“Most law enforcement agencies thought the murders were isolated incidents. Local incidents.”
“I know. But I always had a feeling it was either a long haul trucker or maybe a traveling sales guy. Somebody who drove that stretch of I-94 fairly regularly. They’d stop in college towns where they knew kids would be drinking and hanging out in the local bars. Then they’d lure them away from their group and murder them.”
“Seems to me all the victims were dumped in water.”
“Rivers and swamps,” Afton said. “Yup, same MO for all of them.”
“You did research on this?”
“It was kind of my hobby for a while,” Afton said. “This case and that poor anchorwoman who disappeared down in Iowa.”
“Some hobby,” Max said. “Doing research on missing, murdered people.”
“Somebody’s got to do it,” Afton said. “Somebody’s got to try to take down the monsters.”
*
AFTON and Max passed by the large blue Hudson water tower and made a quick turn into the oversized parking lot that fronted the Saint Croix County Government Center. The large brick structure housed several county government entities; few area residents realized that the morgue was located in the basement.
They badged their way in and then took a clanking elevator down to the lower level. A sign with an arrow directed them to the corridor on their right.
“Hate this smell,” Max said as their footsteps echoed in the white-tiled hallway.
The smell that wafted toward them also made Afton’s stomach lurch. Chemicals mingled with harsh cleaning fluids and a touch of something foul.
Max pushed open the crash doors at the end of the hall and they suddenly found themselves in a small anteroom. More Spartan than a reception area, not quite a lobby.
A young man in green scrubs looked up from a desk. “Help you?” With his earnest look and curly hair, Afton thought he looked like he was about fourteen years old. A medical student? Mort sci student?
“We’re here to see Dr. Taylor,” Max told the kid.
The young man stood up. “Got some ID?” He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose, squinted a careful assessment at their IDs, and then said, “Follow me, please.” He guided them down a wide, green-tiled hallway, pushed aside a large vinyl curtain, and said, “There you go.”
Afton and Max stepped inside a compact autopsy room that contained Muriel Pink’s body. She was lying atop a metal table with a white sheet pulled up to her chin. With her eyes shut and her mouth closed, she looked like she was lost in peaceful slumber, so very different than the look of horror and agony that had marred her face earlier. A man they assumed was Dr. Taylor backed away from her when he heard their footsteps and turned to face them. He was also young, maybe late twenties, and blond and blue-eyed, in keeping with the area’s high concentration of Scandinavians.
“Detective Montgomery?” he asked.
Max nodded. “Dr. Taylor, how do. This is my associate Afton Tangler.”
Afton gave a short nod. Taylor was gloved and gowned and made no effort to shake their hands.
“I just got through a few preliminaries,” Taylor said. “But we’ll have to wait until our director, Dr. Healy, runs a few more tests and makes a final determination. I’m sorry he couldn’t be here, but his brother-in-law had a heart attack this morning.”
“Sounds like a tough deal,” Max said. “Any chance this could be kicked up to the State Crime Lab?”
“You’d have to take that up with Dr. Healy when he’s available,” Taylor said.
“So is there anything you found that could be of help?” Max asked. “Even though Pink isn’t technically our case, she’s somewhat pivotal to the kidnapping that we’re working.”
“I understand,” Taylor said. “Our police chief already briefed me.” He picked up his clipboard and read from it. “Weight: sixty-three point five kilograms. Height: one hundred fifty-seven centimeters. Based on the evidence at the scene and my examination of the body, it was determined that the victim sustained a class-four hemorrhage and lost over four liters of blood.”
No shit, Afton thought. Anyone at the scene could have determined that the victim bled out. It didn’t exactly take an advanced degree in medicine.
“So what’s the bottom line on all this?” Max asked. “How’d she die?” He was practically salivating for a little more information, too.
Taylor glanced at Pink’s body. “Based on lateral bruising on her neck and the angle of the initial cut, we surmised that the assailant grabbed our victim from behind and stabbed downward into our victim’s abdomen.”
Our victim, Afton thought. Yes, she was ours. She became ours and we let her down. “So he grabbed her and slashed her?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Taylor said.
“By ‘complicated,’ you mean gruesome,” Afton said.
“Yes,” Taylor said. “The entry wound only crippled her.”