Criminal

glass, which he held to his eye as he leaned over the body. Instead of starting at the top of the head, he studied the victim’s hand. As with the legs and torso, the flesh along the inside of her arm, from her wrist to her armpit, was ripped open in a straight line. It continued in a U to her upper torso, then followed down to her hips.
    “You haven’t washed her?” Sara asked. The skin looked scrubbed. There was a faint odor of soap.
    “No,” Pete answered.
    “She looks clean,” Sara noted for the tape. “The pubic hair is shaved. No stubble on the legs.” She used her thumb to press the skin around the eyes. “Eyebrows tweezed into an arch. Fake eyelashes.”
    Sara concentrated on the scalp. The roots were dark, the remaining strands a choppy yellow and white. “She has blonde hair extensions. They’re attached close to the scalp, so they must be new.” Sara used the fine-toothed comb as best she could, working around the weave to remove any particles from the hair. The white paper under the girl’s head showed dandruff and pieces of asphalt. Sara set the specimens aside for processing.
    Next, she examined the hairline, checking for needle punctures and other marks that didn’t belong. She used an otoscope to examine the nostrils. “There’s some nasal corrosion. The membrane is torn, but not perforated.”
    “Meth,” Pete guessed, which was probable, given the victim’s age. He raised his voice. Either the Dictaphone was old or he wasn’t used to using it. “The fingernails are professionally manicured. The nails are painted a bright red.” He suggested to Sara, “Dr. Linton, perhaps you can check your side?”
    Sara picked up the woman’s hand. The body was in the early throes of rigor mortis. “Same on this hand. Manicured. Same polish.” She didn’t know why Pete was drawing such close attention to the fingernails. You couldn’t throw a rock in Atlanta without hitting a nail salon.
    He said, “The pedicure color is different.”
    Sara looked at the girl’s toes. The nails were painted black.
    Pete asked, “Is it normal for the toes to be different from the nails?”
    Sara shrugged, as did Faith and Amanda.
    “Well,” Pete said, but the opening refrain from “Brick House” cut him off.
    “Sorry.” Leo Donnelly took his phone out of his pocket. He read the caller ID. “It’s the patrolman I sent to the airport. Daddy Snyder’s probably outside.” He answered the phone as he walked out the door. “Donnelly.”
    The room was quiet except for the hum of the motor on top of the walk-in refrigerator. Sara tried to get Will’s attention, but he just stared at the floor.
    “Jesus Christ.” Faith wasn’t cursing Donnelly—she was looking at the victim’s face. “What the hell did he do to her?”
    There was a click as Pete’s foot tapped off the Dictaphone. He spoke to Sara, as if she’d been the one to ask the question. “Her eyes and mouth were sewn shut.” Pete had to use both hands to hold open one of the torn eyelids. They were shredded in thick strips like the plastic curtain inside a butcher’s freezer. “You can see where the thread ripped through the skin.”
    Sara asked, “How do you know this?”
    Pete didn’t answer the question. “These lines along her torso, inside her arms and legs—a thicker thread was used to keep her from moving. I imagine an upholstery needle was used, probably a waxed thread or maybe a silk-blend yarn. We’ll probably find plenty of fibers to analyze.”
    Pete handed Sara the magnifying glass. She studied the lacerations. As with the victim’s eyes and mouth, the skin was ripped apart, flesh hanging down in even intervals. She could see the red dots where the thread had gone in. Not once. Not a few times. The circles were like the holes in Sara’s earlobes where she’d gotten her ears pierced when she was a child.
    Amanda said, “She must’ve ripped herself away from the mattress, or whatever she was sewn to, when he started beating her.”
    Pete expounded on the hypothesis. “It would be an uncontrollable response. He punches her in the stomach, she curls up into a ball. Mouth opens. Eyes open. And then he punches her again and again.”
    Sara shook her head. He was jumping to some pretty quick conclusions. “What am I missing?”
    Pete tucked his hands into the empty pockets of his lab coat, silently watching Sara with the same careful intensity he used when he was teaching a new procedure.
    Amanda supplied,