Having been away from the awful smell of decaying flesh long enough to clear her nostrils and lungs, Joanna once again had to fight to keep from gagging. The basket was gone. The hotly bag lay on a gurney. The bag was unzipped only far enough to allow an unobstructed view of the terribly mangled face.
Katherine walked forward far enough to glimpse it, then she stopped. Sagging against Doc Winfield, she nodded. “It’s her,” she whispered.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I recognize the birthmark on her neck.”
“Very well.” Winfield went to the head of the table and covered the bag with a clean white sheet. “Wait,” Katherine said. “What about her jewelry? Along with the truck, her fa-Ihn’r gave her a diamond ring for her eighteenth birthday. I’m mire he’ll want to have that back, and her class ring as well.”
Winfield pulled out a form and consulted it. “I’ve inventoried both of those items on the personal effects form,” he said. “Along with her purse, wallet, watch, and the earring as well, hill for the time being, I’ll have to hold on to all of them. The watch we’ll most likely have to keep indefinitely.”
“Why’s that?”
“It might prove helpful in setting the time of death. Everything else you’ll get back, of course, once the investigation is complete, but-”
“What kind of earring?” Katherine interrupted.
“It’s a single pearl,” Winfield answered. “Looks to be of pretty good quality. The other one must have fallen off somewhere. The only reason this one wasn’t lost as well was that the post was smashed flat.”
“I don’t want it,” Katherine said at once. “The earring or the watch. Just give me the two rings. Those are all I care about.”
“But, Mrs. O’Brien-”
“The watch is a cheap Timex. It’s of no consequence whatever. The earring is different. Brianna had her ears pierced just a few weeks before school was out,” Katherine said. “It caused a good deal of heartache in our home because her father disapproves of pierced ears. On anyone, but most especially on his daughter. He forbade her to wear the earrings in the house. In fact, he gave her strict orders to get rid of them. It would hurt him terribly to learn that she had disobeyed him. His heart will be broken as it is.”
“You don’t understand, Mrs. O’Brien,” Winfield interjected. “once personal effects are no longer required for evidentiary reasons, I’m required to turn them over to victims’ families. If I were to keep any items that had appeared on inventory sheets, I would be in clear violation. If it was reported, I’d be out of a job.”
“Very well,” Katherine said. “If that’s the case, when the time comes, I’ll make sure I’m the one who collects Bree’s things. That way I can take care of it myself. You won’t have to have anything at all to do with it.” She backed toward the door. “Is that all? Can I go now?”
“Yes,” George said. ‘‘Thank you so much for your help. Please accept my condolences and extend them to your husband as well.”
Katherine nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “I will.”
Joanna followed Katherine from the lab as far as the outside door. “Mrs. O’Brien?”
“Yes.” Katherine O’Brien stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “You’ll have to forgive me, Sheriff Brady,” she said. “I can’t answer any more questions, not right now. Since it’s confirmed, I must go home and tell my husband.”
“Yes,” Joanna said. “I understand. Later on this evening, when Detective Carpenter gets back to town, he and I may need to come back out to the house to see you and Mr. O’Brien.”
“‘That’ll be fine,” Katherine said. “We’ll be home.”
She left then. Joanna turned back to the lab. Inside, the discarded bag lay on the floor and George Winfield was in the process of draping a sheet over the naked body. He looked up at Joanna. “Is there something else?” he asked.
“What do you think about her?” Joanna asked, nodding toward the door.
“You mean about Katherine O’Brien?”
Joanna nodded. “She may have been a nurse once, but how could she be so cool, so calculating?”
“Shock affects different people different ways,” George replied. “Some people collapse in hysterics. For others, it’s just the opposite.”
“Oh,” Joanna said. Instead of leaving, though, she stood there lost in thought, considering the many mystifying faces of Katherine O’Brien. Was her surprising reaction to her daughter’s death shock, as George suggested, or was it something else entirely?
“Is that all?” George asked at last as if impatient to be rid of Joanna so he could go on with his work.
The question startled Joanna out of her contemplation and back into the present. “When you do the autopsy, be sure you check to see whether or not Brianna was raped.”
Winfield nodded. “That’s all part of the autopsy protocol-looking for semen, hairs, and other evidence of rape.” The coroner paused. “You think she might have been?” he asked. “Of course, given the fact she was naked, it’s certainly possible.”
Joanna nodded.
“And if she was,” George added wearily, “I suppose her father won’t want to know about that any more than he would about the earring.”
“You’re right,” Joanna said, closing the door behind her and leaving George Winfield to deal with his grisly tasks. “I don’t suppose he would.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Joanna left the coroner’s office at five. The rain had finally let up by then, but when she got to High Lonesome Ranch, the creek beds were still running too deep for her to risk crossing them even with four-wheel drive. Instead, famished now and feeling filthy as well, she headed back to town.
She considered going to her mother’s place but quickly decided against it. She wasn’t yet ready to walk into Eleanor Lathrop’s house and encounter George Winfield’s shaving kit on the bathroom counter. And she wasn’t ready to discuss it, either. Instead, she drove to her in-laws’ duplex on Oliver Circle, where she could be relatively sure of her welcome.
Stopping the Eagle in front of the Bradys’ walkway, she stepped out into the cool, rain-freshened air and realized that the smell of deteriorating flesh was still with her-still clinging to her hair and clothing and to the car’s upholstery as well. Hoping time and open windows would help, she rolled them all down before going inside. When Sadie had gotten into a skunk once, Andy had used one of his mother’s time-honored remedies-he had washed the dog in tomato juice. Maybe Eva Lou will have to do the same thing to me, Joanna thought grimly, climbing the steps.
If Joanna’s mother-in-law noticed the odor, it wasn’t apparent in Eva Lou’s greeting when she opened the door. “Why, Joanna,” she said, her face beaming in welcome. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Hoping to bum a meal, a shower, and use of your washer,” Joanna said sheepishly. “I’ve spent all day at a crime scene. I’m a mess and need a shower in the worst way. I tried to go home to clean up, but the washes out at the ranch are still running. So I came here to throw myself on your mercy.”
“Why, of course,” Eva Lou agreed. “You come on inside and make yourself at home. I saved you some leftovers, and it won’t take any time at all to run those clothes of yours through the wash. You can wear my robe in the meantime.”
By the time Joanna was out of the shower, the washer was running full steam and a plate of microwaved chicken dinner was waiting for her on the kitchen table. Beside it sat a platter stacked with mouthwatering slices of ruby-red tomatoes fresh from Jim Bob’s garden.
“The gravy came out a little too thick today for some reason,” Eva Lou apologized, hovering as Joanna took her first bite of mashed potatoes.
“The gravy,” Joanna declared, savoring that first mouthful, “is absolutely scrumptious.”