame Stern, too.
I sent Mac a text about Vander; she was in the next room, but I didn’t want to say anything in front of Wolanski.
Where the hell, she texted back, does that leave us?