Page 59 of Last Girls Alive

Here we go again…

Dr. Dean began, “Manner of death was strangulation caused by what appears to be a ligature. A thin rope or twine like what had been left on her wrist. There’s no doubt it was murder, but what bothers me is that the message carved into her back was donebeforedeath, unlike in the Harlan case.” He moved closer to the exam table where the body was covered with a sheet. Pulling the sheet back, Mary Rodriguez was a shocking sight to behold. The autopsy had already begun so the chest cavity was cut open and the organs had been removed. Katie tried not to look at the gaping hollow where the ribs were exposed and spread wide. She waited until Dean moved the body by rolling it onto its side. Glancing at McGaven, his expression of horror mimicked what Katie felt. She moved next to the examiner to partially obscure her partner’s view of the body.

“These cuts were done when the victim was alive—there’s no purple coloring as the blood would have settled there after death. In fact, this lettering is days, if not weeks old.”

“Can you ascertain what type of knife or cutting tool was used? Was it similar to what was used in the Harlan case?” she asked.

“It was something thin and flat with rounded sides.”

“Could it be some type of writing instrument?”

“It’s possible—more like a tool of some sort with sharp and dull areas to make jagged and smooth cuts.” He pointed to the lettering in “raccoglitore” and how jagged it was, especially when a curve was made on thecs andos. “There are hesitations, too.”

Katie thought for a moment about the cutting letters and the use of strangulation with twine.

“Could the twine or thin rope have been from someone in a trade, like a contractor or builder? Or even subcontractors like electricians or plumbers?” she asked.

“Good point. It could’ve been from something that an electrician might have in their toolbox. You’ll have to check with John about all the possibilities. I’m sure he’ll be able to sort that out for you, if he hasn’t already.” The doctor glanced at McGaven who was quiet and pale. He picked up a wrapped cough drop and tossed it to McGaven. “The menthol will help with nausea and the unpleasant smell of cadavers.”

“Thank you,” he said, and immediately unwrapped the lozenge and popped it into his mouth.

Katie kept her focus on the victim’s injuries. “Was there anything in her system? Drugs? It must’ve been painful to have words carved on her back while she was still alive.”

“Detective, you never disappoint. There were no street drugs in her system, except the heavy painkiller similar to morphine called oxycodone, and it was in light and consistent doses.” He pulled up the body’s right arm and there was a darker blue-purple spot on the back of her bicep. “She had some type of patch inserted here where small amounts of drugs absorbed into her system throughout the day.”

“Can you tell if it was self-inflicted, or done by a doctor?”

“No way of knowing unless you were able to contact her physician to find out what treatments she was having—if any.”

“What would she have that for?”

“Lots of things. Some patients have these patches inserted for anything from arthritis to migraines to recovering from difficult surgeries to cancer treatments. These are used for pain management, with mostly good results.”

“I see.”

“I can tell you that she had been dead about six hours before she was discovered.”

Katie was already trying to figure out how to track down Mary’s doctor.

“One more thing,” he said. “She had an abortion no more than a month ago.”

Twenty-Seven

Friday 1445 hours

“I don’t have to answer anything, but my attorney advised me that it would be best to cooperate with the investigation,” Hugh Keller stated smugly as he sat in his orange jumpsuit with his arms crossed. In the daylight, he appeared older than thirty-eight and he still reeked of stale alcohol.

Katie and McGaven had been contacted by the sergeant of the jail that Hugh Keller was available to be questioned, but had refused to be transported to the interview room in the detective division. He wanted to be released as soon as possible and kept constantly complaining about his civil rights and wrongful arrest—that he had been set up.

Katie and McGaven sat with him in a small jail meeting room that smelt of sweat and was barely big enough for all three of them to fit in.

“Well, I have to say that’s the most intelligent thing you have said since we’ve met,” said Katie.

“You’re not as smart as you think you are,” he said, leaning back slightly so that he could look down his nose at her.

“All you had to do was cooperate with me at the bar and answer a few questions and you wouldn’t be in this predicament now,” she said with little voice inflection.

He snubbed her and looked away.