“Body found out in a marsh.”
“Oh. That’d be Detective Rodale. I’ll call him for you. Just have a seat.”
She directed Sydney to a very small waiting room consisting of four chairs just off the records section. Sydney sat, waited. About five minutes later, the detective walked in. He was wearing tan slacks and cowboy boots, and a navy sport coat that did little to hide the belly that protruded over his large silver belt buckle, the sort given out as trophies for a rodeo.
“You’re with the FBI?” he asked, his tone implying he was anything but impressed.
“Yes. I understand you have a Jane Doe that needs to be identified.”
“How’d you come about that info?”
Call it intuition, call it her previous eight years on the force before becoming a special agent-it was clear he wasn’t thrilled about her presence. There were two strikes against her. One, she was a woman. Two, she was a federal agent. Thank God not all officers were of similar mind. That same intuition told her, however, that if he knew Officer Glynnis had tipped her, Glynnis would bear the brunt of his anger. “National database. That’s why we have y’all entering every tiny detail from your reports.” She gave him her sweetest smile.
He seemed to buy it. “Yeah. Okay. Right this way.” And so Sydney followed him back to the detective bureau, which consisted of about six desks in a large room. He sat at his desk, didn’t offer her a seat, then hefted a thick black binder from a shelf behind him. “Everything’s in here.”
Sydney pulled up a chair from beside the desk, sat, opened the binder. “What’s your take on it?”
“Probably a hooker got mixed up with someone who didn’t like what she was charging. Or you Feds got a better scenario? I’m assuming that’s why you’re here? To take over the case?”
She flipped through the pages, trying to see if it might be related to the case they picked up the other night. The injuries were so much more severe, she couldn’t judge on that factor. “I’m here only to do a forensic drawing to assist you. For identification purposes.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to post her picture?” He crossed his arms. “Maybe one of her clients will recognize her.”
She examined the close-up photo of the victim. “If you think someone can get past the caved-in skull, filmy eyes, and the fact there are only a few strands of hair left on her head because of decomposition. And did you plan to show the neck stab wounds with it?”
He didn’t respond, which made her wonder if he was truly contemplating such a thing. For the public to view a photo of a victim in that manner was incomprehensible, and Sydney glanced at him to see if he was serious.
She decided he was, and figured she’d move on. “Dental?” “Negative.”
“Prints?”
“Only partials left. Submerged too long. Nothing came back. Not one lead panned out, so you can say this is one cold case. Which doesn’t change the fact that we don’t want or need you here.”
“Lucky for you my presence here isn’t required,” Sydney said, thumbing through the autopsy report. “At least not to do my job.” She stood, handed him the binder. “I’ll need a complete copy of your report and the autopsy. As soon as I get that, I’ll head on over to the morgue and you can play with the case all you want.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then maybe your superior officer will explain the finer details of federal jurisdiction to you.”
He picked up the phone, punched in a number, and after a moment said, “Lisa, it’s Rodale. I’m sending someone up to get a copy of our marsh homicide. Give it to her.” He dropped the phone in the cradle, stood so that his tall frame towered over Sydney and his rodeo belt buckle was about her eye level. She shoved her chair back and stood, still having to look up at him as he narrowed his gaze at her and said, “Don’t think that just because you’re with the FBI that you’re better than us. I’ve got more Code Seven time under my belt than you have time out on the streets.”
Code Seven was the cop term for lunch hour, and she gave a pointed look to his large belly. “I see you do,” she said, nodding. “But don’t worry. A little diet and exercise, no one will ever know how you spend your day.” And with that, she walked out the door.
The morgue was typical county fare, pale green tiles lining the walls, the floors slick concrete, the usual stainless steel wall of refrigerated compartments for body storage. Unlike Detective Rodale, the on-duty clerk assistant to the pathologist did not have an attitude. He was in his late fifties, balding, but his blue eyes twinkled with humor when he saw the name on the report. “That guy’s a piece of work, isn’t he?” the assistant commented.
“To say the least.”
“Got our Jane Doe here,” he said, opening one of the small square doors, and sliding the body out. “I’ve never had someone come in for a drawing before, but then, I haven’t been here that long. You going to work in here?”
“Actually if she’s not in terrible shape, I might be able to work from photos.” Something she preferred to do, primarily because looking at photos was easier on the mind and the nose, and far easier than standing in the morgue, staring at the actual corpse for hours on end.
“I’ll put her out on a table for you.”
She opened her briefcase containing her camera gear, while he readied the body for viewing. She figured she’d snap some digital, and some film. But before Sydney did that, she’d need to check the body to determine if she could work from photos. If decomposition was too far along, the next step would be boiling the skull to remove all flesh, then working with a forensic anthropologist to determine what the measurements and thickness of facial flesh would be for the particular race and sex of the victim-the standard process used, for instance, when the subject is a found skull that can’t be identified through dental records.
She put on some latex gloves, then turned to the gurney that held the Jane Doe. A post-autopsied body is not a pleasant thing to look at. Long tracks of sutures attempt to hold the victim together, though never enough to keep from exposing the inner pinkish-yellow flesh that always seems to escape the stitches. In this case, the chilly weather had slowed the decomposition of the victim, and as a result, the smell was tolerable, mostly masked by the heavy antiseptic scent that permeated the morgue.
If Sydney had to guess her age just from sight, she’d put her in her late teens to late twenties, but that was a job best left for the medical examiner. Even so, her victim’s face was devoid of any wrinkles, but it was also devoid of most of her hair, including eyelashes, eyebrows and scalp. This would be the greatest challenge, trying to reconstruct the proper hairstyle, which could drastically change someone’s appearance and hinder an identification if she guessed wrong. There were just a few strands in various places on her scalp. All appeared to be straight, light brown, and as Sydney carefully held them out, measured them, jotted the information down, she was pleased.
The assistant, curious, walked up. “You can tell something by the hair?”
“Possibly the hairstyle,” she said. “Here, these three strands remaining in the front are short. Tells me she probably wore bangs.” Sydney measured the few strands left on the side of her head at the top and back, then said, “See here how it’s longer in back? Two separate lengths?” He nodded. “Indicative of a layered style.”
That done, Sydney gently probed her face, determining that the flesh was still fairly firm against the skull, that the gases from decomposition had not overly disfigured it, giving it a swollen appearance. It was a lesson she’d learned from her first drawing, thinking the floater’s face was swollen. As a result she’d narrowed the jawline. Turned out the victim had a round face. Sydney no longer guessed.
The assistant watched, clearly fascinated. “What happens if the body’s in bad shape?” he asked. “You do one of those clay things?”
“I only work sketches,” Sydney said. “The clay models have their place, but I think the sketch is easier to ID from.”