* * *
Kittredge was rubbing his chin. He’d been rubbing it for the past five minutes — ever since I’d burst into the room — and the skin was starting to look red and raw. “And you’re saying you know this guy — Satterfield, you say?” I nodded. “Knew him before these bodies started turning up.”
“Didn’t actually know him,” I clarified. “Knew of him. He was a suspect in a woman’s murder out near San Diego three years ago — a woman who was a stripper and a prostitute. He was in the Navy, and a naval investigator asked me to consult on the case.”
“Why was that?”
“The investigator — with the NIS, the Naval Intelligence Service — had been a student of mine in Kansas in the mid-eighties. He worked a couple summers with me, digging up Indian bones. He knew I’d seen a lot of skeletal trauma there, and knew I’d starting working forensic cases, so he arranged to have the woman’s bones sent to me.”
“And what did you find?”
“I found that she’d been strangled,” I told him. “With just one hand.”
He looked puzzled. “How could you tell that?”
“The medical examiner hadn’t been able to determine the cause of death,” I said. “No obvious trauma, to the soft tissue or the bones. But male killers often strangle women, so I took a closer look at the hyoid — put it under a scanning electron microscope — and I found microfractures in the left side of the arch.” He still looked puzzled. “May I demonstrate? Do you mind if I put my hand on your throat?” I’d considered asking Kathleen, but she was already spooked, and the last thing I wanted to do was add to her fear.
He shrugged. “Sure, go ahead. If I start turning blue, do let go.”
“Deal.” I reached out and gripped his neck with my left hand. “See how my fingers reach around behind your neck, but my thumb’s closer to the front, on the left side?”
“Uh-huh.” His response sounded slightly strained.
“So now, if I squeeze”—I tightened my grip—“it puts more pressure on the left side of the windpipe, and on the left side of the hyoid bone.” I moved my thumb up and down slightly, sliding it repeatedly across the thin arch of bone. “The California woman was young — early twenties — so the hyoid hadn’t fully ossified. It wasn’t brittle enough to snap, which is why the medical examiner didn’t notice the damage. But the killer squeezed hard enough to suffocate her; hard enough to bend the bone and tear the ligament.” I gave my thumb a final twitch, then let go. “The investigator had a list of seven sailors who’d been with the woman around the time she went missing,” I went on. “I told him to rule out right-handed suspects. ‘The killer’s left-handed,’ I said. That left only one suspect. This guy Satterfield.”
Kittredge cleared his throat several times before speaking. “Okay,” he rasped, then cleared his throat again. “Got it.”
Kathleen spoke up. “Detective, are you all right? You look a little flushed.”
“Yes ma’am, I’m fine,” he croaked. “But just for the record? I’m glad your husband wasn’t teaching me about stab wounds.” He looked back to me. “So this guy Satterfield — he was court-martialed? But not convicted?”
“Wasn’t even court-martialed,” I said. “The investigator was sure he’d done it. He was left-handed; he’d been seen with the stripper, about a week before her body was found. And Satterfield was kind of a head case. A couple of the guys in SEAL training with him said he was really edgy—‘a ticking time bomb,’ one of ’em said.”
“Wait, wait,” Kittredge said. “This guy’s a Navy SEAL?”
“Not quite, but almost,” I said. “He’d gotten into the training program, but when the NIS flagged him as a murder suspect — a week or two in — the SEALs dropped him like a hot potato. He went back to his regular unit — the Special Boat Unit, it’s called. Those guys get a lot of the same training the SEALs get. Explosives, martial arts, survival, all that macho stuff.”
“Shit,” said Kittredge. “Sorry, Mrs. Brockton. But why the hell wasn’t he charged?”
“Not enough evidence,” I said. “He’d been seen with the woman the night after he got tapped for SEAL training — celebrating, I guess. But like I said, her body wasn’t found until a week or so after that. I… ” My voice trailed off.
“You what?”
“The prosecutor asked me if I could prove that she died the night Satterfield was seen with her. I told him I couldn’t. All I could say was that I believed she’d been dead for three days or more. ‘I can’t get a conviction based on that,’ he said.” I shook my head. “I’ve felt bad about that case for three years now.”
“And so Satterfield just walked?”
“Not entirely. I was told the Navy discharged him.”
“Honorably?”
“No. I forget the term. Administratively? With some note about ‘less than honorably,’ I think. Apparently you lose your benefits, and there’s a big black mark on your record forever.”
Kittredge had resumed rubbing his chin. “And he knew you were involved in the case?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but as I said it, I knew it was wrong. “He must have. He had a lawyer, and I guess he was entitled to know the evidence against him.”
“So he could have found out that you focused the investigation on him. That you made him the prime suspect. That you played a big part in getting him booted out of SEAL training, and then booted out of the Navy. With an indelible
stain on his record.” I nodded, feeling sick. The detective added a grimace to the chin rubbing. “Shit,” he repeated, this time with no apology for the language. He shook his head. “Okay, I promise you, we’ll get more protection for you and your family. You got a gun?”
I shook my head. “Never needed one. Any time I’m working a death scene, I’m surrounded by cops. Besides, I’m usually on my hands and knees with my butt in the air. Makes it kinda tough to get the drop on an assassin.”
He looked from me to Kathleen and back again. “Might be a good time to get a gun,” he said. Then, as if the thought had just struck him. “And you say the bone — the hyloid—”
“Hyoid,” I corrected.
“You’re saying the hyoid from that Cahaba Lane body is what made you think of this guy?” I nodded. He looked puzzled. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why didn’t the sketch make you think of him? Don’t you know what this Satterfield guy looks like?”
“What sketch?” Now I was the puzzled one.
“The sketch the Earhart girl did for us.”
I felt a rush of… what? Confusion? Embarrassment? Anger at being left out of the loop? “Why didn’t you tell me you had a sketch?”
“Jesus, Doc, I’ve been a little busy, you know? Trying to find witnesses. And I didn’t figure you were likely to be one, since he seemed to spend his time with the hookers on Magnolia Avenue.” He narrowed his eyebrows at me. “Didn’t you see the sketch in the paper?”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “When?”
“This morning. Page one.”
“We didn’t get a paper this morning,” I said, glancing at Kathleen. She shook her head — she hadn’t seen it either.