Maggie stretched her gloved hand across the body, the hood of her Tyvek overalls slipping, exposing a stray strand of robin’s-egg-blue hair. She raised their victim’s wrist gingerly as if holding a diamond bracelet out for inspection. Except it wasn’t diamonds encircling the woman’s dark skin, rather an intertwined ribbon of inked calla lilies.
“Lily.” Harper sighed. “Last name is…” She thought back to when she’d patrolled this sector. So many girls came and went here, the Towers seemingly swallowing them whole. Three generations and the young were still paying the price of Cambria City’s failed effort at affordable public housing. “I think her name is Lily Nolan. Can’t remember for sure, but she’s on file.”
“I’ll run her prints as soon as we get to the morgue, confirm her identity.” Maggie stroked the dead girl’s hand before gently turning it over. “No obvious flesh beneath her nails.”
“No broken nails, either.” Harper nodded to the elaborate acrylic nail art adorning the girl’s fingers. More lilies, done in a rainbow of bright colors with gold sparkles and diamond embellishments. The kind of nails she would have loved to have when she was a teenager—but as a minister’s daughter, she’d been lucky to be allowed clear coat polish over natural flesh tones. The Reverend did not believe in “unnatural adornment.”
“How could she not have fought back?” Maggie’s tone was mournful as she placed paper evidence bags over Lily’s hands. “She just stood there and let him do this?”
Harper didn’t say anything. She was certain that during Lily’s time on the street she had never fought back—not against the gang who’d turned her out, acting as her pimps while brainwashing her into thinking they were the only family who could care for and protect her; not against the johns who promised to pay more for violence but rarely kept their word; not against the drug dealers who took their payment in trade.
“How old was she?” Maggie asked.
“It’s been almost a year since last time I saw her. I was working Vice.” The only time that being one of the few Black women on the Cambria City’s police force had served in Harper’s favor, allowing her to participate in various undercover operations for the vice and drugs squad even though she was only a patrol officer. Those days were behind her now—as of four days ago. She was now finally out of uniform and off the streets, officially a full-fledged detective assigned to the Violent Crimes Unit. “I think she was seventeen.”
Maggie said nothing, her silence an offering of sympathy and remorse at Lily’s short life lost to the streets and the violence that stalked alleys like this one. Then she began to hum, a tune that carried both sorrow and hope in its harmony.
“What’s that song?”
“Nothing. Just made it up.” Maggie shrugged. “Call it ‘Lily’s Song.’”
“It’s good. You should keep it.” Maggie and her husband often performed at local open mike nights.
“Would rather not have had the opportunity to create it in the first place.” They both pushed to their feet. “Where’s Luka?”
Harper knew that what she was really asking was why Harper, who’d only earned her gold shield a few days ago, was here without Detective Sergeant Luka Jericho supervising her. It was a little after four a.m. on a Sunday morning, meaning the on-call team of detectives—this weekend Harper and Luka—had to travel from their homes. Luka lived across the river with his grandfather and nephew, while Harper’s apartment was only a few blocks away.
“Luka’s coming, but I’m primary on this one.” Harper couldn’t stop the hint of pride in her voice. Her first homicide that was hers and hers alone. Glancing at Lily’s battered body, she quickly sobered, realizing the weight of the responsibility—this murder was hers to solve. For Lily. For Lily’s family. “What can you tell me?”
“Not much,” Maggie admitted. “No obvious penetrating wounds. Lack of rigor and body temp indicate possible TOD as little as a few hours ago.”
“So, she was beaten, and time of death was not so long ago,” Harper translated. She’d pretty much figured all of that out herself. “Did she die from the beating?”
“Possibly,” Maggie stressed. As a death investigator, any of her findings needed to be confirmed by the medical examiner’s postmortem. “I found track marks on her left arm, but they were all old and scarred. Once I clean her up, I can look for any fresh ones and we’ll run a tox screen for drugs of abuse.”
Harper glanced around the alley. There were two industrial-sized dumpsters, a small mountain of broken wooden pallets, trash spewing out of discarded garbage bags, along with an assortment of used condoms, syringes, cigarette butts—a wasteland overflowing with human DNA. A crime scene tech’s nightmare. The plastic sheet the killer had draped over the body bothered her as well. “Was she killed here or dumped?”
“The blood spatter seems consistent with her broken nose and oral injuries, so my guess is that she sustained those injuries here. I haven’t found any evidence that the body was moved. However—”
“That doesn’t mean the other injuries weren’t inflicted elsewhere, before she was brought here.”
“Exactly. But gross appearance does suggest that all the injuries were inflicted contemporaneously, with the same blunt instrument, and very close to the time of death.”
Harper gave Maggie an exaggerated eye-roll. “You’ve been spending way too much time with Ford Tierney.” The assistant medical examiner was noted for his punctilious way of speaking.
Maggie grinned. “Just wanted you to look good, writing up your first report as lead detective. But, yeah, she probably was beaten and left to die here.” She followed Harper’s gaze around the alley. “Which, forensically speaking, is probably the worst place possible. Don’t envy the crime scene techs.”
“Speaking of which—”
“I’m done.” She gestured to her transport team, who were waiting on the street. “We’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.”
“Thanks, Maggie.”
“Good luck.” Maggie rested her gloved palm on
