surgical gloves before putting them on. “Miriam, Amanda’s mother, refused to sign the pledge. So her grandfather —a very powerful man. He was a higher-up with Southern Bell—sent her off to Milledgeville.”
Sara felt her lips part in surprise. “He committed his daughter to the state mental hospital?”
“The facility was basically a warehouse back then, mostly for vets and the criminally insane. And women who wouldn’t listen to their fathers.” Pete shook his head. “It broke her. It broke many people.”
Sara tried to do the math. “Was Amanda born yet?”
“She was around four or five, I’d guess. Duke was still in Korea, so his father-in-law was in charge. I gather no one told Duke what was really going on. The minute he was back in Georgia, he grabbed Amanda and signed his wife out of Milledgeville. Never talked to his father-in-law again.” Pete handed Sara a pair of gloves. “Everything seemed fine, and then one day, Miriam went out into the back garden and hanged herself from a tree.”
“That’s awful.” Sara pulled on the surgical gloves. No wonder Amanda was so closed down. She was worse than Will.
“Don’t let it soften you toward her too much,” Pete warned. “She lied to you in my office. She wanted you here for a reason.”
Instead of asking what reason, Sara followed his gaze to the door. Will was there. He stared at Sara in utter shock. She had never seen him look so awful. His eyes were bloodshot. He was rumpled and unshaven. His body swayed from exhaustion. His pain was so obvious that Sara could almost feel her heart breaking.
Her instinct was to go to him, but Faith was there, then Amanda, then Leo Donnelly, and Sara knew that a public display would only make things worse. She could read it in his face. He looked absolutely stricken to find her there.
Sara glared at Pete, making sure he knew that she was furious. Amanda may have lied about this being Will’s case, but Pete was the one who had lured Sara to the morgue. She snapped off the gloves as she walked toward Will. He obviously didn’t want Sara to see him like this. She planned to take him into Pete’s office to explain what had happened and apologize profusely, but Will’s expression stopped her.
Close up, he looked even worse. Sara had to force herself not to put her hands to his face, rest his head on her shoulder. Exhaustion radiated from his body. There was so much pain in his eyes that her heart broke all over again.
She kept her voice low. “Tell me what you need me to do. I can leave. I can stay. Whatever is best for you.”
His breathing was shallow. He gave her such a look of desperation that Sara had to fight to keep herself from crying.
“Tell me what to do,” she begged. “What
His gaze settled on the gurney. The victim on the table. He mumbled, “Stay,” as he walked into the room.
Sara let out a stuttered breath before she turned around. Faith couldn’t look at her, but Amanda held her gaze. Sara had never understood Will’s mercurial relationship with his boss, but at that moment, she ceased caring. There was not another person on the planet right now whom Sara despised more than Amanda Wagner. She was obviously playing some kind of game with Will, just as it was obvious that Will was losing.
“Let’s begin,” Pete suggested.
Sara stood to Pete’s side, opposite Will and Faith, her arms crossed. She tried to calm her anger. Will had told her to stay. Sara could not guess the reason why, but she didn’t need to add more tension to the room. A woman had been murdered. That should be the focus.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen.” Pete used his foot to tap on the Dictaphone to record the procedure. He called out the usual information—time of day, persons present, and the victim’s tentative identity of Ashleigh Renee Snyder. “ID has yet to be confirmed by family, though of course we’ll follow with dental records, which have already been digitized and sent to the Panthersville Road lab.” He asked Leo Donnelly, “Is the father en route?”
“Squad car’s picking him up from the airport. Should be any minute now.”
“Very good, Detective.” Pete gave him a stern look. “I trust you’re going to keep any wry comments or off- color jokes to yourself?”
Leo held up his hands. “I’m just here for the ID so I can turn over the case.”
“Thank you.”
Without preamble, Pete grabbed the top of the sheet and pulled back the drape. Faith gasped. Her hand went to her mouth. Just as quickly, she forced her arm back down to her side. Her throat worked. She didn’t blink. Faith had never had the stomach for these things, but she seemed determined to hold her own.
Unusually, Sara shared her discomfort. After all these years, she’d thought herself anesthetized to the horrors of violence, but there was something gut-wrenching about the state of the woman’s body. She hadn’t just been killed. She’d been mutilated. Bruises blackened her torso. Tiny red edemas cracked the skin. One of her ribs had punctured through the flesh. Her intestines hung between her legs.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Sara had never been one to believe in the concept of evil. She always thought the word was an excuse—a way to explain away mental illness or depravity. A safe word to hide behind rather than face the truth that human beings were capable of despicable acts. That not much kept us from acting on our baser urges.
Yet, “evil” was the only word that came to mind when Sara looked down at the victim. It wasn’t the bruises, the punctures, even the bite marks that were shocking. It was the methodical slices along the insides of the woman’s arms and legs. It was the crisscross pattern that traced up her hips and torso in an almost ruler-straight line. Her attacker had ripped the flesh the same way you would rip out a seam in a dress.
And then there was her face. Sara could not begin to understand what had been done to her face.
Pete said, “The X-rays show the hyoid bone was broken.”
Sara recognized the familiar bruising around the woman’s neck. “Was she thrown off a building after she was strangled?”
Pete said, “No. She was found outside a one-story building. The intestinal prolapse is likely from premortem external trauma. A blunt object, or a fist. Do these striations look like finger marks to you, perhaps from a closed fist?”
“Yes.” Sara pressed her lips together. The force of the blows must have been tremendous. The killer was obviously fit, probably a large man, and undoubtedly filled with rage. For all the world had changed, there were still men out there who absolutely despised women.
“Dr. Hanson,” Amanda asked, “for the benefit of the tape, what would you estimate is the time of death?”
Pete smiled at the question. “I would guess anywhere between three and five o’clock this morning.”
Faith volunteered, “The witness who saw the green van was out jogging around four-thirty. He doesn’t know the make or model.” She still couldn’t look at Sara. “We’ve put out an APB, but it’s probably a dead end.”
“Four-thirty this morning certainly works for me,” Pete said. “As you all know, time of death is not an exact science.”
Amanda huffed, “Just like old times.”
“Dr. Linton?” Pete motioned for Sara to join him. “Why don’t you take the left side and I’ll take the right?”
Sara pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. Will stepped back as she made her way around the table. He was being too quiet. He wouldn’t meet her questioning gaze. Sara still felt the need to do something for him, but there was an equally overwhelming pull to do right by the dead woman. Something told her that the latter would aid in the former. This was Will’s case, no matter what lies Amanda had told. He obviously felt some emotional attachment. Sara had never seen anyone look so bereft.
And she understood why Pete wanted to make sure someone he trusted was able to testify. Every inch of the victim’s body screamed for justice. Whoever had attacked and murdered Ashleigh Snyder had not just wanted to hurt her. He’d wanted to destroy her.
Sara felt a subtle shift in her brain as she prepared herself for the procedure. Juries had watched enough
