“Everyone wants to work a serial killer case,” Amanda said. “My job is to bring focus to the team so they stop swatting at flies and figure out where the rotting meat is.”
The front door opened. Silence descended inside the car as they watched a man and woman leave the building. They were both in their late fifties. Both bent over with grief. Alexandra McAllister’s parents, Sara assumed. They were dressed in black. They would’ve been asked to select a coffin. Gently prodded into choosing a pillow and colored satin lining. Told to bring in the last outfit their daughter would ever wear. Gently instructed to include underwear, shoes, jewelry. Made to sign paperwork and write checks and hand over photographs and set a date and time for visitation and the service and the burial—all of the things a parent never wanted to do for their child.
Or that a wife never wanted to do for her husband.
Amanda waited until the McAllisters were driving away to ask, “What happened to Jeffrey’s case files?”
Unbidden, Sara recalled the artful slope of Jeffrey’s handwriting. Part of her had fallen in love with him over his precise cursive. “Everything is in storage.”
“I need those files. Especially his notebooks.” Amanda got out of the car.
Instead of going through the front entrance, Amanda led Sara around the side of the building. Sara thought through the logistics of getting Jeffrey’s files to Atlanta. He had been a meticulous record keeper, so there would be no problem locating the correct boxes. She could ask Tessa to drive them up. But then Tessa would want to argue. Sara knew there was going to be some tension with Will. She couldn’t let the day go by without talking to Faith. Suddenly her To-Dos were sounding like a shit list.
The side door wasn’t locked. There was no security outside the building, not even a camera. Amanda simply opened the door and they both walked inside. She had clearly been given directions. She took a right up a long hallway, then started down the stairs to the basement.
The temperature turned chilly. The odor was antiseptic. Sara saw a desk under the stairs and file cabinets along the back wall. An accordion gate blocked off the open shaft of the freight elevator. The walk-in cooler gave off a low hum. The floor was tiled in gray laminate with a large drain in the center. The faucet on the stainless-steel industrial sink had a slow leak.
Sara had spent more than her fair share of time inside of funeral homes. While she wasn’t a fan of Georgia’s You Can Be a Coroner! gameshow of an election process, she was always grateful when the local guy—and it was usually a guy—was a funeral director. Licensed morticians had a textbook understanding of anatomy. They were also more likely to absorb the nuances of the forty-hour introductory course the state mandated for all incoming coroners.
Amanda looked at her watch. “Let’s not dilly-dally here.”
Sara hadn’t planned on it, but she wasn’t going to be rushed. “I can only do a preliminary, visual exam here. If she requires a full autopsy, I’ll have to take her back to headquarters.”
“Understood,” Amanda said. “Remember, the official cause of death at the moment has been ruled accidental. We can’t take her anywhere unless the coroner revises his finding.”
Sara doubted that. Amanda had a way of changing minds. “Yes, ma’am.”
There was a loud whir as the freight elevator lowered to the basement. Sara could see a pair of black wingtips. Black dress pants. Matching jacket. Vest buttoned a few inches below the neck. A black tie and a white shirt completed the look.
The elevator stopped. The gate folded back. The man who got off looked exactly how Sara expected. His gray hair was combed back, his mustache neatly trimmed. He was probably in his late seventies. He had an old-fashioned look about him and a somber air that fit his occupation.
“Good day, ladies.” He pulled a gurney off of the elevator and rolled it into the middle of the basement. A white sheet covered the body. The material was thick cotton with a monogrammed logo for the Dunedin Life Services Group, a multinational conglomerate that owned half of the funeral homes in the state.
The man said, “Deputy Director, welcome. Dr. Linton, I’m Ezra Ingle. Please accept my apologies for making you wait. I advised against it, but the parents insisted on seeing their loved one.” His soft Appalachian accent told Sara that he was a hometown boy. When he shook her hand, it was with practiced reassurance.
She said, “Thank you, Mr. Ingle. I appreciate your allowing me to look over your shoulder.”
He shot Amanda a wary glance, but told Sara, “I welcome a second opinion. However, I must admit I was surprised by the request.”
Amanda said nothing, though they obviously knew each other. Which was great for Sara. This was exactly the right moment for more tension.
“The parents confirmed the girl was an experienced hiker. They told me that it wasn’t unusual for her to spend the entire day alone inside the park.” He walked toward the desk and retrieved the paperwork. “I think you’ll find that I’m very thorough.”
“Thank you. I’m certain you are.” Sara couldn’t blame the man for feeling like his toes were being stepped on. All she could do was make this as painless as possible.
Ingle’s notes had been typed on an actual typewriter. She could still smell the fresh Wite-Out where he’d corrected a single typo.
The body was located fifty yards from Smith Creek in Unicoi State Park, which was in the northeastern part of the state. The park was over one thousand acres. Smith Creek was a six-and-a-half-mile tributary of the Chattahoochee River. The body was oriented east-to-west, approximately sixty yards from the 7.5 mile Mountain Bike Trail, a compacted soil surface trail rated as moderate to strenuous. The figure-eight circuit looped between the Unicoi and Helen side of Smith Creek and was marked with a white blaze.
Sara turned the page.
The creek was fifty yards down a 25-degree incline from the body. The victim was fully dressed in professional-level hiking attire. The moderate level of decomposition was conducive with an ambient temperature between 58–70 degrees over the prior week. The woman’s Subaru Outback had previously been located at the park entrance off of Georgia State Route 75, approximately 4.2 miles away from where the body was later found. Her phone and purse were locked inside the vehicle. The Subaru key fob was zipped inside the interior breast pocket of her rain jacket. A stainless-steel water bottle, partially filled, had been found two yards down from her body.
Sara said, “Mr. Ingle, I wish my teachers had been as thorough as you. Your preliminary report is incredibly detailed.”
“Preliminary,” Ingle repeated.
Sara glanced at Amanda for help. All she could see was the top of her head. She was typing on her phone, or being extremely rude, as it was known in local parlance. Sara’s own phone had buzzed in her pocket but nothing was more important than what was right in front of her.
“If I may.” Ingle laid around two dozen 4x6 color photographs on the wooden desk.
He’d been concise in his documentation. The body in situ from four different angles. The exposed torso showing predator activity. The hands. The neck. The eyes with and without the sunglasses she had been wearing. Nothing was in extreme close-up except the inside of the mouth. The image was slightly out of focus, but there were no visible blockages in her throat.
Ingle said, “This next series of pictures tells the most likely story. The Mountain Bike Trail was crowded that day, so my assumption is she was cutting through the forest to find the lesser-trafficked Smith Creek Trail. It’s pretty tough going through there. Overgrown with brambles and such. She fell at some point. Hit her head on a rock, I’m guessing. There’s quite a few in the area. She was incapacitated by the head injury. The rain came, and hard. You’ll see my weather report on the back page. It came down in buckets that night. Poor thing did what she could to protect herself, but she eventually succumbed.”
Sara studied the second series of inkjet-printed photos. As with the first, the blacks and browns were muted. The light wasn’t very good. Alexandra McAllister was twisted at the waist, her bent knees pointing deeper into the forest, her torso facing the direction of the stream. Sara’s attention was drawn to the close-up of the torso. The animal activity was significant, but unusual. Unless there was an open wound, carnivores typically went for body orifices—the mouth, nose, eyes, vagina and anus. The photos showed most of the damage was isolated to the stomach and chest area.