Page 86

CHAPTER 84

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER leaving the Ritz, I was parking my Explorer in my preferred parking space on Harriet Street, perpendicular to Bryant, and a hundred yards from the medical examiner’s office. I had questions for Claire, and I hoped she had time for me.

I blew through the ME’s main entrance, bypassed the vacant reception desk, and buzzed myself into the office and autopsy suite. I found Claire in scrubs and mask standing over a half-draped body on an autopsy table.

She took one look at me, put down her scalpel, ripped off her gloves and mask, and gave me a big hug that nearly knocked me off my feet.

I grabbed both of Claire’s shoulders until I was steady, and by then Claire was asking, “You haven’t heard yet from Joe, have you? Lindsay. Talk to me. Tell me what I can do.”

I told her the truth, there was nothing she could do, and spelled out where things stood without saying my worst fears: that Joe could be dead, and I wouldn’t even know it. But Claire could read my eyes.

“Claire, I’m just going to be a wreck until I hear from Joe. Once I do, I’m calling you first!”

And then I asked, “What can you tell me about the woman found dead in a dumpster?”

She said, “I gave Cappy the death certificate, but come with me.”

I followed Claire to the cool room, where she pulled out one of the drawers and cranked a lever. And then I was standing beside a drape-covered female body.

Claire drew down the sheet, saying, “Her family was looking for her, so we have her name. This is Caroline Ford of Chicago. She’s single, thirty-five, an account executive or something like that. She was here in town on a business trip. Cause of death: asphyxiation. She was strangled to death. Manner of death: homicide. Her underwear was torn, but she hasn’t been sexually penetrated. There’s no semen, no bruising. Maybe her killer tried and couldn’t manage it. On another note, she was about two months pregnant. ‘I said. You dead’ was written in lipstick on her right forearm. It was smudged all to hell, but we have pictures from before the Forensics folk moved her. The lipstick on her mouth was also smeared. Maybe her killer kissed her.”

“So, maybe DNA?”

“Maybe. This is all I have for now.”

I thought of the breakfast fork I had wrapped in a napkin, in my purse. “I have something for Hallows to test against, too.” I expelled a bottomless sigh. “You have photos of her from when she was found?”

“Yes, I have them, and I’ll send them to your phone. Right now.”

I thanked my dear friend, hugged her again, and then left the premises. I walked briskly up the breezeway to the Hall’s back door, handed my gun to the security guard so that the metal detector didn’t freak out, took it back, and climbed the stairs to the Homicide bullpen.