“I’ll let you know what I find on scene,” Maddocks said, turning to go.
Outside, Maddocks found Holgersen smoking and pacing like a caged cheetah next to the Impala. Holgersen flicked his butt aside as soon as Maddocks neared and beeped open the lock. They drove with the siren going and wipers doing double time as rain deluged the city and flooded parts of the streets. They arrived at the hospital within fifteen minutes.
Pulling in outside the entrance, Maddocks parked tightly behind the coroner’s van.
“Looks like Doc O’Hagan and company are already here,” Holgersen said with a tilt of his chin toward the van. They exited the car, leaving Jack-O inside, windows down slightly. A uniform at the hospital doors checked their badges and entered their names on a crime scene log. Maddocks and Holgersen strode fast down the corridor toward the ward.
Outside the door a male doctor conversed quietly with the victim services counselor, who was white-faced and hollow-eyed with shock. A uniformed cop stood off to the side.
“How could this happen?” the counselor said as soon as Maddocks approached. “There was a guard, for heaven’s sake—an armed MVPD officer posted outside their door. Why? Who would do this?”
“Where are the other girls?” Maddocks said to the counselor as he reached into his pocket for a pair of nitrile gloves.
“The first responding officers took them to another room. I’ve got a psychologist in with them now.”
“The interpreter arrive?”
“No,” said the counselor.
Maddocks spoke to Holgersen as he snapped on the gloves. “Call Dundurn or Smith—get one of them in there with the girls.” Holgersen stepped aside to call the sex crimes detectives. “And chase up that interpreter.”
Maddocks turned to the man in the white lab coat. “Who are you?”
“Dr. Tim McDermid. These patients have been under my care—”
“When did you last see your patients?”
“I checked in before I left for the night yesterday—around 9:00 p.m.”
“How were they?”
“Fine. Alive. Sophia was better than she’d been since she was first admitted. I . . . I thought she might be one of the lucky ones who would be able to pull through what she’d endured to regain some semblance of a normal life. She was so young, just a teen.” Emotion glittered in the man’s eyes.
Maddocks firmed his jaw. “Was there a nurse on duty last night?” he said.
“On call for this ward—the patients had progressed to a point they were sleeping through the night.”
“I want a list of everyone on duty last night. Can you go get that for me?”
“I . . . yes, yes of course.”
“When you’ve got it—” Maddocks raised his gloved hand high and summoned a uniform over from down the corridor. She hurried over.
“Sir?”
He glanced at her name tag. “Tonner, accompany Dr. McDermid here—get the names of everyone who was working in this hospital yesterday. Start calling them into the cafeteria. Seal off that area. And find someone to cordon off this wing.”
“Sir.”
Holgersen came forward, snapping on his own gloves. “Dundurn is on his way. No word from the interpreter yet—not answering her phone.”
The officer stationed outside the door logged Maddocks and Holgersen into the room and handed them each a set of booties.
Once their shoes were encased in the booties, Maddocks turned toward the door, inhaled, and entered. Holgersen, uncharacteristically silent, followed behind him.
A forensic tech was taking photos inside. Another was dusting for prints. Pathologist Barb O’Hagan was beside the bed upon which Sophia Tarasov’s body lay. A sheet covered Tarasov’s body from the waist down. She wore a simple white nightgown. Her arm hung over the side of the bed, palm up. Her face was turned toward the door. Blood covered her open mouth and ran onto her white pillow. Her eyes were wide and sightless. The white hospital sheets were drenched almost black with her blood. It had dripped to the sterile tile floor. A tech had placed yellow crime scene markers where the drips had fallen.
The doc looked up. “Morning, Sarge. How are we this fine day?”
“Doc,” Maddocks said, standing still, absorbing the scene.
The room was warm. A white drape billowed slightly over a heating vent. Rain fell outside. The other beds were empty with untidy sheets. One bed looked as though it had been wet.
“Jesus fuck,” whispered Holgersen. “How in the hell could this happen? With five other girls in the room and a uni outside, and no one hears or does a thing?” He went over to the wet bed, sniffed. He glanced at Maddocks. “They were terrified. One of them peed their bed. Maybe they saw who did it?”
“Even if they did witness the act, they were too afraid to call staff until someone came to do the rounds in this room at 7:30 a.m.”
Holgersen swore softly again. “If they’s wasn’t talking before, they sure as hell ain’t gonna be talking now.”
Maddocks went over to the body. O’Hagan was peering at her thermometer over the top of her glasses.
“Alphonse sends his regards,” she said, recording the temp in her notepad. “He left me here while he had to attend another call.”
Charlie Alphonse was the region’s coroner. Barb O’Hagan worked as one of his forensic pathologists—a crusty older woman with a passion for speaking for the dead. Maddocks had gotten to know O’Hagan well during the Addams investigation. She and Angie were pretty tight, and they both shared a dislike for Harvey Leo.
“What you got, Doc?”
“Didn’t want to pull back the sheeting until you got a look at her in situ, but I took a reading from under her arm. Rigor is not complete. Given her temperature and the warmth in this room, I’m going to say postmortem interval is anything between six to nine hours.”
He checked his watch. It was 8:11 a.m. “Which would put time of death somewhere between 11:00 p.m. yesterday and 2:00 a.m. this morning.”
“Sounds about right,” she said, returning her thermometer to the bag on the table at her side. She picked up a small flashlight. “There’s something you need to see.”
She shone her light on the decedent’s mouth and used a wooden spatula to clear aside some of the blood pooled inside the cavity.
“Take a look inside,” she said.
Maddocks leaned forward and peered into the mouth. Shock jerked through his body. His gaze flared to the doc.
“She’s got no tongue,” he said. Just a bloody stub of muscle, sliced clean through.
“It’s been excised.”
“Where’s the rest of it?” Holgersen said from behind him.
“Don’t know yet,” said O’Hagan.
Maddocks stared at Sophia Tarasov’s face, the open maw pooled with blood. Shit.
“You think that’s what killed her?” Holgersen said. “Exsanguination from an excised tongue?”
“She could conceivably have choked—drowned—in her own blood with her head tilted back like that. I’ll know more once I get her up on the table,” O’Hagan said.