Lee either knows everyone at the ME’s or he’s the kind of person who nods amiably at random passersby. I find his good cheer enviable, if a touch irritating. Most homicide cops I’ve come across, my father included, have a bleak outlook on humans, generally. They tend to be fiercely loyal to the few people they’ve elected to bring into the fold and regard everyone else with suspicion. Maybe Lee hasn’t worked homicide long enough yet to lose faith in humanity. Or maybe there are just unshakably positive people, and Lee happens to be one of them. Either way, it’s hard for me to picture him and Dad spending their days together, tied to each other like Oscar and Felix from The Odd Couple. I can’t decide who would have annoyed who more.
As we step into the elevator, Lee starts to hum along with the music piped in through a tinny overhead speaker. It’s an instrumental version of “Every Breath You Take.”
“You know that song is about a stalker, right?”
“It’s by the Police.” He laughs. “It’s a classic. Come on, Flynn. Don’t tell me you’re not a karaoke fan. This is my song.”
“Not really my thing.”
“I’ll be watching you,” Lee responds. He points his finger toward me, like a gun. I can’t tell if he’s being goofy, ironic, or maybe just a touch threatening. I grit my teeth. Either way, he’s getting on my nerves.
“Maybe after this, I can take a peek at your dad’s office?” Lee asks. The doors ding open. I don’t answer. I push past him into the hall, even though I don’t know which way to turn once I get there.
“Hey. Slow down, kid. We’re going right in there.” Lee points at a stainless-steel door across from the elevator. On it is a placard that reads “MEDICAL EXAM ROOM 1.”
“Please stop calling me that.”
“Calling you what?”
“Kid. I’m fucking twenty-eight years old.”
Lee raises his hands. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “Nell. Got it.”
He looks wounded, and I feel embarrassed to have snapped. He opens the door to the exam room and ushers me inside. “Thanks,” I mutter as I pass him. He nods, silent.
Over the course of my career at the Bureau, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to pathologists and coroners and crime lab techs. Rarely, though, am I present for autopsies. By the time my unit has been called in, the bodies are cold. Even when new bodies hit the ground during the course of the investigation, we typically hang back from the autopsies themselves, giving the uniforms and techs the space they need to do their jobs. Only after the autopsy do we rush in and get in everybody’s way.
Lee has probably been to more autopsies than I have. Someone from the crime scene always has to go, just to confirm that the body on the table is, in fact, the correct one. This is the kind of scut work that typically gets handed off to rookies and suckers, while the more senior detectives just wait for the postmortem report. Given that Lee is a bit of both, I imagine he’s done more than his fair share.
No matter how many autopsies you’ve witnessed, it’s hard to numb yourself to them. This one in particular has me on edge. Maybe because the girl looks so much like my mother. Or maybe because I know my father was involved with the case, maybe more intimately than anyone but me suspects. Whatever it is, every nerve in my body crackles like a live wire. As we enter the room, nausea washes over me. I bury my nose in the neck of my sweater, trying to stifle my gag reflex.
The smell hits you first. The distinct mix of death and cleaning agents will cause even the most iron-clad stomach to flip-flop. The rooms are typically windowless and dark, lit only by the unforgiving glare of overhead lighting. There are often stains on the floor and sinks, which you try not to focus on but can’t ignore. The tables themselves are ridged on one side, like the drainage end of a butcher’s block. Along one wall is a stainless-steel workspace for dissection, appropriately termed a grossing station. It has a ventilated hood like an industrial oven. In some of the bigger and more state-of-the-art facilities, like the one Nikki Prentice runs in the city, there are whole gross rooms. I’ve seen some worse facilities in my day, but this one is on the low end of the spectrum. The room is small and poorly ventilated. There isn’t any of the fancy new technology I’ve grown accustomed to: digital imaging and video conferencing, for example. Overhead, a persistent drip from some unseen crack in the wall sounds like a metronome. I wonder when it was this place last got an influx of funding.
The sounds are what you remember once you leave. The whine and sputter of drills as they cut through flesh and bone. Under that, music. A lot of pathologists and techs play music while they work. I know one in New York who listens to salsa; another in Key West who plays Jimmy Buffett’s Son of a Son of a Sailor on repeat. I get that it’s their job. I also get that, for some, the music brings joy into an otherwise grim space or, at least, drowns out the whine of the bone saws. For me, it creates a cognitive dissonance that shakes me to my core. After the Key West job, I’ve never been able to hear “Cheeseburger in Paradise” without wanting to throw up.
Milkowski is playing classical. Moonlight Sonata, which at least feels appropriately somber. It echoes from a small speaker in the corner of the room, barely audible over the slap of our footsteps on the tiled floor. She wears a white lab coat, latex gloves, and a mask over her mouth. When we enter the room, she is standing on a stool so as to get a better look at the vic’s torso. In her hand is a smallish saw.
She looks up and sees us by the door. “Detectives, come on in. I was wondering when you’d get here.”
“Sorry we’re late. Had a stop to make on the way,” Lee says without further explanation.
Milkowski pulls her mask down, revealing a thin, no-nonsense smile. “That’s fine. Just about wrapping up here.”
“Nice work on the ID,” Lee says. He holds up the DNA sample he took from Elena. “We swabbed the sister to confirm.”
“Leave it there.” Milkowski points to a gleaming countertop that looks as though it’s been recently rinsed. She peers at us expectantly until we gather around the table.
“Adriana Marques, eighteen-year-old female. Five feet six inches, looked to be about one hundred twenty pounds or so. Her jaw was broken two years ago, hence the metal plate. She’s young but has not had an easy life.” She points to her skull. “She has a predominantly healed hairline fracture here. Her right pointer finger was broken in two places and did not heal properly. Both are old injuries, unrelated to cause of death.”
“And cause of death?”
“One shot, close range, to the head. It’s a clean shot, well placed. She died instantly.”
“Sounds professional.”
“Whoever killed her is experienced with firearms. A less confident shooter would aim for the body. I would hypothesize, too, that the vic knew her assailant, or at least trusted that person enough to allow them to approach her. You don’t shoot someone in the head unless you are in close enough range to do so effectively.”
“Could have been a john,” I say. “Someone she’d seen before or saw regularly. Someone she trusted.” What I don’t say is this: it could’ve been my father.
“Or a friend or family member,” Lee adds. “We know her ex-boyfriend had MS-13 affiliation.”
“Any defensive wounds?” I can’t take my eyes off her dismembered body. It’s been reassembled on the slab like a Barbie doll that’s been pulled apart by a child who can’t figure out how to put it back together again. I’ve seen disembodied limbs before, but never a fully deconstructed cadaver, all in one place. Usually, if someone takes the time to dismember a body, they do it so they can dispose of the parts separately, thereby lowering the risk of identification. Why take the time to hack someone up, only to bury them in a neatly wrapped package in a shallow grave in a reasonably well-trafficked public park?
“No defensive wounds that I could see. Most tellingly, she’s got long, artificial nails. The kind that break off easily. These were
all intact. If there had been a struggle, I’d expect to see one or more broken off. There are no signs of sexual assault, either, though it’s hard to be definitive, given the level of decomp.”
“If she wasn’t sexually assaulted, and there was no struggle, then why were her wrists bound together?”
Milkowski nods. “Good question. And it wasn’t just her hands. Her ankles were bound as well. By the time the body was discovered, the twine used to bind the ankles had snapped. But we found remnants of it on the scene, and there are markings on the ankles consistent with tight binding.”
I shake my head. “That doesn’t make sense. Who willingly allows themselves to be bound hand and foot?”
“A hooker?” Lee says.
I shoot him a sharp look.
“Sorry,” he says quickly, “sex worker.”
“I was thinking that maybe she was unconscious,” I say coldly. I turn my back to him and face Milkowski.
She shakes her head. “She was bound postmortem.”
“Really? But why?”
“I don’t know. There are abrasions to the wrists and ankles but no evident bleeding.”
I close my eyes. A memory bubbles up. My father and I are standing in the cold. It is night. The stars are brilliant overhead. There is snow on the ground, fresh and wet. There is a hole in the sole of one of my boots. I can feel the ooze of cold, wet mud seeping in, saturating my thick, woolen sock, creeping slowly up the fabric until it surrounds my ankle. My foot is growing numb. I shift my weight, trying to alleviate the discomfort. It’s no use. There are still flakes drifting down. It must have just stopped snowing. The air smells rich, of balsam and pine needles. When I exhale, my breath crystalizes in front of me.
“That one,” Dad says. He points to a small fir, as wide as it is tall. Overhead, clouds rush past the moon. The stars are faint points of light in a sea of darkness. “Nell, what do you think?”
I hesitate. I love the tree. I want it. I can see it with the star on top, brightening the corner of our living room. We haven’t had a tree since Pop died. It’s been two years. Two Christmases with a few small gifts, wrapped in newspaper, piled on my chair at breakfast time. Two years of watching the ornaments collect dust in the crawl space beneath the house. Two years of TV dinners on aluminum trays and a hastily purchased pie from the local supermarket. I miss the red poinsettias that my mother made from felt. I miss popping corn with her so we could string them into garlands and drape them across the boughs. I miss the smell of ham in the oven and feeling my fingers press into the dough she would roll out and turn, like magic, into piecrust.
I want the tree.
But I see the ax in my father’s hands and the impatient look on the nursery owner’s face. The tree is small, no bigger than me. It should grow. Its boughs are bright green, not a faded blue-gray like some of the other, larger trees that have begun to lose their vitality. I know someone will cut it down eventually. Probably this season. But it doesn’t have to be me.
I shake my head. “Taller,” I say.
As we walk past, I look back at the little tree. Its branches curve upward, like the tiers of a pagoda. As if it’s smiling, just for me.
We choose another, more mature tree. Slim with long, less impressive branches. There are hundreds more like it at this nursery alone; thousands, probably, across Long Island. That’s why I pick it. It isn’t special. It won’t be missed.
My father fells the tree. The first hard blow of the ax reverberates through the branches. Pine needles flurry to the ground. It takes several more swings before the tree gives way. I feel my stomach lurch when it does. The nursery owner holds it down while Dad ties up the branches with twine. Together, they wrap it in burlap. Dad carries it himself, over one shoulder. His strides are long and purposeful. I try to jump from one footprint to the next, leaving no tracks of my own.
“It’s how they tie trees,” I say. “You secure the branches first to make it easier to wrap up.”
“Alfonso Morales.” We all turn at the sound of Glenn Dorsey’s voice. It feels like ages since we were on his boat with my father’s ashes. “He spent all of August working on the dune restoration project at Shinnecock County Park. I confirmed it with the South Fork Preservation Society. I’m telling you, he’s good for it.”
Lee nods. “I knew it.”
“There are a few other things I wanted to mention,” Milkowski says. There’s a slight edge in her voice, like a teacher trying to keep her students’ attention. “First, the victim was struck across the abdomen repeatedly, also postmortem. By a wooden object. We were able to withdraw a splinter, which has been sent to the lab for analysis.”
“Like a baseball bat?” Lee asks.
“Thinner. I’d say more like a broomstick.”
“Or a rake,” I posit.
Milkowski nods. “Yes, could be a rake. A baseball bat would have done more damage. But it’s worth noting. It seems like an angry thing to do, to hit a body postmortem. A crime of passion, perhaps.”
“Was she pregnant?” I ask. Everyone turns and stares at me.
Milkowski raises her eyebrows. “If she was, it was very early. I can run some tests.”
“Let’s do that.”
“What makes you think she was pregnant?” Lee asks me.
I shrug. “Just a hunch.”
“We also found trace amounts of cigarette ash on the body,” Milkowski adds. “So you’re looking for a smoker.”
“Can we find out the brand or anything?”
“I doubt it, but let’s give the lab a chance.”
“Morales smokes like a fucking chimney,” Lee says.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“From the angle of the bullet wound, I’d say the shooter was several inches taller than Ms. Marques. And left-handed.”
“You said she was about five six?”
“Yeah. I’d say you’re looking for someone between five ten and, say, six one.”
“How tall is Morales? Do we know if he’s a righty or a lefty?”
No one responds. Milkowski opens her mouth to reply but is cut off by Dorsey.
“We need to get moving,” he says. “The press is all over this story. We cannot not let this guy slip through the cracks again.”
“What’s our next move, Chief?”
“Let’s head back to the station. We’ve got an incident room going. Let’s circle up there.”
I hang back until both men have cleared the room. Then I turn and hand Milkowski my card.
“Hey,” I say quietly, “looked like you had more to say.”
She gives me a terse shrug. “They’re in a hurry.”
“If you want to chat, feel free to call me. My cell number is on there.”
She nods and tucks the card into her pocket. “I’ll do my best to find out if she was pregnant,” she says. “It may not be possible.”
“Do what you can do.” We exchange glances, as if sealing a silent pact between us. I hustle out the door and down the hall until I’m in lockstep with Lee.
* * *
—
IN THE PARKING LOT, Dorsey claps Lee on the shoulder. “You wrap this up fast, son, and you’ll be a hero. A win like this will be big for the department. And for you.”
“I’ll do my best, Chief.”
“It’s too bad we didn’t find enough on Morales last summer.”
“Not enough to stick.”
Dorsey makes a displeased clicking sound and then digs a tin of Skoal out of his pocket. He doesn’t take a pinch, just holds it in his fist like a security blanket. He’s been trying to quit since I left the island ten years ago. Doesn’t look like he’s made much progress. “Well, get it done this time.” He shakes his head. “Damn shame about this girl. Shouldn’t have been this way.”
“You want us to pick up Morales now?”
> “Let’s get a warrant first. Do this once and do it right.”
“You think we have probable cause?”
“I’ll call Judge Mahoney. He’s a good man. He won’t hold us up. He knows what we’re up against here. He sees what these people are doing to our community.” He taps the side of Lee’s cruiser. “Let’s meet back at the station.”
11.
An incident room has been set up in one of the conference rooms at SCPD headquarters. Two white boards sit side by side at the front of the room. One is labeled “PINE BARRENS (Ria Sandoval).” The other, “SHINNECOCK COUNTY PARK (Adriana Marques).” Photos are taped to each. Squint and the victims—both young, slender, lovely—are interchangeable. They are practically the same age, the same weight, the same height. The same long black hair and glamour-girl smiles; the same olive skin and luminous dark eyes. The crime scenes, too, are nearly identical. Adriana’s twine-tied, burlap-wrapped body looks just like Ria’s. Their burial sites, both on preserved land, have the same remote, eerie feel. They both went missing on a hot, summer Friday, almost exactly one year apart. Some say it takes three or more isolated murders to make for a serial killer. But if this isn’t the work of a meticulous, thoughtful, seasoned serial killer, I don’t know what is.
And that’s when I realize: there are very likely others.
“No mistakes,” I say aloud, to no one in particular.
“What did you say?” Lee asks.
“The Sandoval murder was so clean. One shot to the head; the dismemberment, the presentation. The location is technically perfect: a shallow grave in a remote location, unlikely to be uncovered. Another month and the body would have decayed to the point of unrecognizability. It makes me think Sandoval wasn’t his first kill.”
Girls Like Us Page 11
