The Body Farm ks-5

by Patricia Cornwell

  "She didn't have on nothing under it except panties," Ferguson offered.

  "I won't ask you how you know that," Marino said.

  "Parity line, no bra. The state pays me to be observant. The Feds, for the record" -he looked around the table-"don't pay me for shit."

  "Nobody should pay for your shit unless you eat gold," Marino said.

  Ferguson got out a pack of cigarettes.

  "Anybody mind if I smoke?"

  "I mind. "

  "Yeah, me, too."

  "Kay." Wesley slid a thick manila envelope my way.

  "Autopsy reports, more photos."

  "Laser prints?" I asked, and I was not keen on them, for like dot matrix images, they are satisfactory only from a distance.

  "Nope. The real McCoy."

  "Good."

  "We're looking for offender traits and strategies?" Wesley glanced around the table as several people nodded.

  "And we have a viable suspect. Or I'm assuming we're assuming we do."

  "No question in my mind," Marino said.

  "Let's go through the crime scene, then the victimology," Wesley went on as he began perusing paperwork.

  "And I think it's best we keep the names of known offenders out of the mix for the moment." He surveyed us over his reading glasses.

  "Do we have a map?" Ferguson passed out photocopies.

  "The victim's house and the church are marked. So is the path we think she took around the lake on her way home from the church meeting."

  Emily Steiner could have passed for eight or nine with her tiny fragile face and form. When her most recent school photograph had been taken last spring, she had worn a buttoned-up kelly green sweater; her flaxen hair was parted on one side and held in place with a barrette shaped like a parrot.

  To our knowledge, no other photographs were taken of her until the clear Saturday morning of October 7, when an old man arrived at Lake Tomahawk to enjoy a little fishing. As he set up a lawn chair on a muddy ledge close to the water, he noticed a small pink sock protruding from nearby brush. The sock, he realized, was attached to a foot.

  "We proceeded down the path," Ferguson was saying, and he was showing slides now, the shadow of his ballpoint pen pointing on the screen, "and located the body here."

  "And that's how far from the church and her house?"

  "About a mile from either one, if you drive. A little less than that as a crow flies."

  "And the path around the lake would be as a crow flies?"

  "Pretty much."

  Ferguson resumed.

  "She's lying with her head in a northernly direction. We have a sock partially on the left foot, a sock on the other. We have a watch. We have a necklace. She was wearing blue flannel pajamas and panties, and to this day they have not been found. This is a close-up of the injury to the rear of her skull."

  The shadow of the pen moved, and above us through thick walls muffled gunshots sounded from the indoor range. Emily Steiner's body was nude. Upon close inspection by the Buncombe County medical examiner, it was determined that she had been sexually assaulted, and large dark shiny patches on her inner thighs, upper chest, and shoulder were areas of missing flesh. She also had been gagged and bound with blaze orange duct tape, her cause of death a single small-caliber gunshot wound to the back of the head. Ferguson showed slide after slide, and as images of the girl's pale body in the rushes flashed in the dark, there was silence. No investigator I'd ever met had ever gotten used to maimed and murdered children.

  "Do we know the weather conditions in Black Mountain from October one through the seventh?" I asked.

  "Overcast. Low forties at night, upper fifties during the day," Ferguson replied.

  "Mostly."

  "Mostly?" I looked at him.

  "On the average," he enunciated slowly as the lights went back on.

  "You know, you add the temperatures together and divide by the number of days."

  "Agent Ferguson, any significant fluctuation matters," I said with a dispassion that belied my growing dislike of this man.

  "Even one day of unusually high temperatures, for example, would alter the condition of the body."

  Wesley began a new page of notes. When he paused, he looked at me.

  "Dr. Scarpetta, if she was killed shortly after she was abducted, how decomposed should she have been when she was found on October seventh?"

  "Under the conditions described, I would expect her to be moderately decomposed," I said.

  "I also would expect insect activity, possibly other postmortem damage, depending on how accessible the body was to carnivores."

  "In other words, she should be in a lot worse shape than this" -he tapped photographs"-if she'd been dead six days."

  "More decomposed than this, yes."

  Perspiration glistened at Wesley's hairline and had dampened the collar of his starched white shirt. Veins were prominent in his forehead and neck.

  "I'm right surprised no dogs got to her."

  "Well, now. Max, I'm not. This ain't the city, with mangy strays everywhere. We keep our dogs penned in or on a leash." Marino indulged in his dreadful habit of picking apart his Styrofoam coffee cup.

  Her body was so pale it was almost gray, with greenish discoloration in the right lower quadrant. Fingertips were dry, the skin receding from the nails.

  There was slippage of her hair and the skin of her feet. I saw no evidence of defense injuries, no cuts, bruises, or broken nails that might indicate a struggle.

  "The trees and other vegetation would have shielded her from the sun," I commented as vague shadows drifted over my thoughts.

  "And it doesn't appear that her wounds bled out much, if at all, otherwise I would expect more predator activity."

  "We're assuming she was killed somewhere else," Wesley interpolated.

  "Absence of blood, missing clothing, location of the body, and so on would indicate she was molested and shot elsewhere, then dumped. Can you tell if the missing flesh was done postmortem?"

  "At or around the time of death," I replied.

  "To remove bite marks again?"

  "I can't tell you that from what I have here."

  "In your opinion, are the injuries similar to Eddie Heath's?" Wesley referred to the thirteen-year-old boy Temple Gault had murdered in Richmond.

  "Yes." I opened another envelope and withdrew a stack of autopsy photographs bound in rubber bands.

  "In both cases we have skin excised from shoulder, upper inner thigh. And Eddie Heath was shot in the head, his body dumped."

  "It also strikes me that despite the gender differences, the body types of the girl and boy are similar. Heath was small, prepubescent.

  The Steiner girl is very small, almost prepubescent. " I pointed out," A difference worth noting is that there are no crisscrosses, no shallow cuts at the margins of the Steiner girl's wounds. "

  Marino explained to the North Carolina officers, "In the Heath case, we think Gault first tried to eradicate bite marks by slicing through them with a knife. Then he figures that's not doing the job so he removes pieces of skin about the size of my shirt pocket. This time, with the little girl he's snatched, maybe he just cuts out the bite marks and is done with it."

  "You know, I really am uncomfortable with these assumptions. We can't assume it's Gault."

  "It's been almost two years, Liz. I doubt Gault got born again or has been working for the Red Cross."

  "You don't know that he hasn't. Bundy worked in a crisis center."

  "And God talked to the Son of Sam."

  "I can assure you God told Berkowitz nothing," Wesley said flatly.

  "My point is that maybe Gault-if it's Gault-just cut out the bite marks this time."

  "Well, it's true. Like in anything else, these guys get better with practice."

  "Lord, I hope this guy don't get any better." Mote dabbed his upper lip with a folded handkerchief.

  "Are we about ready to profile this thing?" Wesley glanced around the table.

/>   "Would you go for white male?"

  "It's a predominantly white neighborhood."

  "Absolutely."

  "Age?"

  "He's logical and that adds years on."

  "I agree. I don't think we're talking about a youthful offender here."

  "I'd start with twenties. Maybe late twenties."

  "I'd go with late twenties to mid-thirties."

  "He's very organized. His weapon of choice, for example, is one he brought with him versus something he found at the scene. And it doesn't look as if he had any trouble controlling his victim."

  "According to family members and friends, Emily wouldn't have been hard to control. She was shy, easily frightened."

  "Plus, she had a history of being sick, in and out of doctors' offices. She was accustomed to being compliant with adults. In other words, she pretty much did what she was told."

  "Not always." Wesley's face was expressionless as he perused the pages of the dead girl's diary.

  "She didn't want her mother to know she was up at one a.m." in bed with a flashlight. Nor does it appear she planned to tell her mother she was going to the church meeting early that Sunday afternoon. Do we know if this boy, Wren, showed up early as planned? "

  "He didn't show until the meeting started at five."

  "What about Emily's relationships with other boys?"

  "She had typical eleven-year-old relationships. Do you love me? Circle yes or no."

  "What's wrong with that?" Marino asked, and everybody laughed. I continued arranging photographs in front of me like tarot cards as my uneasiness grew.

  The gunshot wound to the back of the head had entered the right parietal-temporal region of the skull, lacerating the dura and a branch of the middle meningeal artery. Yet there was no contusion, no subdural or epidural hematomas. Nor was there vital reaction to injuries of the genitalia.

  "How many hotels are there in your area?"

  "I reckon around ten. Now a couple are bed-and- breakfast places, homes where you can get a room."

  "Have you been keeping up with registered guests?"

  "To tell you the truth, we hadn't thought about that."

  "If Gaulfs in town, he's got to be staying somewhere." Her laboratory reports were equally perplexing: vitreous sodium level elevated to 180, potassium 58 milli equivalents per liter.

  "Max, let's start with the Travel-Eze. In fact, if you'll do it, I'll hit the Acorn and Apple Blossom. Might want to try the Mountaineer, too, though that's a little farther down the road."

  "Gault's most likely to stay in a place where he has maximum anonymity. He's not going to want the staff noticing his coming and going."

  "Well, he's not going to have a whole lot of choice. We don't have nothing all that big."

  "Probably not the Red Rocker or Blackberry Inn."

  "I wouldn't think so, but we'll check'em out anyway."

  "What about Asheville? They must have a few large hotels."

  "They got all kinds of things since they passed liquor by the drink."

  "You thinking he took the girl to his room and killed her there?"

  "No. Absolutely not."

  "You can't hold a little kid hostage like that somewhere and not have someone notice. Like housekeeping, room service."

  "That's why it would surprise me if Gault's staying in a hotel. The cops started looking for Emily right after she was kidnapped. It was all over the news."

  The autopsy had been performed by Dr. James Jenrette, the medical examiner who had been called to the scene. A hospital pathologist in Asheville, Jenrette was under contract with the state to perform forensic autopsies on the rare occasion such a need might arise in the cloistered foothills of western North Carolina. His summary that "some findings were unexplained by the gunshot wound to the head" was simply not enough. I slipped off my glasses and rubbed the bridge of my nose as Benton Wesley spoke.

  "What about tourist cabins, rental properties in your area?"

  "Yes, sir," Mote answered.

  "Lots and lots of them." He turned to Ferguson.

  "Max, I reckon we'd better check them, too. Get a list, see who's been renting what."

  I knew Wesley sensed my troubled mood when he said, "Dr. Scarpetta?

  You look like you have something to add. "

  "I'm perplexed by the absence of vital reaction to any of her injuries," I said.

  "And though the condition of her body suggests she has been dead only several days, her electrolytes don't fit her physical findings…"

  "Her what?" Mote's expression went blank.

  "Her sodium is high, and since sodium stays fairly stable after death, we can conclude that her sodium was high at the time of her death."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It could mean she was profoundly dehydrated," I said.

  "And by the way, she was underweight for her age. Do we know anything about a possible eating disorder? Had she been sick? Vomiting? Diarrhea? A history of taking diuretics? " I scanned the faces around the table.

  When no one replied, Ferguson said, "I'll run it by the mother. I gotta talk to her anyway when I get back."

  "Her potassium is elevated," I went on.

  "And this also needs to be explained, because vitreous potassium becomes elevated incrementally and predictably after death as cell walls leak and release it."

  "Vitreous?" Mote asked.

  "The fluid of the eye is very reliable for testing because it's isolated, protected, and therefore less subject to contamination, putrefaction," I answered.

  "The point is, her potassium level suggests she's been dead longer than her other findings indicate."

  "How long?" Wesley asked.

  "Six or seven days."

  "Could there be any other explanation for this?"

  "Exposure to extreme heat that would have escalated decomposition," I replied.

  "Well, that's not going to be it."

  "Or an error," I added.

  "Can you check it out?"

  I nodded.

  "Doc Jenrette thinks the bullet in her brain killed her instantly," Ferguson announced.

  "Seems to me you get killed instantly and there's not going to be any vital reaction."

  "The problem," I explained, "is this injury to her brain should not have been instantly fatal."

  "How long could she have survived with it?" Mote wanted to know.

  "Hours," I replied.

  "Other possibilities?" Wesley said to me.

  "Commotio cerebri. It's like an electrical short circuit-you get a bang on the head, die instantly, and we can't find much if any injury." I paused.

  "Or it could be that all of her injuries are postmortem, including the gunshot wound." Everybody let that sink in for a moment. Marino's coffee cup was a small pile of Styrofoam snow, the ashtray in front of him littered with wadded gum wrappers. He said, "You find anything to indicate maybe she was smothered first?"

  I told him I had not.

  He began clicking his ballpoint pen open and shut.

  "Let's talk about her family some more. What do we know about the father besides he's deceased?"

  "He was a teacher at Broad River Christian Academy in Swannanoa."

  "Same place Emily went?"

  "Nope. She went to the public elementary school in Black Mountain. Her daddy died about a year ago," Mote added.

  "I noticed that," I said.

  "His name was Charles?" Mote nodded.

  "What was his cause of death?" I asked.

  "I'm not sure. But it was natural."

  Ferguson added, "He had a heart condition." Wesley got up and moved to the white board

  "Okay." He uncapped a black Magic Marker and began writing.

  "Let's go over the details. Victim's from a middle-class family, white, age eleven, last seen by her peers around six o'clock in the afternoon of October 1 when she walked home alone from a church meeting. On this occasion, she took a shortcut, a path that follows the shore of Lake Tomahawk, a
small man-made lake.

  "If you look at your map, you'll see there is a clubhouse on the north end of the lake and a public pool, both of which are open only in the summer. Over here you've got tennis courts and a picnic area that are available year-round. According to the mother, Emily arrived home shortly after six-thirty. She went straight to her room and practiced guitar until dinner."

  "Did Mrs. Steiner say what Emily ate that night?" I asked the group.

  "She told me they had macaroni and cheese and salad," Ferguson said.

  "At what time?" According to the autopsy report, Emily's stomach contents consisted of a small amount of brownish fluid.

  "Around seven-thirty in the evening is what she told me."

  "That would have been digested by the time she was kidnapped at two in the morning?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "It would have cleared her stomach long before then."

  "It could be that she wasn't given much in the way of food and water while held in captivity."

  "Thus accounting for her high sodium, her possible dehydration?" Wesley asked me.

  "That's certainly possible."

  He wrote some more.

  "There's no alarm system in the house, no dog."

  "Do we know if anything was stolen?"

  "Maybe some clothes."

  "Whose?"

  "Maybe the mother's. While she was taped up in the closet, she thought she heard him opening drawers."

  "If so, he was right tidy. She also said she couldn't tell if anything was missing or disturbed."

  "What did the father teach? Did we get to that?"

  "Bible."

  "Broad River's one of these fundamentalist places. The kids start the day singing" Sin Shall Not Have Dominion Over Me. "

  "No kidding."

  "I'm serious as a heart attack."

  "Jesus."

  "Yeah, they talk about Him a lot, too."

  "Maybe they could do something with my grandson."

  "Shit, Hershel, nobody could do nothing with your grandson because you spoil him rotten. How many minibikes he's got now? Three?" I spoke again.

  "I'd like to know more about Emily's family. I assume they are religious."

  "Very much so."

  "Any other siblings?"

  Lieutenant Mote took a deep, weary breath.

  "That's what's really sad about this one. There was a baby some years back, a crib death."