The Soul Catcher (23 page)

M
aggie kicked off her leather pumps and put plastic shoe covers over her stockinged feet. She’d chosen the pumps for breakfast with her mother at the Crystal City Hyatt, not ones she would have picked had she known she would be working. Stan watched but said nothing. Perhaps he didn’t want to push his luck. After all, she was wearing her goggles without being told. Usually they stayed on top of her head. But there was something different about Stan’s behavior toward her; he seemed quieter. He hadn’t yet muttered a single “humph” or heavy sigh. Not yet, anyway. Was he worried she’d freak out on him again?

She had to admit, she wasn’t exactly comfortable being back here this soon. With little effort she could still conjure up the image of Delaney’s gray death mask. But lately, she was able to do that anytime, anyplace—being back at the morgue probably wouldn’t make it any worse. Or at least, that’s what she told herself. She needed to stop thinking about Delaney. It wasn’t just Delaney, though. It was all the memories his death had unleashed. Memories of her father that, after all these years, still left her feeling empty and hollow and, worst of all, alone.

It made her realize that with her impending divorce from Greg, she was on the verge of losing any sense of family that she had tried to construct. Or had she honestly ever tried? Gwen was constantly telling her that she kept too many people who cared about her at arm’s length. Is that what happened with her and Greg? Had she kept her own husband at arm’s length, not allowing him access to the vulnerable places inside her? Maybe her mother was right. Maybe the demise of her marriage
had
been all her fault. She felt a shiver. What a thought! That her mother could actually be right about something.

She joined Stan. He had already begun his external examination of the girl’s body and was taking measurements. She helped him with the menial tasks of placing the body block and removing fluid samples. It felt good to concentrate on something concrete, something familiar and constructive. She had worked with Stan enough times to know which tasks he’d allowed her to do, and which she needed to stand back and simply watch.

Maggie carefully slipped the paper bags off each of the girl’s hands and began scraping under the fingernails. There was plenty of material to scrape, which, ordinarily, would mean the girl might be able to tell them through DNA who her attacker had been. But from a preliminary look at the girl’s neck, Maggie could see at least a dozen horizontal crescentic abrasions among the various raw and deep ligature tracks and massive bruising. Horizontal marks meant it was a safe guess that much of the skin behind the girl’s fingernails was her own, caused by her clawing at the ligature.

Stan snapped enough Polaroids to fill the corkboard over the main sink. Then he removed his gloves, and for the third time since they had started, he scrubbed his hands, applying lotion and massaging it into his skin before putting on a fresh pair of gloves. Maggie was used to his strange ritual, but once in a while it made her acutely aware of the blood on her own gloves. Today would be one of those times.

“Sorry, I’m late,” Agent Tully said from the doorway where he stood, hesitating. He was dripping wet—even the brim of his baseball cap was soaked. He took off the cap and raked the wetness from his close-cropped hair. At first, Maggie thought his hesitancy was because he didn’t want to get the floor wet, which was crazy because it was cement with drains strategically positioned for nastier run-off than rainwater. But then, she saw he was waiting for someone. Detective Racine appeared behind Tully, looking too dry and refreshed to have come from the same place as him.

“Are we all here now?” Stan asked with the grumble he had suppressed until now.

“Yep. We’re all here and ready,” Racine sang out, rubbing her hands together as if they were gathering for a game of dodge ball.

Maggie had forgotten that Racine would be at the autopsy. It was her case—of course she’d want to be here. The last time Maggie worked with Racine the detective had been assigned to the sex crimes unit. Now she couldn’t help wondering if Racine had ever watched an autopsy before. Suddenly, Maggie was anxious to get to work.

“Shoe covers, masks, everything’s in the linen closet,” Stan said, pointing. “No one watches without being properly gowned up. Got it?”

“No problem.” Racine whipped off her leather bomber jacket and headed for the closet.

Tully lagged behind, taking more time than necessary to wring out his windbreaker and cap over one of the drains. He glanced several times at the girl’s body, splayed out on the aluminum table. Maggie realized suddenly she may have been mistaken. Was it possible Tully was the one who had never witnessed an autopsy?

Before he transferred to Quantico, Tully had been doing criminal analysis at the Cleveland field office for five or six years. But she also knew much of that time was spent viewing crime scenes via photos, digital scans and video. He had admitted once that he hadn’t physically attended many murder scenes until the Albert Stucky case. It was altogether possible he had never attended an autopsy until now. Damn it! And she had been so hoping it would be Racine who would upchuck her breakfast.

“Agent Tully.” Maggie needed to get his mind off the dead body and onto the case. “Are we sure there was no ID found anywhere at the scene?”

She saw him glance at Racine, but the detective was busy, taking too much time finding a gown her size, like they came in anything other than large, too large and extra too large. At this rate, Maggie knew it would take the woman another ten minutes to accessorize. When Tully realized Racine wasn’t paying enough attention to answer, he left his wet gear at the door and came over, grabbing a clean gown off a laundry rack and slipping it on.

“They found her handbag, but no ID. Her clothes were folded and stacked with the purse about ten yards away.”

The absence of ID didn’t surprise Maggie. Killers often disposed of any tangible identification in the hopes that if the victim couldn’t be identified, perhaps neither could the killer. Then, there were always the freaks who took the IDs as trophies.

“Her clothes were folded? What a neat and tidy rapist,” Maggie said for Racine’s benefit. Now the woman glanced over and frowned at her. So she was listening, after all.

“The girl’s underpants were ripped in the crotch area,” Racine couldn’t resist adding. She padded over to the table, tucking the goggles up onto her spiky blond hair.

Maggie waited for Stan to notice and reprimand Racine, but he was occupied with getting the nests of maggots out of the girl’s pubic hair. Then she reminded herself that she needed to concentrate and not let Racine get under her skin. She continued scraping evidence from beneath each fingernail, bagging the findings and labeling each as to which finger it had been taken from.

Besides, why should she care if Racine insisted on sticking with her theory of this being a rape that got carried away? That the District PD hadn’t noticed yet that their detective was incompetent shouldn’t be Maggie’s problem. Yet, it
did
matter if Maggie was going to be on this case, even as a consultant. The last case she’d worked with Racine had left Maggie with a bad taste in her mouth—Racine’s mistakes had almost cost them an indictment.

Maggie swatted a strand of hair off her perspiring forehead with the back of her wrist, so as not to contaminate her latexed hands. She caught Racine watching her. Maggie looked away.

Quite honestly, other than the one botched case, Maggie knew little about Julia Racine except what she had heard through rumors. She probably had no right to judge the woman, but if there was any truth to the rumors, Detective Racine represented a breed of woman that Maggie despised, especially in law enforcement, where playing games could get someone hurt, or even killed.

Since day one of her forensics fellowship, Maggie had worked hard to be just one of the guys and to be treated as such. But women like Racine used their sex as some sort of entitlement or bribe, a means to an end. Now, as she felt Racine’s eyes watching her, Maggie hated that Racine still thought she could use that tactic, especially with her. After the last time they had worked together, Maggie thought Racine would know better—pouring on the charm or flirting wouldn’t get her any favors from her. But when Maggie glanced up and caught the woman watching her, Racine didn’t look away. Instead, she met Maggie’s eyes, held her glance and smiled.

B
en Garrison strung the dripping prints on a short length of clothesline in his cramped darkroom. The first two rolls of film had been disappointing, but this roll…this one was incredible. He was back in the saddle again. Maybe he’d even be able to get a little bidding war started, though he wouldn’t be able to waste any time. His fingertips tingled with excitement, but his lungs ached from the fumes. He needed to take a break despite his impatience.

He took one of the prints with him, closing the door on the fumes and heading for the refrigerator. Of course, it was empty except for the regular array of condiments, some kiwi fruit he couldn’t remember putting in the back, a container of mystery goop and four long-neck bottles of Budweiser. He grabbed one of the bottles, twisted off the cap and returned to the kitchen counter to admire his masterpiece in the shitty fluorescent lighting.

A knock at the door startled him. Who the hell? He rarely got visitors, and he thought he had trained his meddling neighbors to fuck off. His artistic process was time sensitive. He couldn’t be disturbed if he had prints in the fix bath or a roll of film in the developing canister. No respect. What was fucking wrong with people?

He flipped all three locks and yanked open the door.

“What is it?” he growled, causing the small gray-haired woman to step backward and grab the railing. “Mrs. Fowler?” He scratched at his jaw and leaned against the doorjamb, blocking his landlady’s wandering eyes. Apparently he hadn’t trained everyone in this dilapidated old building to leave him alone. “Why, Mrs. Fowler, what can I help you with today?” He could turn on the charm when necessary.

“Mr. Garrison, I was just wandering by. I’ve been checking on Mrs. Stanislov down the hall.” Her beady eyes were darting around him, trying to get a glimpse into his apartment.

Several weeks ago, she’d insisted on accompanying the plumber to fix his leaky faucet. The old woman’s birdlike head pivoted around, trying to take in the African masks on his wall, the bronze fertility goddesses that adorned his bookcase and the other exotic trinkets he had amassed during his travels. That was when the money was flowing in, and there wasn’t a photo he could shoot that someone at
Newsweek
or
Time
or
National Geographic
wouldn’t pay top dollar for. He was the hottest new commodity to hit the photojournalism world. Now he was barely thirty and everyone seemed to consider him a has-been. Well, he’d show them all.

“I’m actually pretty busy, Mrs. Fowler. I’m working.” He kept his voice pleasant, crossed his arms to stifle his irritation and waited, hoping she could see his impatience through her trifocals.

“I was checking on Mrs. Stanislov,” she repeated, waving a skeletal arm toward the door at the end of the hall. “She’s been under the weather all week. There’s that flu bug going around, you know.”

If she was expecting some show of sympathy, they’d be here all night. That was above and beyond his ass-kissing ability, cheap apartment or not. He shifted his weight and waited. His mind wandered back to the print he had left on the kitchen counter. Over thirty exposures to finally capture that one image, that one—

“Mr. Garrison?”

Her small pinched face reminded him of the wrinkled kiwi fruit in the back of his fridge.

“Yes, Mrs. Fowler? I really must get back to my work.”

She stared at him with eyes magnified three times their size. Her thin lips pursed, wrinkling her skin beyond what he thought possible. Spoiled kiwi. He reminded himself to throw them out.

“I wondered if it might be important. That you might want to know.”

“What are you talking about?” His politeness had but one level, and she was pushing it past its limits.

This time she backed away, and he knew his tone must have frightened her. She simply pointed at the package he hadn’t noticed sitting next to his door. Before he stooped to pick it up, Mrs. Fowler’s tiny bird feet shuffled down the stairs.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fowler,” he called after her, smiling when he realized he sounded like Jack Nicholson in
The Shining.
Not that she would notice. The old bat probably hadn’t even heard him.

The package was lightweight and wrapped in ordinary brown paper. Ben flipped it around. Nothing rattled, and there were no labels, only his name scrawled in black marker. Sometimes the photo lab down the street delivered supplies for him, but he couldn’t remember ordering any.

He set it on the kitchen counter, grabbed a paring knife and started cutting the wrap. When he opened the lid of the box, he noticed the packing material’s strange texture—it looked like brown packing peanuts. He didn’t give it a second thought and stuck his hand into the box, feeling for what was buried inside.

The packing material began to move.

Or was it the exhaustion and too many fumes playing tricks on him?

In seconds the brown peanuts came to life. Shit! The entire contents started crawling out over the sides of the box. Several scurried up his arm. Ben swatted and slapped at them, knocking the box off the counter and releasing hundreds of cockroaches, racing and skittering across his living room floor.