Vulnerable (Morgans of Nashville 4)

“Have you spoken to the Spences this morning?” Rick asked.

“I talked to Mr. Spence a half hour ago,” Jake said. “They’re anxious to reclaim their daughter’s body and have her cremated.”

“I don’t blame them. Got to be hell for them.”

“Yeah.”

Within minutes, both had stripped off their suit jackets and slipped on green gowns and donned latex gloves. When they entered exam room one, Dr. Heller stood at the head of the exam table that held the sheet-clad body of Elisa Spence.

Dr. Heller slid on glasses and tied her dark hair back in a tight ponytail. She pulled on latex gloves and then adjusted the powerful light that was suspended above the exam table. As she stood over the body, her face showed a grim determination.

Her assistant, Debbie, a brunette with freckles and a round unsmiling face, stood next to her. Debbie’s body was rounder, softer, and made Dr. Heller, who’d traded smoking for obsessive running, all the more stark. Debbie uncovered the tray containing the instruments.

Dr. Heller moved to the body’s feet and uncovered them. Decomposition had discolored the soles and shrunk the skin around the toes’ cuticles, giving the impression that the nails had grown. The doctor turned the ankle so that the heel was in plain view. “She has fresh blisters and abrasions. I took a look at her remaining shoe before I sent it to the lab and noted it was older, well worn. I wouldn’t think the shoes would have worn blisters unless she’d been on her feet a long time. There are also scratches on her upper arm that suggest she ran into something abrasive like a tree.”

Jake rested his hands on his belt. “Like someone was chasing her through heavy brush?”

“That would be my guess. Her shoes created the blisters and the branches scratched her face.” Dr. Heller arched a brow. “One could assume she lost her other shoe while she running.”

“Scent dogs are combing the brush, but so far have not found it,” Rick said.

She moved to the head of the table and uncovered the girl’s face, also darkened and drawn from death. Her lips were pale, bloodless, and more scratches raked across the left side of her face. A purple ligature mark ringed the skin around her neck like a Victorian choker. “The scratches on her cheekbones are also consistent with running through the woods.” She lifted the head and turned it to the right, exposing the flesh under the left ear. “What does that look like to you?”

Jake leaned in to study the blue-purple marks. “Looks like bruises.”

“She’s got matching sets on the other side. The shape is consistent with fingers. Because they’re in slightly different positions, it appears whoever strangled her put hands on her neck several times.”

“Strangled her but didn’t kill her,” Jake said.

“That’s right. I’ve seen bodies marked like this before. They often indicate a choking game.”

Rick pointed to the narrow ribbon of bruises around her neck. “That’s a ligature mark if I’m not mistaken?”

“It is. She died from asphyxiation. The other marks might have been enough to make her pass out but not sufficient to cause death.”

Jake flexed his fingers. “So this started as a game?”

Absently, Dr. Heller laid a hand on the victim’s shoulder. “Smart girls can make stupid choices sometimes. And she might have gone into the woods thinking it was going to be fun when the killer had a different plan all along.”

“Shit,” Jake muttered, thinking about the cave and the candle that had burned through. The killer had not simply dragged her to the cave and killed her, he kept her there for hours and toyed with her. “Any older bruises that might suggest she tried this kind of thing before?”

“No, also no signs of drug abuse. This could have been her first foray into this kind of sexual play.”

“According to her roommate she was smart,” Rick said. “But she did like to party.”

Dr. Heller raised the victim’s right hand and fanned the pale fingers painted in purple chipped at the fingertips. “Debbie found dirt under her nails as if she’d been digging. Maybe she got away and tried to hide. Also embedded in the dirt under her nails, I found skin, so I did scrapings. We’ve processed and sent it off for DNA testing. Looks like she was able to scratch him perhaps a couple of times.”

“Hopefully, she marked him up good,” Rick said.

“Be interesting to know if our killer is in a DNA database.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice.” DNA in a database wasn’t a given. If this guy had never been arrested, it was very possible law enforcement possessed no record of him.

Jake studied the facial features discolored with decomposition. She’d not been a beautiful woman, but remembering the pictures in her room she had a spark in her eyes and a dimple in her cheek. She was someone’s child. “I hope she gouged the hell out of this guy.”

Dr. Heller carefully closed the fingers and laid the hand gently down. She didn’t hide the satisfaction when she said, “I’d say she put up a good fight.”

“She was found in a remote part of Percy Warner Park,” Jake said. “Did he grab her and take her there?”

“I don’t think so. I think she went willingly. I found lubricant in the front pocket of her skirt.”

“Lubricant?” Jake tapped his finger. “So she follows him to the park thinking it’ll be fun and games and then he, what? Strangles her. She panics. Scratches him. Takes off running until he finally catches her and, really pissed at this point, drags her back to the cave to torture her.”

“At some point she was penetrated,” Dr. Heller said. “Judging by the vaginal bruising, my guess, it was not consensual. However, no traces of semen.”

“The killer likely used a condom,” Rick said.

“Or,” Dr. Heller said, “he used something else to penetrate her other than himself.”

Jake muttered a curse.

“If he knew about the cave, he was familiar with the park,” Rick said. “Fact, I’d say he knows it intimately.”

“Makes sense,” Jake said.

“How was she found?” Dr. Heller asked.

“Guy walking his dog. The dog was running free and found the cave. But judging by the smell, it was a matter of time before someone found her.” He rubbed his forehead. “Anything else you can tell us about her?”

Rick shifted as he did when his hip bothered him. “Dr. H., anything you can tell us about the bones of the other two victims?”

“I’ve an assistant arranging the bones so they can be photographed. As Georgia suggested, one body is female and the other male. Judging by the length of the femur bone, I’d say the female stood about five foot five and the male at six feet.”

“That would be consistent with the descriptions of Bethany Reed and Mike Marlowe.”

“I’ve not had a chance to really study the bones in great detail, but I have taken dental x-rays of the teeth. I’ve requested X-rays from Bethany Reed’s dentist so I can compare.”

“Any thoughts on cause of death?” Jake asked.

The method of murder often left indicators on the bones. A knick from a knife. A dent in the skull from blunt force trauma. A hole from a bullet. A break in a pelvis that had once been very vascular. A snap of the small horseshoe-shaped bone at the base of the neck called the hyoid. However, sometimes the manner of death wasn’t recorded on the bones, in which case, the medical examiner would begin more extensive testing.

She folded her arms, shaking her head. “The female’s skull appears to have a hairli

ne fracture in the back. I don’t think that injury was enough to kill her, but certainly enough to stun her. I’ll get a better idea when I dig into the examination. The male however has a hole to his right temple. He appears to have been shot in the head.”

“He shot himself?”

“That, I don’t know yet. I need to analyze the entrance and exit holes more carefully.”

Impatience nipped at Jake. “Great. Call me as soon as you’ve got anything here.”

“Of course.” Dr. Heller adjusted her protective goggles and pulled back the sheet, exposing Elisa Spence’s body. Jake shifted, doing his best to remain objective and view the body before him as evidence and not as a person.

Rick cleared his throat and grimaced slightly.

Dr. Heller selected a scalpel from the instrument tray and made a Y-incision in the chest. After she peeled back the flesh, she reached for bone cutters to open the sternum. The two detectives stood and watched as she began the process of autopsying Elisa Spence.

By the time they left the exam room, they had confirmed that Elisa Spence was healthy and fit, had maintained a good weight, strong bones with no breaks, and no signs of drug use with a needle. Despite clean living, she’d died hard, in a manner no one deserved.

The detectives stripped off their gowns and made their way down the elevator and out the front door. The air was warm, the afternoon sun brilliant in the western sky. These kinds of details rarely got past Jake, especially if he were fresh from an autopsy. “Life is so fucking fragile, so fleeting,” he said. “And yet everyone thinks they’re owed tomorrow.”

Rick shook his head. “What makes a girl who’s smart and has such a bright future go into the woods with a near stranger? So damn stupid.”

Jake shook his head as he reached for dark sunglasses in his breast pocket. “Sex always trumps smart.”

Rick drew in a deep breath and shifted his weight as if working tension out of his body. “How could anyone be so starved for attention?”

Teenagers mostly don’t think beyond the moment. Didn’t stop. Didn’t consider. Jake wished the hell they did, but they didn’t. He reached for his cell and checked his messages. None from Georgia, but that wasn’t a surprise. “You didn’t do anything stupid when you were that age?”