Circle of Blood (Forensic Mystery)

vic—Baby Doe instead of Jane Doe, since she’s so young,” her father said as he downshifted their station wagon. They had already descended the Million Dollar Highway and were now driving past Hermosa, a small town located on the outskirts of Durango. From the road, the town glittered with bright lights, like jewels against velvet. Cameryn watched it twinkle and wondered about the living that went on inside those houses. In those homes, people were serving dinner and helping their kids with homework, fighting and making up, oblivious to the cargo the Mahoneys carried. Death glided past life, unnoticed in the darkness.
    “It’s . . . nothing,” she sighed. “Just a long day.”
    “You can say that again. It’s like a bloody war zone.”
    “I know,” she said, distracted. “I’m sorry, I’m just . . . thinking.” With her head pressed against the glass, she turned Justin’s words over in her mind for the hundredth time. Murder, murder, murder . If that were true, then she, by not telling what she knew, was withholding evidence of a crime. Suicide was one thing—there was no point dragging Hannah into a mess if she didn’t have to. But murder ? At this point she’d already gone too far. A plunging, hopeless feeling settled inside as she watched the full moon touch the top of the mountain, balancing on a jagged peak like a golden ball.
    “Well, let me take a stab at this since you’re not talking. Are you worried that Dr. Moore’s going to give you grief for being the lead coroner on this one?”
    In spite of herself, Cameryn smiled. The “guessing game” was one of her father’s strategies to get her to talk when she didn’t want to.
    “No.”
    “Are you worried that you haven’t finished your application for that forensic guru?”
    “No. She’s supposed to e-mail me today.”
    “Okay,” he went on, jutting out a thoughtful lower lip, “are you worried about what Justin said—that this is a murder and not a suicide?”
    It was enough to wake her from her trance. Pulling away from the glass, she turned to look at him. “What did you say?”
    “Bingo!” he said happily. “If you’re concerned whether you covered procedure well enough if the case goes to trial, don’t be. First of all, you did a fine job—everything by the book. Are you worried about a trial?”
    She nodded, thankful for the excuse.
    “But this is not a murder. Deputy Crowley was overreaching. ”
    “Except . . . Justin said that girls cut hair as an act of vengeance.”
    He smiled to himself. “Well, yes, it’s true that sometimes when it’s a girl-on-girl crime, the perpetrator will cut hair. It happens.” For a quick moment he scoped her face before training his eyes back to the road. “But it’s also true that girls cut off their hair in an act of despondency. Obviously, you have to be pretty darn despondent to kill yourself. And who are these mysterious girls that killed Baby Doe? We don’t exactly have street gangs in Silverton. No, there was a gun in her hand and a bullet in her head. Far more people die at their own hand than are murdered.”
    “Really?”
    “Really.”
    Her blood began to flow again as she settled back into her seat. It was true—she’d allowed her mind to dwell on the worst thing it could possibly be, and here was her father, a professional, telling her the case was a suicide. Behind her in the bay of their station wagon lay the gurney. Strapped to it, in the blue body bag that rocked whenever they hit a bump in the road, lay Mariah, her body swaying ever so slightly. Cameryn found the motion, the sounds, unnerving—almost as though Mariah might be alive inside the body bag. But that was just her mind playing tricks—from cutting open bodies, she knew one thing: dead meant dead.
    In her mind she could see Mariah’s face and her wide-set eyes that had stared into the falling snowflakes. Her father, once he’d arrived, had been the one to close those eyes. That was the scene her mind replayed—Patrick’s hand gently pressing against Mariah’s lids while Justin held the red-gold braid.
    “I wish we had an identification on our Baby Doe. Jacobs told me they’ve done a search on missing persons and there’s no hit.”
    “Why call her Baby Doe when she isn’t a baby?” Cameryn asked. “She’s what—fourteen, fifteen maybe?”
    “I told you already, the decedent is Baby Doe because she was just a kid. In my book, that girl’s not old enough to be a