Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

FEbrUARY 2023

Whatcom County

Boyd Sutherland tapped the button to activate the recording on the mic that dangled over the steel autopsy table and dispassionately recited his name, the date and time, and the fact that two other attendees were present: Sheriff Longbow and Sergeant Lucas. Finally, he assigned the corpse in front of him the customary holding name: Jane Doe.

Longbow cleared his throat and suddenly became very interested in the strip light on the ceiling as Sutherland made the preliminary incision. Lucas didn't blink, watching as the scalpel cut through the pale flesh of the woman's abdomen. Blood and fluids ran down the steel surface and collected in the gully as Sutherland cracked the chest and opened it up.

Lucas closed his eyes for a moment and immediately saw the scene in his living room several weeks before. Tangled limbs, blood spatter, broken glass. He opened them again and focused on the more orderly carnage in the here and now instead.

Lucas looked to his side and saw that Longbow was forcing himself to watch. The older man had never enjoyed this. It didn't usually bother Lucas either way but he couldn't deny it felt a little different this time, after seeing the immediate aftermath of such violence so much closer to home.

They watched as Sutherland removed organs and took samples, narrating every motion in the same matter-of-fact voice, like he was a bored TV chef putting together a casserole. He barely glanced at the two cops watching his every move.

"Subject was dehydrated, probably a couple of days with no water…" He paused and looked up at Lucas and Longbow, his blue eyes focusing on them above his mask. "Sergeant Lucas, you speculated she'd been held captive for some time?"

"That's my guess," Lucas said.

"Mine too. Not much in the way of stomach contents either. What looks like dry crackers, most of the way digested."

"Excuse me a second," Longbow said, covering his mouth and making for the door.

Lucas watched him go and then looked back at Sutherland in time to see the grin distorting his mask.

"Sorry about that, I had to take a call." Longbow's skin looked a little less green than it had as he had hurried out of the autopsy room. Lucas just smiled and said nothing. He was betting his boss was regretting whatever he had eaten for breakfast.

They were in the back office at the coroner's, away from the chemical and human smells of the autopsy room, poring over the transcript of the recording while Sutherland washed up.

"Starved, dehydrated, beaten, finger cut off," Lucas said, totting up the damage. "Ligature marks on the wrists. Not just one kind—different cable ties and maybe a set of cuffs over several days. The bruising happened at different times too. She was held captive and tortured."

"Sick son of a bitch," Longbow said. "You think it's a serial? Like I said before, maybe he picked her up in Tacoma or Seattle and held her in the back of a van for a few days."

Lucas shook his head. "I don't think so. The finger being cut off doesn't go with that."

"How do you figure? These bastards like to torture their victims. Gives them a sense of power, or a sexual kick."

"Sure. And somebody sure seems to have taken pleasure beating her to a pulp, but the finger is different. Why stop at one finger?"

Longbow shot him a look that said he was starting to wonder if Lucas had indeed come back too early. "Say again?"

"Cause of death is blunt trauma, a blow to the head. If this is some psycho killing purely for the thrill of it, he doesn't stop at cutting off a finger. That's the only time a blade was used. So why take a finger?"

"Trophy or something? I don't know. I don't want to think like one of these diseased fucking animals."

"I think she was being ransomed," Lucas said. "Happens all the time. The drug cartels love to do it—they show the family they mean business by mailing them a piece of the victim. Ties in with her being well-groomed. This wasn't a junkie or a hooker."

"So in that case, I guess we just have to wait for somebody to call us to say they got a finger in the mail, huh?"

Lucas shrugged. "Maybe."

"What do you mean ‘maybe'? This'll let us ID her as soon as we find a kidnap that fits."

Lucas thought about it for a minute, not entirely sure what he had meant himself. As his mind worked, he was distantly conscious of the fact he was enjoying himself. For the first time in weeks, he was able to focus on something other than what had happened in January.

"I think something went wrong. Maybe they didn't have the chance to mail the finger before she was killed. Or maybe they got the money and killed her anyway."

His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Deputy Cooney. Lucas had tasked him with going through missing persons reports while they attended the autopsy. He had told him to start local but then keep widening the search beyond the state lines if necessary.

"Sergeant Lucas?"

"I hope so," Lucas said, rolling his eyes at Longbow. "Otherwise somebody stole my phone. You got something?"

"I don't know exactly."

Lucas took a second to absorb that. "You don't know exactly," he repeated.

"There's a missing person's report filed in Ohio, matches the description. Caucasian, blonde, thirty-seven years old."

"Ohio?" Lucas repeated. "That's a little farther out of state than I expected. What's her name? How long's she been missing?"

"Well, that's the thing. She's not missing anymore."

Lucas rubbed his forehead. He felt the beginnings of a migraine. "Cooney, if she's not missing, then she's probably not the fucking body on the slab in there, is she?"

"The husband called the police when she didn't show up after booking into a luxury hotel for the weekend. Then he called again saying he thought she'd been kidnapped. Four hours later he called to say she showed up at the house. There had been some big misunderstanding."

"Still not following the connection. All we have is a blonde of about the same age that went missing a couple thousand miles from here and came home."

"There was a picture with the report. It's the woman we pulled out of the creek, I'd swear to it."