Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3)

by Hill, Casey

  Reilly was aware of the doctor talking to herself, almost as if she was cross examining the victim in a witness box, her latex-gloved hands gently turning the limbs, checking under the hairline at the base of the girl’s skull, feeling for broken bones, crushed muscles, ligaments and tendons torn apart by the impact of whatever had hit her.

  After a minute or two she climbed to her feet.

  Reilly eagerly awaited her verdict, but Karen wasn’t done, simply changing position. She moved to the other side of the body, knelt down once more and resumed the examination.

  Reilly already had a fair idea of what she was going to say. She had enough training and experience to know the difference between injuries that directly caused death and those that had occurred post-mortem, but she knew better than to say anything – it was protocol and politeness to defer to the ME, even when the cause of death seemed obvious.

  Finally, Karen Thompson finished her examination and called the detectives back over.

  ‘Hit and run. Killed on impact,’ she stated sympathetically, turning her wide eyes on the three of them. ‘But I’m sure you already knew that.’ She nodded towards the body. ‘See here…’ Reilly and the detectives crouched down over the body together. ‘Impact was right here.’ Karen pointed to the back of the girl’s legs. ‘She was struck from behind, just above the knees. But there’s also impact here.’ She gently lifted the girl’s nightdress to reveal contusions on her lower back.

  Chris frowned. ‘So more likely a van than a car?’

  ‘Correct. A car would have rolled her up across the bonnet, causing a different pattern of injuries. So yes, a slightly larger vehicle with a flatter, non-aerodynamic front end.’

  ‘And the official cause of death?’

  Thompson crouched down again, and indicated that the others should do the same. She gently prodded the back of the dead girl’s skull – it gave slightly under the pressure of her fingers. ‘Secondary impact. All these other injuries’ – she indicated the grazes and abrasions to her arms and legs – ‘are primary, arising from contact with the vehicle itself, but the secondary injury – blunt force of impact to the head – would have killed her, after the collision threw her into the air and back onto the tarmac.’

  ‘So we should be looking for a van with damage to the front and probably a cracked windshield,’ Chris stated flatly.

  ‘I’ll be able to tell you more after full autopsy of course. I’ve called to arrange transport and will try to schedule the exam for tomorrow afternoon. All going well you can expect the full report by teatime tomorrow, but you might have to wait a little longer for the toxicology report.’

  ‘Thanks, doc,’ Kennedy said. ‘So our angel didn’t jump or get pushed out of a moving vehicle then.’

  ‘Definitely not. Such a scenario would cause a completely different injury pattern.’

  Reilly scanned the array of cones that were laid out across the road. A single set of spray-paint marks suggested that Colin O’Dea’s car had been the only vehicle in the immediate area that had recently tried to slow down.

  So was the collision that killed the girl accidental or intentional?

  She slipped the iSPI device out of her kitbag. Although she still preferred time-honored forensic skills for much of her work, she was always willing to use new technology when it might be deemed useful.

  3D crime-scene reconstruction using CAD software was nothing new – it had been around since the mid-1980s – but it had always been something carried out after the event, in the lab. The beauty of this new software app was that it worked on a portable device such as an iPhone, and thus could now be used in the field.

  She input some basic parameters into the program – the victim’s gender, direction she’d been facing, nature and physical location of injuries. Then, using the integrated camera, she filmed the road, the exact location of the body and the injuries themselves. Once she had done that, the pathologist’s office was given the green light to remove the girl.

  Although she had seen it dozens of times, Reilly still found the finality of a corpse being zipped up in a body bag emotional – the lifeless limbs, the pale skin, the cold staring eyes.

  She understood why they closed the victim’s eyes in movies. The majority died with them open, and Reilly always found it disconcerting, almost accusative, the way those dead eyes almost seemed to follow her around. She wondered how many sets of lifeless eyes she had already seen, and how many more were to come. She knew if she thought long and hard enough she could remember them all. But she tried only to forget, not remember – especially not the pair that haunted her the most; the cold dead eyes of her own mother. Reilly remembered that day like it was yesterday, her first crime scene – except she wasn’t working it; she was part of it.

  She watched them lift the body bag onto a stretcher. As there was minimal damage to the girl’s face, at least her family would be able to say goodbye, something she’d never had the chance to do with her mother.

  Small mercies.

  Once the corpse had been removed, Reilly was ready to let the software do its job. Standing over the site in the exact location where the girl had been found, she held the iSPI device up. After a moment of processing, it projected a re-enaction of the accident, using GPS data to show where on the road the actual collision was likely to have occurred.

  Chris and Kennedy crowded round, and the younger techs came over for a look too – and not just for the gimmick of it. Knowing where the impact was likely to have taken place would enable them to more effectively target their search for relevant forensic trace.

  Reilly extended the device at arm’s length so everybody gathered could see. The screen was blank with a small circular arrow rotating in an anti-clockwise direction indicating that the sequence was loading. She tilted the screen slightly downwards to stop the heavy mist landing on it as the wind started to pick up. Finally the 3D re-enactment started to play, showing first a lone female figure walking along a road, then a vehicle coming round the corner and hitting her from behind.

  Her body sailed through the air, limbs flailing, before finally landing in a similar position to the one they had found the girl in, her skull hitting the surface of the road violently with what seemed like a heavy thud, even though the device emitted no sound. Finally, the screen flashed ‘Estimated Impact Speed: 43 MPH.’

  Nobody said a word. The simulation was almost too good, rendering the events that had taken place on this lonely road even more tragic. The sequence began to replay from the start, but Reilly put the device away, having seen enough. They could witness it again and again as it happened, but now the focus needed to be on finding the culprit rather than wishing they could intervene to save the victim. As real as the sequence was, it could never be stopped or reversed.

  ‘It gives me the creeps every bloody time,’ Kennedy muttered.

  ‘I notice it’s suggesting a white van for the vehicle,’ Chris commented, looking at Reilly. ‘It must know a thing or two about Irish drivers.’

  ‘Give it a second and it will go one better than that,’ she told them. ‘Based on the injury pattern, and depending on the trace we find, it will give us a list of potential vehicles we can cross-check.’

  Kennedy gave an appreciative look. Maybe technology was not so bad after all… He might well be home in time for the football highlights.

  ‘But for now, let’s take a closer look at where the impact occurred in real life.’

  Holding the phone out in front of her, Reilly walked back up the road, taking care to avoid any yellow markers on her route. As she moved, the device constantly updated their position using its GPS connection. They’d walked about twenty yards when iSPI beeped to indicate the calculated impact area. It was on a curve, the road narrow, a minimal grassy verge and a ditch on either side.

  Gary looked back up the road. ‘If you were coming round that bend, you’d barely have any time to notice anyone.’

  ‘Especially if you weren't expecting them to be
there,’ Lucy added. She thought for a moment. ‘I’ll bet the driver lives locally.’

  Reilly looked at her with interest. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Locals drive faster. We tend to relax when we’re close to home, we know the roads, think we know all the hazards – that’s one reason why most accidents occur within three miles of your own home. A stranger would proceed much slower on a road like this.’

  ‘Good point. But the injuries indicate that she was hit from behind and iSPI concurs. On a dark night like this, even with the bends you’d think she’d have seen the headlights or heard the engine...’ Reilly’s train of thought was momentarily distracted by something on the road surface.

  ‘What have you got?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Looks like paint fragments – or chips more like.’ She waited while Lucy photographed the area and put down another marker. Then, using tweezers, she carefully lifted the fragments and examined them under the floodlights.

  ‘From our vehicle?’

  ‘Well, whatever vehicle it came from, it has a bit of history. It’s not just paint, there’s some kind of hardened resin here too. Looks like it could be a crash repair,’ Reilly said, placing it carefully into an evidence bag. ‘When a previously crashed car is damaged a second time all the fillers and resins from the repair are far less flexible than fresh metal, and so they tend to sheer off. Kind of like disturbing layers of snow on a fence.’ This was good; if the van that hit the girl had already crashed, then this taken with iSPI’s calculations should make it easier to narrow down its identification.

  She looked around. ‘We’ll need to go through this area with a fine-toothed comb. If there was any damage to the van after the collision, anything snapped off or broken, this is where we’ll most likely find it.’

  Lucy peered dolefully into the murky soup that lay at the bottom of the ditch. ‘Looks like fun.’

  Chapter 5

  When first I saw it moving across the waves I readied myself, stood steadfast, armed for the battle ahead. But then as she stood before me, the past no longer mattered. I was entranced.

  Her beauty held me captive, banished the demons that tormented me.

  Her words gave me strength; I knew what I must do.

  We had to be together, together in a place free from the pain and misery that had surrounded me for so long. We must find our sanctuary, a place fit for eternal beauty, somewhere the pain and sorrow of this world had no place.

  A land where I will be king and we will protect the righteousness of youth. The cruelty of this world casts a spell on the innocents, and together we will punish those who do not know the beauty that lies beneath their nostrils, and who don’t deserve the blessings that have been bestowed upon them.

  I will revoke those blessings and bring them to a place where they belong – beside me in paradise.

  Reilly entered the darkened morgue and flicked on the lights. The bright glow of the fluorescents bounced back off the gleaming aluminum worktables, the harsh light emphasizing the shadows around her eyes. She glanced up at the clock – 01:20 – and gave a snort of self-derision. Why would anyone in their right mind be working at this hour of the night if they didn’t have to?

  But she knew the answer, knew it as well as she knew herself. Leaving her examination of the girl’s body until the morning would simply be a waste of time – she couldn’t sleep knowing that Lucy and Gary were still out on that lonely stretch of road searching for clues in the muddy ditches before the rain washed everything away. She couldn’t sleep without figuring out what it was about the corpse that bothered her, what the faint aroma that she had smelled on the girl’s skin was.

  Reilly’s heightened sense of smell had always been one of her best assets and had served her well throughout the course of many investigations. As such, she knew better than to ever discount it.

  She had called ahead, and the body was ready and waiting for her on a mortuary slab; pale, almost ethereal on the examination table. Reilly slipped on her latex gloves and allowed herself to simply observe.

  She walked slowly round the table. In the brightness she could now see that the girl wore no make-up and her ears were not pierced. In fact, there was no indication of jewelry of any kind. Unusual for a teenager in this day and age.

  Reilly examined her face more closely. Her skin was flawless, eyes a cold shade of pale blue – these things and her vivid red curls indicated Celtic origins.

  Reilly gently parted the hair – no colorants used there either; the lush red was completely natural. She leaned over and softly inhaled. There was the smell again. It wasn't unpleasant, and definitely not a synthetic or chemical scent; no, it was natural. She was also almost certain she recognized it, but couldn’t quite place it – it was lurking at the back of her mind, something from childhood, a deep-seated memory of warm summer days, picnics in the park with her folks and Jess…

  Pushing it aside for the moment, she continued her examination.

  She selected a comb from a nearby tray of equipment and began to tease through the girl’s hair for debris. As she did so, she watched what came out onto the sample dish. The hair was remarkably clean – just some small fragments of debris from the road, and then something else … Some kind of plant matter?

  Reilly checked the area of the hair she had been working on – tangled in amongst the thick curls were indeed some fine strands of greenery. She gently freed it from the hair, laid it in the palm of her gloved hand, and sniffed.

  Definitely the same smell again. But maddeningly, whatever it was still eluded her. She put the samples in the dish for analysis and moved on.

  Her gaze ran down the girl’s cold bare arms to her hands. No nail polish on her fingers – no surprise there – but the skin on her hands seemed rather rough. This was a girl who was evidently used to manual work … a farm girl maybe?

  She’d been found in a rural area so that fitted. Yet, the preternatural paleness of her skin didn’t indicate much time spent outdoors. Reilly sighed. It was all too easy to jump to conclusions.

  Of course, Reilly thought as she rolled the girl onto her stomach, any assumptions she might make about the girl’s background based on her immediate appearance needed to be tempered by the one unmissable feature that now stared out at her.

  The wing tattoo was, in its own way, quite beautiful. Each feather was elegantly drawn with tiny, delicate lines – it was a work of art, a labor of love. With the help of the bright lights she could see now that the ink was not black, but rather a blueish shade that hinted at hidden depths of color.

  She was always struck by how much more vivid a tattoo was on a corpse. Reilly’s thoughts automatically turned towards Jess and the day she’d come home from school with the DIY crucifix tattoo on her upper arm. Her sister had been so proud of it, and so surprised by Reilly’s horror when she showed it to her.

  Jess and a classmate, bored at the back of math class, had used a compass and some pen ink to brand themselves. Jess had pleaded with Reilly not to tell Mike, but there was little point in alerting their father as by then the damage was already done, and thankfully far enough up Jess’s arm to be easily concealed. Unlike dim Dom, whose three-inch crucifix was no doubt today still visible on the back of his hand. Instantly, a memory of that same tattoo on her sister’s death –cold flesh crept into Reilly’s conciousness, and banishing the image, she focused once again on the corpse lying in front of her.

  Reilly took photos of the wings close up from both sides, trying to capture every detail, every nuance. She knew that the tattoo represented the best chance of identifying the girl, so it was essential that she captured it properly.

  By the time Reilly had finished her examination it was almost 3 a.m.

  She shook her head wryly. There was a time when seeing 3 a.m. on the clock meant a great night out in the company of friends, but these days it only signified nights like this in the company of the dead. Lately, she had more interaction with them than the living, especially since Mike had
gotten all loved up and Chris had turned cold.

  Carefully packing her things away, she called down to the duty guard to let him know she was finished. She had done everything she could for now; next it was up to Karen to see if a post mortem could uncover anything else of interest.

  She flicked off the lights and massaged her neck to try and relieve the tension in her shoulders. She was tired – exhausted in fact – but she knew that at least she might actually be able to sleep now. She had done enough to allow her mind to switch off and grab an hour or two before starting all over again in the morning.

  In the morning? It was already morning, she reminded herself. By the time she reached home and got into bed it would be well after four. No matter, a couple of hours’ sleep would have to do. By now, Reilly was used to running on empty.

  Too few hours later, Reilly was at the GFU lab, finalising a report on her findings from the McGavin house.

  She then turned her attentions to processing the evidence from the hit and run scene, and from the victim herself.

  Lucy greeted her arrival in the main lab with a groan. ‘You owe us big time,’ she complained, as Reilly entered the main lab, buttoning her labcoat as she walked.

  ‘I always do,’ she replied, ‘but why today in particular?’

  ‘Those ditches,’ the younger girl groaned. ‘Cold, wet and nasty.’

  Gary nodded. ‘They weren’t a lot of fun.’

  ‘Perks of the job. Did you find anything?’

  ‘Quite a lot actually,’ Lucy told her, indicating the workstation. ‘Whether or not it’s of any use I can’t say yet.’

  Reilly looked at the items spread out across Lucy’s bench, a collection of broken plastic, empty soft drink cans, a coffee cup, all the kinds of detritus that inevitably collected in a roadside ditch. Gary’s table was also covered, but with smaller items. Among them were several bits of plastic that looked like they might have come from a car’s side lights and indicators, plus numerous glass and paint fragments.