Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Isla peels away from Biscuit and falls against me, a slight, trembling figure seeking comfort.
I falter, tensing at the security this child—Emery’s child—unexpectedly seeks in me, but then wrap my arms around her, enveloping her in a hug.
Chapter 43
Emery
“Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the skull. There are signs of hemorrhaging in the brain, suggesting victim was still alive for a short time after.” Schmidt reads from the preliminary autopsy report before skimming for key details to highlight. “There aren’t any signs that she was alive when she was submerged, and the manner of bruising around her ankles suggests she was tied postmortem.”
The mood in the meeting room is somber, to say the least.
“They weighed her down in the water.” Hoping to keep their secret just that for a lot longer than a spring thaw.
“Examiner believes this could have caused the deep laceration like the one she sustained.” He holds up a picture of the fork pocket protruding from the dumpster, where forensics recovered blood and tissue evidence for Holly. The metal is bent and jagged from years of harsh wear and tear, making it dangerously sharp. “They found traces of rust and metal particles embedded inside the wound.”
“So, she either fell and hit her head on it, or someone pushed her head into it with a lot of strength,” Terry says, studying the dumpster picture. “Given the height of it and angle, my bet’s on the former.”
“Were there signs of a struggle?” I ask, doing my best to keep my voice even, clinical, even as the visuals being painted are making me dizzy.
“No defensive wounds on her arms or hands. Maceration of the fingers given the water, but they’re running DNA to see what they can find,” Schmidt says.
“She was drinking and high. Could have tripped and hit her head.” Terry clicks at his ballpoint pen repeatedly as he thinks out loud. “Accidental head injury that turns fatal?”
“It might have started as an accident, yeah,” Mike pipes up. He’s not scheduled to work today but insisted on coming in to help, given he was the first one on the scene. It’s also the biggest case our detachment has seen in twenty years. “But then someone disposes of her body. Why?”
“To hide something.” It seems so simple. “Holly told her friends that she was meeting a guy there. Someone older. Someone her parents would not approve of if they found out about him. That sounds like a sexual relationship.” My thoughts go directly to Axel Murphy. “She was fifteen when she died, so a male in his twenties could get into serious trouble if they were having sex.”
“In that case, his DNA would need to be on her,” Terry finishes for me. “Okay, so Holly and this mystery man have intercourse behind the Bale House, and then she somehow hits her head on the dumpster. She dies within minutes probably? I mean, look at that wound.” He gestures to the autopsy photo.
I blink away. I don’t need to see it again.
“He panics because his DNA is all over her, tosses her into his truck or trunk, and drives to a remote lake an hour away to get rid of her body.” Terry scribbles on his notepad under a heading of POSSIBLE SCENARIOS.
“He does all that but leaves her phone behind?” Mike says doubtfully.
“Where was that found again?” Schmidt starts flipping through the case report for the answer.
“In the stack of pallets out back. It slipped down a crack.” I don’t need to review those pages. I know them by heart. “One of the kitchen staff heard it vibrating when he was dumping a bag of garbage. He brought it inside.”
“If she was sitting out there, she could have bumped it and it fell,” Terry says.
“And if the guy’s panicked and rushing to not get caught, he might not think about her phone. Or he does but doesn’t see it anywhere, doesn’t have time to look. It’s dark,” Schmidt speculates. “And it gets left behind.”
“Maybe he came back later that night after the place closed, to search again?” Mike says.
“We have about twenty-four hours of footage from the gas station across the street. We can definitely take a look.” Schmidt nods.
Terry scribbles it down. “Okay, assuming this was a solo male for the moment, he could have dumped her body that same night, or shortly after.” Terry shifts to his laptop. “Where was her body found again?”
“About thirty feet offshore, near Bear Island,” Mike confirms. “One of the residents spotted her red shirt floating in between the chunks of ice.”
“That’s a massive water system,” I say over Terry’s mouse-clicking and key-tapping.
He turns his screen toward us and points out the satellite image of the road. “One access road in from our direction, right? It looks pretty long—”
“Eighteen kilometers.”
“And how deep is this lake?”