Genesis (18 page)

Pete held out a pair of gloves to Sara, but she demurred, saying,
"I'm just here to observe."

"Don't want to get your hands dirty?" He blew into the glove to
open it, sliding in his hand. "Wanna go to lunch after this? There's a
great new Italian place on Highland. I can print out a coupon from
the web."

Sara was about to beg off when Faith made a noise that caused
them all to look her way. She waved her hand in front of her face,
and Sara guessed that it was nothing more nefarious than her presence
in the morgue that was causing Faith Mitchell's skin to go
ashen.

Pete ignored the reaction, telling Will and Faith, "Found plenty
of sperm and fluids on the skin before we scrubbed her down. I'll bag
them with the rape kit and send them off."

Will scratched his arm under his jacket sleeve. "I doubt our guy's
been caught before, but we'll see what the computer kicks back."

For the sake of procedure, Pete turned on the Dictaphone, giving
the time and date, then saying, "This is the body of Jacquelyn
Alexandra Zabel, a malnourished female, reportedly thirty-eight
years of age. She was found in a wooded area near Route 316 in
Conyers, which is located in the Georgia county of Rockdale, in the
early hours of Saturday, April eighth. The victim was hanging from
a tree, face-down, her right foot caught in the branches. There is an
obvious broken neck and signs of severe torture. Performing the procedure
is Pete Hanson. Attending are Special Agents Will Trent and
Faith Mitchell, and the inimitable Dr. Sara Linton."

He pulled back the sheet and Faith gasped. Sara realized that this
was the first time she had seen the abductor's handiwork. In the harsh
light of the morgue, every injustice was on display: the dark bruises
and welts, the rips in the skin, the black electrical burns that looked
like powder but could never be wiped off. The body had been
washed prior to examination, the blood scrubbed away, so that the
waxy white of the skin stood in stark contrast to the injuries.
Shallow slices crisscrossed the victim's flesh, each cut deep enough to
bleed but not bring about mortality. Sara guessed the cuts had been
made by a razor blade or a very sharp, very thin knife.

"I need to—" Faith didn't finish the sentence. She just turned on
her heel and left. Will watched her go, shrugging an apology to Pete.

"Not her favorite part of the job," Pete noted. "She's a bit thin.
The victim, that is."

He was right. Jacquelyn Zabel's bones were pronounced under
her skin.

Pete asked Will, "How long was she held?"

He shrugged. "We're hoping you can tell us."

"Could be from dehydration," Pete mumbled, pressing his fingers
against the woman's shoulder. He asked Sara, "What do you think?"

"The other victim, Anna, was in the same physical condition. He
could have been giving them diuretics, withholding food and water.
Starvation isn't an unusual form of torture."

"He certainly tried every other kind." Pete sighed, puzzled. "The
blood should tell us more."

The examination continued. Snoopy laid down a ruler by the cuts
and took photographs as Pete drew hatches on the sketch for the autopsy
report, trying to approximate the damage. Finally, he put
down the pen, peeling back the eyelids to check the color.

"Interesting," he murmured, indicating Sara should look for herself.
Absent a moist environment, the organs of a decomposing body
would shrink, the flesh contracting away from any wounds. Sara
found several holes in the sclera as she examined the eyes, tiny red
dots that opened in perfect round circles.

"Needles or straight pins," Pete guessed. "He pierced each eyeball
at least a dozen times."

Sara checked the woman's eyelids, saw the holes went clean
through. "Anna's pupils were fixed and dilated," she told him, taking
a pair of gloves off the tray, slipping them on as she looked into the
woman's bloody ears. Snoopy had cleaned away the clots, but the
canals were still coated in dried blood. "Do you have a—"

Snoopy handed her an otoscope. Sara pressed the tip into Zabel's
ear, finding the sort of damage she had seen only in child abuse
cases. "The drum has been punctured." She turned the head to check
the other ear, hearing the broken vertebrae in the neck crunch from
the movement. "This one, too." She handed the scope to Pete so he
could see.

"Screwdriver?" he asked.

"Scissors," she suggested. "See the way the skin at the opening of
the canal has been shaved off ?"

"The pattern slants upwards, deeper at the top."

"Right, because the scissors narrow at the point."

Pete nodded, making more notes. "Deaf and blind."

Sara made the obvious leap, opening the woman's mouth. The
tongue was intact. She pressed her fingers against the outside of the
trachea, then used the laryngoscope Snoopy handed her to look
down the throat. "The esophagus is raw. Smell that?"

Pete leaned down. "Bleach? Acid?"

"Drain cleaner."

"I had forgotten your father is a plumber." He pointed to a dark
staining around the woman's mouth. "See this?"

Blood always pooled to the lowest point of a dead body, leaving a
stain on the skin called lividity. The face was a deep, dark purple
from hanging upside down. It was hard to isolate the rash around her
lips, but once Pete pointed it out, Sara could see where liquid had
been poured into the mouth and dripped down the sides of the face
as the victim gagged.

Pete palpated the neck. "Lots of damage here. It definitely looks
like he had her drink some kind of astringent. We'll see if it made it
to her stomach when we cut her open."

Sara startled when Will spoke; she had forgotten he was there. "It
looked like she broke her neck in the fall. That she slipped."

Sara remembered their earlier conversation, his certainty that
Jacquelyn Zabel had been hanging in the tree while he looked for her
on the ground. He had told her the woman's blood was still warm.
She asked, "Were you the one who took her down?"

Will shook his head. "They had to photograph her."

"You checked her carotid for a pulse?" Sara asked.

He nodded. "The blood was dripping from her fingers. It was hot."

Sara checked the woman's hands, saw the fingernails had been
broken, some ripped straight out of the nail bed. Per routine, photographs
had been taken of the body before Snoopy had cleaned it.
Pete knew what Sara was thinking. He indicated the computer monitor.
"Snoopy, do you mind pulling up the pre-wash photos?"

The man did as he was asked, Pete and Sara standing over either
shoulder. Everything was on the database, from the initial crime
scene photos to the more recent ones taken at the morgue. Snoopy
had to click through them all, and Sara saw the original scene in
quick succession, Jacquelyn Zabel hanging from the tree, her neck
awkwardly bent to the side. Her foot was so firmly caught in the
branches that they probably had to cut the limbs to get her down.

Snoopy finally reached the autopsy series. Blood caked the face,
the legs, the torso. "There," Sara said, pointing to the chest. They
both returned to the body, and Sara stopped herself before reaching
down. "Sorry," she apologized. This was Pete's case.

His ego seemed unharmed. He lifted the breast, exposing another
crisscrossed wound. This one was deeper in the center of the X. Pete
pulled down the overhead light, trying to get a closer look as he
pressed the skin apart. Snoopy handed him a magnifying glass, and
Pete leaned in even closer, asking Will, "You found a pocketknife at
the scene?"

Will provided, "The only print was the victim's, a latent on the
case of the knife."

Pete handed Sara the magnifying glass so she could see for herself.
He asked Will, "Left or right hand?"

"I—" Will stopped, glancing back toward the door for Faith. "I
don't remember."

"Was the print a thumb? Index?"

Snoopy had gone to the computer to pull up the information, but
Will provided, "Partial thumb on the butt of the knife. "

"Three-inch blade?"

"About."

Pete nodded to himself as he made the notation in his diagram, but
Sara wasn't going to make Will wait for him to finish. "She stabbed
herself," she told him, holding the magnifying glass over the site, motioning
him over. "See the way the wound is V-shaped at
the bottom and flat on the top?" Will nodded. "The blade was upside
down and moved in an upward trajectory." Sara made the motion,
stabbing herself in the chest. "Her thumb was on the butt of the knife,
driving it in deeper. She must have dropped it, then fallen. Look at her
ankle." She indicated the slight marks around the base of the fibula.
"The heart had stopped beating when her foot caught. The bones
were broken, but there's no swelling, no sign of trauma. There would
be serious bruising if the blood was still circulating when she fell."

Will shook his head. "She wouldn't have—"

"The facts bear it out," Sara interrupted. "The wound was self-inflicted.
It would've been fast. She didn't suffer for long." Sara felt
the need to add, "Or much longer than she already had."

Will's eyes locked with hers, and Sara had to force herself not to
look away. The man may not have looked like a cop, but she was certain
he thought like one. Whenever an open case stopped moving
forward, any policeman worth his salt took the time to beat himself
up for making an ill-timed decision, missing an obvious clue. Will
Trent would be doing that now—searching for ways to blame himself
for the death of Jacquelyn Zabel.

Sara said, "Your time to help her is now. Not back in that forest."

Pete put down his pen. "She's right." He pressed his hands against
the chest. "Feels like there's a lot of blood in here, and she made a
damn lucky guess about where to sink the blade. Probably hit the
heart immediately. I'd agree that the break in the foot as well as
the neck came postmortem." He slipped off a glove as he walked to
the computer and pulled up the crime-scene photos. "Look at how
her head seems to be resting against the branches, tilted. That's not
what happens when you snap your neck during a fall. It would be
pressed hard against the offending object. When you're alive, your
muscles are taught to prevent such an injury. It's a violent event, not
a gentle twisting. Good call, kiddo."

Pete beamed at Sara, and she felt herself blush with a student's
pride.

"Why would she kill herself ?" Will asked, as if the tortured
woman had had everything to live for.

Pete supplied, "She was probably blind, most certainly deaf. I'm
surprised she was able to make it up the tree. She wouldn't have heard
the searchers, would have no idea that you were looking for her."

"But she—"

"The infrared on the helicopters didn't pick up her signature,"
Pete interrupted. "But for you being out there, just happening to
look up, I imagine the only way you would have found her body is
tracking down a DRT call come deer season."

Dead Right There, he meant. All police agencies had their slang,
some of it more colorful than others. Hunters were notorious for
calling in bodies they'd found DRT.

Pete turned to Sara. "Do you mind?" he asked, nodding toward
the bag for the rape kit. Snoopy was an excellent assistant, but Sara
got the message: she was back to being an observer. She peeled off
her gloves and opened the kit, laying out the swabs and vials. Pete
picked up the speculum, pressing open the legs so he could insert it
into the vagina.

As with some violent rapes that resulted in homicide, the vaginal
walls had stayed clenched post mortem, and the plastic speculum
broke as Pete tried to pry it open. Snoopy handed him a metal speculum,
and Pete tried again, his hands shaking as he forced open the
clamp. It was rough to watch, and Sara was glad that Faith was not
there as the wrenching sound of metal parting flesh filled the room.
Sara handed Pete a swab, and he inserted the cotton-tipped stick,
only to meet resistance.

Pete bent over, trying to find the obstruction. "Dear Lord," he
mumbled, his hand scattering the tray of tools as he snatched up a
pair of thin-nosed forceps. His voice was absent any charm as he told
Sara, "Glove up—help me with this."

Sara snapped on the gloves, wrapping her hands around the
speculum as he reached in with the forceps, which were nothing
more than a long pair of tweezers. The tips grabbed something, and
he pulled back his arm. A long, single piece of white plastic came out,
like a silk cloth from a magician's sleeve. Pete kept pulling, layering
the plastic into a large bowl. Section after section came, each streaked
in dark, black blood, each connected to the next in a perforated line.

"Trash bags," Will said.

Sara could not breathe. "Anna," she said. "We need to check
Anna."

W
ILL'S OFFICE ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF CITY HALL EAST WAS
little more than a storage closet with a window that looked down
onto a pair of abandoned railroad tracks and a Kroger grocery store
parking lot that seemed to be the meeting place for many suspicious-looking
people in very expensive cars. The back of Will's chair was
pressed so tightly against the wall that it gouged the sheetrock every
time he turned. Not that he needed to turn. He could see the entire
office without moving his head. Even getting into the chair was difficult
because Will had to squeeze between his desk and the window in
order to reach it—a maneuver that made him glad he wasn't planning
on having children.

He leaned on his elbow as he watched his computer boot up, the
screen flickering, the little icons flashing into place. Will opened his
email first, tucking a pair of headphones into his ears so he could hear
them through the SpeakText program he'd installed a few years ago.
After deleting a couple of sexual enhancement offers and a plea from
a deposed Nigerian president, he found a note from Amanda and a
policy-change notice on the state health insurance plan that he sent
to his private email so he could muddle through his loss of covered
items from the comfort of his own home.

Amanda's email needed no such study. She always wrote in all
caps and she seldom bothered with proper sentence construction.
UPDATE ME
was plastered across the screen in a thick, bold font.

What could he tell her? That their victim had eleven kitchen
garbage bags shoved up inside her? That Anna, the victim who had
survived, had the same number inside of her? That twelve hours had
passed and they were no closer to finding out who had taken the
women, let alone what pattern connected the two victims?

Blind, possibly deaf, possibly mute. Will had been in the cave
where the women were kept. He could not imagine the horrors they
experienced. Seeing the torturer's instruments had been bad enough,
but he imagined not seeing them would be worse. At least the burden
of Jackie Zabel's death was off his shoulders, though knowing that
the woman had chosen death when help was so nearby brought him
no comfort.

Will could still hear the compassionate tone Sara Linton had used
as she'd explained how Zabel had taken her life. He could not remember
the last time a woman had talked to him that way—tried to
throw him a life vest instead of yelling at him to swim harder the way
Faith did or, worse, grabbing onto his legs and pulling him farther
down the way Angie always tried.

Will slumped back in his chair, knowing he should put Sara out of
his mind. There was a case in front of him that needed his undivided
attention, and Will made himself focus on the women he could actually
have an impact on.

Both Anna and Jackie had probably escaped from the cave at the
same time, Jackie unable to hear or see, Anna most probably blind.
There would have been no way for the two damaged women to communicate
with each other except through touch. Had they held
hands, stumbling together blindly as they'd tried to find their way
out of the forest? Somehow, they'd been separated, lost from each
other. Anna must have known she was on a road, felt the cool asphalt
on the soles of her bare feet, heard the roar of an approaching car.
Jackie had gone the other way—finding a tree, climbing to what
must have felt like safety. Waiting. Every creak of the tree, every
movement of the branches, sending panic through her body as she
waited for her abductor to find her and take her back to that cold,
dark place.

She would have been holding her license, her identity, in one
hand and the means of her death in the other. It was an almost incomprehensible
choice. Climb down, walk aimlessly to look for
help, risking possible capture? Or plunge the blade into her chest?
Fight for her life? Or seize control and end it on her own terms?

The autopsy bore witness to her decision. The blade had pierced
her heart, severing the main artery, filing the chest with blood.
According to Sara, Jackie had probably passed out almost instantly,
her heart stopping even as she fell from the tree. Knife dropping.
Driver's license dropping. They had found aspirin in her stomach. It
had thinned her blood so that it was still dripping long after her
death. This was the hot splatter on Will's neck. Looking up, seeing
her hand reaching down, he had thought she was grasping for freedom,
but she had actually managed to find it on her own.

He opened a large folder on his desk and fanned out the photos of
the cave. The torture devices, the marine battery, the unopened cans
of soup—Charlie had documented all of it, recording the descriptions
on a master list. Will thumbed through the photographs, finding
the best view of the cave. Charlie had squatted at the base of the
ladder the same way Will had last night. Xenon lights pulled every
nook and cranny out of shadow. Will found another photo, this one
showing the sexual devices laid out like artifacts at an archeological
dig. He could figure out from first glance how most of them were
used, but some were so complicated, so horrific, that his mind could
not grasp how they operated.

Will was so lost in thought that his brain took its time registering
the fact that his cell phone was ringing. He opened the pieces, saying,
"Trent."

"It's Lola, baby."

"Who?"

"Lola. One of Angie's girls."

The prostitute from last night. Will tried to keep his tone even,
because he was more furious with Angie than the hooker, who was
just doing what bottom feeders always did—trying to exploit an angle.
Will wasn't Angie's angle, though, and he was sick of these girls
trying to play him. He said, "Listen, I'm not getting you out of jail. If
you're one of Angie's girls, then get Angie to help you."

"I can't get ahold of her."

"Yeah, well, I can't either, so stop calling me for help when I don't
even know her phone number. Understand?" He didn't give her time
to respond. He ended the call and gently put his cell phone on his
desk. The tape was starting to peel, the string coming lose. He had
asked Angie to help him with the phone before she left, but, like a lot
of things regarding Will, it hadn't been a priority.

He looked down at his hand, the wedding ring on his finger. Was
he stupid or just pathetic? He couldn't tell the difference anymore.
He bet Sara Linton wasn't the sort of woman who pulled this kind of
crap in a relationship. Then again, Will bet Sara's husband hadn't
been the kind of pussy who would let it happen.

"God, I hate autopsies." Faith pushed her way into his office, her
color still off. Will knew she hated autopsies—it was an obvious
aversion—but this was the first time he'd ever heard Faith admit to it.
"Caroline left a message on my cell." She meant Amanda's assistant.
"We can't talk to Joelyn Zabel without counsel present."

Jackie Zabel's sister. "Is she really going to sue the department?"

She dropped her purse on his desk. "As soon as she finds a lawyer
in the Yellow Pages. Are you ready to go?"

He looked at the time on the computer. They were supposed to
meet the Coldfields in half an hour, but the shelter was less than ten
minutes away. "Let's talk this through a little bit more," he suggested.

There was a folding chair against the wall, and Faith had to close
the door before she could sit down. Her own office was not much
larger than Will's, but you could at least stretch your legs out in front
of you without your feet hitting a wall. Will wasn't sure why, but
they always ended up back in his office. Maybe it was because Faith's
office had, in fact, been a storage closet. There was no window and it
still held the lingering scent of urine cake and toilet cleaner. The first
time she had closed the door, she'd nearly passed out from the fumes.

Faith nodded toward the computer. "What've you got?"

Will turned the monitor around so that Faith could read
Amanda's email.

Faith squinted at the screen, scowling. He kept the background
bright pink and the letters navy blue, which for some reason made it
easier for him to make out the words. She mumbled under her breath
as she adjusted the colors, then slid over the keyboard so she could
type a reply. The first time she had done this, Will had complained,
but over the last few months, he'd come to realize that Faith was just
plain bossy, no matter who she was dealing with. Maybe it came
from being a mother since the age of fifteen, or maybe it was just a
natural inclination, but she wasn't comfortable unless she was doing
everything herself.

With Jeremy off to college and Victor Martinez apparently out of
the picture, Will was taking brunt of her bossiness. He supposed this
was what it was like to have an older sister. But then again, Angie
acted the same way with Will and he was sleeping with her. When
she was around.

Faith said, "Amanda should already have the autopsy report on
Jacquelyn Zabel by now." She typed as she talked. "What do we
have? No fingerprints or trace evidence to follow. Plenty of DNA in
sperm and blood, but no matches so far. No ID or even last name on
Anna. An attacker who blinds his victims, punches out their
eardrums, makes them drink Drano. The trash bags . . . shit, I can't
even begin to understand that. He tortures them with God knows
what. One had a rib removed . . ." She hit the arrow key, going back
to add something earlier in the line. "Zabel was probably going to be
next."

"The aspirin," Will said. The aspirin found in Jacquelyn Zabel's
stomach was ten times more than the average person would take.

"Nice of him to give them something for their pain." Faith arrowed
back down the screen. "Can you imagine? Trapped in that
cave, can't hear him coming, can't see what he's doing, can't scream
for help." Faith clicked the mouse, sending the email, then sat back in
the chair. "Eleven trash bags. How did Sara miss that on the first
victim?"

"I don't imagine you stop to do a pelvic exam when a woman
comes in with nearly every bone in her body broken in her body and
one foot in the grave."

"Don't get testy with me," she said, though Will didn't think he
was being testy at all. "She doesn't belong in the middle of this case."

"Who?"

Faith rolled her eyes, using the mouse to click open the browser.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm going to look her up. Her husband was a cop when he died.
I'm sure whatever happened to him made the news."

"That's not fair."

"Fair?" Faith tapped the keyboard. "What do you mean
fair
?"

"Faith, don't intrude in her personal—"

She hit the enter key. Will didn't know what else to do, so he
reached down and unplugged the computer. Faith jiggled the mouse,
then pressed the space bar. The building was old—the power was always
going off. She glanced up, noticing the lights were still on.

"Did you turn off the computer?"

"If Sara Linton wanted you to know the details of her personal
life, then she would tell you."

"You'd think you'd have better posture with that stick up your
ass." Faith crossed her arms, giving him a sharp look. "Don't you
think it's weird how she's inserting herself into our investigation? I
mean, she's not a coroner anymore. She's a civilian. If she wasn't so
pretty, you'd see how strange—"

"What does her beauty have to do with anything?"

Faith was kind enough to let his words hang over their heads like
a neon sign flashing
idiot
. She gave it almost a full minute to burn out
before saying, "Don't forget I have a computer in my office. I can
look her up there just as easily."

"Whatever you find out, I don't want to know."

Faith rubbed her face with her hands. She stared at the gray sky
outside the window for another solid minute. "This is crazy. We're
spinning our wheels here. We need a break, something to follow."

"Pauline McGhee—"

"Leo is drawing a blank on the brother. He says her house is
clean—no documents, no indication of parents, relatives. No record
of an alias, but that's easy enough to hide if you pay the right people
enough money. Pauline's neighbors haven't changed their story,
either: They either don't know her or don't like her. Either way, they
can't tell us anything about her life. He talked to the teachers at the
kid's school. Same thing. I mean, Christ, her son is in care right now
because the mother doesn't have any close friends who are willing
take him."

"What's Leo doing now?"

She checked her watch. "Probably trying to figure out how to
knock off early." She rubbed her eyes again, obviously tired. "He's
running McGhee's fingerprints, but that's a long shot unless she's ever
been arrested."

"Is he still worried about us treading on his case?"

"Even more so than before." Faith pressed her lips together. "I bet
it's because he's been sick. They do that, you know—look at what
your insurance is costing, try to push you out if you're too much of a
drain on the system. God forbid you have a chronic disease that requires
expensive medication."

Thankfully, that wasn't something Will or Faith had to worry
about yet. He said, "Pauline's abduction could be separate from our
case, something as simple as an argument that set off her brother, or
a stranger abduction. She's an attractive woman."

"If she's not connected to our case, it's more likely someone she
knew is involved."

"So, that's the brother."

"She wouldn't have warned the kid about him unless she was
worried." Faith added, "Of course, there's also that Morgan guy—
arrogant bastard. I was ready to slap him through the phone when I
talked to him. Maybe there was something going on between him
and Pauline."

"They worked together. She could've pushed him too far and he
snapped. That happens a lot when men work with bossy women."