already too crowded.”
Sean squeezed her shoulder. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
“I’ll wait right here.”
Following Suzanne in, Lucy stood to the side, assessing the immediate area. There was a bulldozer just outside the tent, about eight feet from where the victim had died. The ground was soaked, concrete and mud and weeds. Several beer bottles and a broken whiskey bottle were near the victim, but they appeared to have been there for much longer than the girl’s body.
The coroner said, “Rigor has just begun, and I have her body temperature. Factoring in the temperature last night and this morning, I can state with a high degree of certainty that she died between one and three in the morning.”
Detective Panetta was standing outside the tent with Sean. “Her roommate last saw her at approximately one-thirty.”
“That gives us ninety minutes,” Suzanne said.
Lucy watched as the coroner finished his visual inspection. She noticed that the girl had a cut on her head. Right next to her head was a jagged rock about five inches across, a fresh scrape on the surface. “Suzanne,” she said, “I think she hit her head on that rock. That scrape looks about the same diameter as the cut on her head.”
The coroner glared at her. He was older, small and wiry, with gray hair and thick glasses sitting low on his nose. “I saw that. I haven’t let the crime techs in yet. Who are you?”
Lucy swallowed uneasily. Suzanne responded, “She’s with me.”
“Trainee?” he grunted.
“Something like that,” Suzanne said.
Sierra Hinkle was a brunette, wearing a red sweaterdress so short that when she fell, it had bunched up, exposing one bare buttock and her thong panties. Lucy desperately wanted to cover her, but knew the coroner needed to inspect the body before he could move it. At least the tent gave Sierra privacy from onlookers.
Lucy looked at the victim’s feet. She wore one silver shoe. It was glittery, but flat. She assessed the victim’s height-she was tall, probably five foot ten. Much taller than the other victims.
There was another key difference. Her neck was swollen and red. “Suzanne,” Lucy said quietly, not wanting the coroner to overhear her assessment. “Look at her neck.”
Suzanne did. “You’re right, it’s cut up.” Suzanne wasn’t as discreet as Lucy was trying to be.
The coroner snapped at Lucy, “You want my job?”
Lucy changed her tactic with the coroner. She really wanted to see something else on the body.
“Actually,” she said, “I worked at the D.C. morgue for the last year.” She glanced at Suzanne and mouthed, “
Suzanne reached into her back pocket and pulled out an extra pair of latex gloves. Lucy put them on and squatted across from the coroner.
“You have a different opinion on time of death?” he asked.
“No, I think you’re right.”
“You haven’t felt the body.”
He was daring her. Most cops were squeamish about touching the dead. Lucy wasn’t one of them. She pressed her hands into the victim’s stomach. “Organs still soft, pliable.” She moved her hands out from the center.
The coroner had the best time of death because he’d taken a rectal temperature and extrapolated from that. But the fact that rigor mortis had just begun-a process that starts about three hours after death-gave them a good guess at when she’d died. Still more important at this point was that full lividity-when the blood settled at the lowest point in the body, usually five to six hours after death-hadn’t been achieved. In fact, it appeared to have just begun, Lucy surmised.
“Are you ready to turn the body?” she asked the coroner, looking him straight in the eye.
“You want to?”
“Not particularly, but I will. We need a plastic sheet here.”
Suzanne handed her a folded tarp. Lucy spread it out next to the body. The coroner hid a smile behind his thick mustache.
Lucy said, “I’ll pull her, you push.”
The coroner nodded and together they turned the body from her side, as she’d been, to her stomach. Lucy discreetly pulled down her skirt so her bottom was covered. “Lividity started, but is certainly not complete,” she said.
“Which confirms my time of death.”
“I wasn’t questioning time of death,” she said. “What I wanted to see was her neck. Can you grab the tarp and pull it under the rest of her body? I’ll hold her.”
The coroner reached and started to pull the folded edge of the tarp under the body, then stopped.
“Photographer!” he called out.
A moment later, an NYPD crime scene investigator came in.
Lucy looked at what the coroner saw. A large dark-green button. There were still threads in the button’s holes, as if it had been ripped out.
The photographer took several pictures. The coroner picked the button up with tweezers and put it in an evidence bag.
Lucy asked, “Do you think they can get prints off that?”
“Probably not, but it’s worth a try,” the coroner said. His attitude had completely changed, and Lucy hid her grin. “It might not be from the killer.”
The coroner finished pulling the plastic under the body, then they rolled her back to her original position.
“Why do you want to see her neck?”
“She’s taller than the other victims. I think her killer was shorter than her.”
Suzanne asked, “How can you tell?”
“The autopsy reports on the other victims had the bruising in a fairly straight pattern on the neck. These cuts are angled down, from her chin toward her shoulders, as if the killer were holding the plastic bag over her head and pulling down at an angle. I also think she fought back more than the other victims. There’s a rawness to her wound that I didn’t see in the others.”
Suzanne said, “Hey, are those nails real or fake?”
“Fake,” Lucy and the coroner said at the same time. “Four are broken off,” the coroner added.
“Her index and middle fingers,” Lucy said.
The coroner bagged her hands. “There are threads and possible fabric in her palm. I don’t want to take them out here. We could lose trace evidence. I’ll bag them at the morgue.”
Suzanne said, “I don’t have to tell you it’s a rush.”
“No, Special Agent Madeaux, you don’t have to tell me.”
Lucy stood. “Thank you for letting me help.”
“You a Fed?” the coroner asked with distaste.
“No.”
“You’re not NYPD.”
“No.”
“Want a job?”
She smiled. “Maybe.”
“Let me know.”
Lucy stepped out from under the tarp. Suzanne followed. “Carl Brewer is an ass. He doesn’t like anyone, except obviously you.”
“He reminds me of someone I know,” Lucy said. “It’s all about appreciating his expertise and being smart at the same time.”
Suzanne shook her head and led the way to the abandoned building. “We’re going to talk to the victim’s roommate and two other potential witnesses.” She stepped over a broken bottle. “The killer got sloppy. We never
