Before She Dies (Alexandria Novels 3)

The question caught him short, and for a moment he thought carefully about the question. “No.”

She nodded her approval. “So now that you’re officially single, have you been out there tripping the light fantastic?”

“Not much time,” he said.

“You still living with your grandmother?” The teasing edge added bite to the words.

He felt no need to apologize. “I have my own place. I’ve been with my grandmother the last couple of weeks because my sister, Anna, is out of town. Anna has lived with Grandmother since her fall.”

She shifted in the seat toward him. “It’s touching. the way you all look out for her. But isn’t it weird living with your grandmother?”

“I usually stay with her one night, Sinclair, so Anna can get a break. But for the record, if my grandmother needed me more, I’d be there. She took care of me when I was little and my parents worked eighteen-hour days. Now it’s my turn.”

“You’re a good guy, Danny-boy. Some chick, maybe someone like Charlotte Wellington, is gonna snap you up.” She frowned and pretended to think. “Of course, Ms. Wellington has got high maintenance written all over her.”

Charlotte wasn’t like his ex. On the surface there were similarities. But under the glitz there was more to Charlotte. “Sinclair, you care way too much for my private life.”

“I’m living vicariously through you, Danny-boy. My love life is a wasteland. Plus, I like to watch you get revved up when I mention her name. Charlotte. Charlotte. Charlotte.”

“Amusing.” He drove down the parkway and soon pulled up in front of the regional medical examiner’s office. “Do you remember that woman who was talking to Charlotte Wellington?”

“Tall, olive skin, dark hair.”

“Yeah. It strike you as odd that Wellington would be representing her?”

“She’s doing the pro bono thing more, I hear.”

“No, her partner is. She’s only committed to the Samantha White case.”

“So she’s doing another case. What’s the dif?”

“Wellington tensed up when the girl started talking to her. She looked almost ... sad.”

“Maybe she feels sorry for the girl.”

“It’s more than that.”

“How so?”

“Don’t know yet.” He parked the car and turned off the ignition. “I called in to the clerk of the court and got the girl’s name. Sooner Tate. Eighteen. Arrest report said she works for the carnival.”

“Really?”

“Got charged with shoplifting.”

“So how did she hook up with Wellington?”

“That’s the mystery. The clerk said Charlotte just appeared and told the judge she was counsel for the defense.”

“And why do you care?”

He shook his head. “Good question.”

“You just got out of a marriage with Ms. Career. Now you’re sniffing around another.”

“Doing no such thing.” Annoyance snapping, Rokov grabbed his notebook and got out. His partner had a knack for finding the right nerve and twisting.

“Good because the image of you two cuddling over wine ...” She pretended to shudder. “Twilight Zone.”

“We haven’t been on a date.” Technically true.

“Good because, dude, good working men and princesses don’t last.”

“You’re getting to be a pain, Sinclair.”

She grinned. “I do try.”

He opened the front door of the medical examiner’s office for her and she walked past. “Diane Young bills herself as a fortune teller. You believe in fortune tellers?”

She barked a laugh. “No and hell no. Tell me you don’t.”

“My grandmother is considered a Seer. Many in the Russian community come to see her for advice.”

“Ever occur to you that she’s just an experienced older woman with good common sense?”

“She told my cousin last year she’d have two boys before the year ended. We all laughed because Sue said she never wanted kids. She gave birth to twin boys last week.” They walked up to the front desk, showed their badges, and signed the visitor’s log. Rokov led the way to the elevators and punched the down button.

“I’ve met Sue. She talks tough but is a marshmallow when it comes to babies.”

“Grandmother said my brother would injure his leg when he went to college. He broke it in three places.”

“He was a soccer player. A forward center, if I remember. Not a stretch.”

“She said you will be married by this time next year.”

“Oh, she did?” Sinclair planted her hands on her hips. “So she tell you anything else about my Prince Charming?”

“No.”

“Too bad.” Sinclair folded her arms over her chest. “She’s got good instincts. Not special powers.”

“We’ll see.” The doors opened. “Time to go to work, Sinclair.”

They moved down the tiled hallway toward the double set of metal doors. The air had grown thicker with the scent of bleach and cleaners as they’d traveled deeper down the hallway. Above, a fluorescent light buzzed.

“Dr. Henson said she’d start the autopsy by five,” Rokov said.

Sinclair checked her watch. “Which is right about now.”

Rokov pushed through the door, and they found Dr. Henson standing beside the stainless steel gurney, which held the sheet-draped body of their victim. Henson’s red hair was tucked up in a surgical cap as green as the gown, which covered scrubs, and she wore gloves and booties over her feet. On the other side of the gurney was her similarly garbed, though short and heavier, assistant.

The gurney was situated over a drain and pushed close to a sink. The tiled back wall sported a stainless work counter outfitted with a gruesome collection of saws and other instruments.

Henson pulled back the sheet covering the victim. “Just in time, detectives. Suit up, and we can have a look at your victim.”

The detectives donned gowns and gloves and moved toward the table. Both stiffened just a little as Henson dragged the sheet from the victim’s naked body.

Suspended from the ceiling was a microphone, which Dr. Henson could control with a pedal under the examine table. The doctor pressed the button with her foot and said in a clear voice, “It’s October nineteenth, five p.m. and I have in attendance, Detectives Jennifer Sinclair and Daniel Rokov with the Alexandria Police Department and my assistant, Nancy Farmer. I have rolled the victim’s prints and submitted them to forensics, and we are waiting for an identification.”

“We might have a possible on her identity,” Rokov said. “I’m waiting on a picture from DMV.”

Dr. Henson reviewed the victim’s stats for the tape recorder as she moved up to the head of the table. “There is trauma to her hands and feet, all caused by wooden stakes being driven through her extremities. Judging by the wounds, I’d say those assaults were done post mortem.”

“What about the tattoo on her head?” Rokov said.

“It’s fresh. There’s slight bruising around the letters, which tells me she was alive when this was done. The letters are in a crude block style.” She pulled a ruler from the ex

am tray. “And measure one-and-a-half inches in height. The letters stretch the full length of her forehead.”

Rokov drew in a breath at he stared at the dead woman’s pale, sunken face. The skin on the face was particularly thin so receiving a tattoo would have been painful. Judging by the thickness of the letters and the careful lines, he guessed the act took several hours. “What about cause of death?”

Dr. Henson shook her head. “No gun or knife wounds. Bruising around the throat but her windpipe is not crushed. There is water in her lungs. I’ll know better when I open her up and run blood tests.”

And so they stood watching the doctor complete a thorough external examination. She noted scars, bruises, other tattoos, moles, and any bit of information that could catch a killer. No telling what piece of evidence would be the one that would eventually catch the killer, so it all had to be collected and noted.

Henson studied the victim’s hand and then, using a clipper, snapped off bits of nails painted hot pink. She studied the nails under a microscope. “We might have a little DNA, folks. Looks like she might have scratched him.”

Rokov watched as she bagged the clippings. “Great. You think you can rush through the results?”

“Backlog is high now, but I’m sure I can make a compelling argument. Still, it will be at least a week.”

“As soon as you have DNA, I’ll run it through CODIS.” CODIS was a national database containing DNA profiles from unsolved crimes, missing persons, and the convicted. “The killer is so careful and practiced, I’ll bet money this is not his first time.”

Once the evidence had been tagged, the doctor continued with her external exam. Only when she’d inspected the body fully did she reach for her scalpel and make the Y-incision on the victim’s chest.

Though stoic, Rokov reminded himself that the body on the table no longer carried the soul or life of the woman. She felt nothing. She was beyond this world. And her body was no more than evidence that would help him catch her killer. And yet as the sharp tip of the blade breached the skin, he could not quite quell the anger and sense of violation. The killer had violated and terrorized her, and now it felt like they were doing the same.

Dr. Henson reported that the victim’s heart, lungs, liver, and other vital organs all were a healthy weight. When she opened the lungs, she said, “It looks like she drowned.”