Chapter 12

12

Sara stood on the edge of the loading dock in the bowels of the hospital as she watched the rain pour down. The search for Jon had turned up nothing. They had checked his school, the trailer park where Dave lived, and a few hangouts that Delilah remembered from her days as a teenager. They were heading back up the mountain to check the lodge and search the old bunkhouses when black clouds started rolling in. Sara could only hope Jon had found a warm, dry place to shelter before the sky had broken open. Both she and Delilah had been adamant that they wouldn't let the weather stop them from searching, but then visibility had dropped, and thunder had shaken the air, and they had both decided to go back into town because it would do Jon no good if one or both of them were struck dead by lightning.

The weather app on Sara's phone was predicting the rain would not let up for another two hours. The deluge was unrelenting, sending creek water over the banks, spilling out of gutters, and turning the downtown corridor into a river. Delilah had gone home to feed her animals, but there was no telling whether she would make it back into town.

Sara looked at her watch. Mercy would be ready for her soon. The hospital's X-ray tech had told them it would take at least an hour to get through the backlog of living patients. Nadine had gone on a call to fix an air conditioner while Biscuits stayed with the body. Sara had been relieved when the sheriff had turned down her offer to spell him. She needed time to prepare herself mentally for the exam. The thought of seeing Mercy McAlpine lying on a table filled her with a familiar sense of dread.

In her previous life, Sara had been the county coroner for her small hometown. The morgue had been inside the basement of the local hospital, much as the one the Dillon County coroner used. Back in Sara's coroner days, the victims had been familiar if not personally known to her. That was how small towns worked. Everyone either knew each other or knew someone who did. The job of coroner was one of tremendous responsibility but could also be one of great sadness. Working for the state, Sara had lost sight of what it felt like to be personally connected to a victim.

A few hours ago, she had been stitching together Mercy's wounded thumb inside the bathroom at the back of the kitchen. The woman had looked washed out and beaten down. She had been worried about the argument with her son. She had been troubled by what was going on with her family. The last thing on her mind had been her ex-husband. Which made sense, considering what Faith had discovered. Sara wondered what Mercy would've thought to know that one of her last acts on earth was to give her abusive ex an alibi.

"You were right."

"I was." Sara turned to look at Will. She could tell from his expression that he was already beating himself up over the mistake. She wasn't going to pile on. "It wouldn't have changed anything. You still had to find Dave. He was the most obvious suspect. He checked the most boxes."

"You're being a lot nicer about it than Amanda was," he said. "The access road to the lodge is washed out. We can't get any cars in or out until the creek goes back into the bank. We need an off-road vehicle that can make it through the mud."

Sara caught the irritation in his voice. Will hated standing around. She saw his jawbone sticking out as he clenched his teeth. He moved his freshly bandaged hand to his chest. Elevating it above his heart would stop the throbbing, but the pain would continue to gnaw at him because Will refused to take anything stronger than Tylenol.

She asked, "How's the hand?"

"Better," he said, though the tightness in his shoulders told her otherwise. "Faith gave me a Snickers bar."

Sara hooked her arm through his. Her hand brushed against the gun under his shirt. He was well and truly back on the job. She knew what was coming next. "How are you going to get back to the lodge?"

"We're waiting on the field office to bring some UTVs. That's the only way we can get up there."

Sara tried not to think of all the patients she'd seen with traumatic brain injuries from flipping their UTVs. "Are the phones and internet still working at the lodge?"

"For now," he said. "We've got satellite phones coming just in case. It's good that everybody's still stuck up there, though. No one knows that Dave has an alibi. Whoever killed Mercy is thinking that they got away with it."

"Who's still at the lodge?"

"Frank, for one. I'm not sure why, but he's taken it on himself to answer the main phone in the commercial kitchen. Drew and Keisha didn't make it out before the storm hit. Apparently, they're not too happy about that. The app guys don't seem interested in leaving. It sounds like Monica is sleeping it off. Chuck and the family are still there. Except for Delilah. The chef and the two waiters arrived at five this morning, which is their usual time. The bartender doesn't come in until noon. She's also the cleaner, so I want to talk to her about those unmade beds in the vacant cottages. Faith went to find her while we are waiting for the UTVs. She lives on the outskirts of town."

Sara wasn't surprised Faith had slipped out. She hated autopsies. "You didn't go with her?"

"Amanda told me to stay here and run background checks."

"How do you feel about that?"

"About how you'd think." He shrugged, but he was clearly annoyed. Will wasn't one to idle around while other people did things. "What about the forensics on Dave?"

"The presumptive test on the stain across the front of his shirt came back as non-human. I'm guessing from the smell that Dave used it to wipe his hand when he was cleaning fish. The scratch marks on his chest could've come from the earlier attack on Mercy. He admitted to strangling her. She would've fought back. He claims the scratch on his neck was self-inflicted. Mosquito bite. There's no way to tell if he's lying, so the mosquito scratch wins. Are you going to be able to hold him on anything?"

"I could bring charges for resisting arrest and threatening me with a knife. He could accuse me of excessive use of force and targeting him because of our past. Mutually assured destruction. He's free to walk out of here anytime he wants." Will shrugged it off, but she could tell he wasn't happy with the situation. "It's just another pile of shit Dave managed to skate through unscathed."

"If it's any consolation, walking is exceptionally difficult for him right now."

Will didn't seem consoled. He stared out at the rain. She didn't have to wait long for him to tell her what was really bothering him. "Amanda isn't happy we got caught up in this."

"I'm not happy, either," Sara admitted. "We weren't given much of a choice."

"We could go home."

She could feel Will studying her face, looking for a sign that she was wavering.

She said, "Jon is still missing, and you promised Mercy that you would tell her son that she forgives him."

"I did, but odds are that Jon will turn up eventually, and Faith already has her teeth in the case."

"She's always wanted to solve a locked-room mystery."

Will nodded, but he didn't say anything else. He was waiting for Sara to decide.

She felt to her back teeth that this was a marriage-defining moment. Her husband was placing an awful lot of power in her hands. Sara was not going to be the type of wife who abused it. "Let's get through the day, then you and I can make a decision together about what to do about tomorrow."

He nodded, then asked, "Tell me why you didn't think it was Dave."

Sara wasn't sure if there was exactly one thing. "Watching how Mercy's family treated her at dinner—I don't know. Looking back, it seems like they all had it in for her. They certainly didn't appear to be upset that she'd been murdered. Then there's the thing Mercy said about how some of the guests might have it out for her, too."

"Which guests do you think she was talking about?"

"It's weird that Landry gave a fake name, but who knows if there was a sinister reason. You and I lied about our occupations. Sometimes people lie because they want to lie."

"You didn't pick up Chuck's last name, did you?"

She shook her head. Sara had avoided talking to Chuck as much as possible.

"There was something Drew said before he and Keisha lawyered up," Will told her. "He was talking to Bitty and Cecil, and he said something like, ‘Forget about that other business. Do what you want up here.'"

"What other business?"

"No idea, and he made it clear he's not talking to me."

Sara couldn't see either Keisha or Drew murdering anybody. But that was the thing about murderers. They didn't tend to announce themselves. "Mercy wasn't just stabbed once. She had multiple wounds. Her body is a classic example of overkill. The attacker must have known her very well."

"Drew and Keisha have stayed at the lodge twice before." Will shrugged. "Keisha pissed off Mercy at dinner asking for a new glass."

"That's hardly something you'd murder over." Sara added, "Then again, there are multiple crime documentaries about women who snap."

"I'll take that as a warning." Will was joking, but not for long. "Dave made the most sense. There must've been something that made you look in a different direction."

"I can't explain it other than a gut feeling. In my experience, someone who has been abused for any length of time knows when their lives are most at risk. When Mercy and I talked, Dave was barely a blip on her radar."

"His credit check didn't have a lot of surprises. His bank account is overdrawn by sixty dollars, he's got two credit cards in collections, his truck was repossessed, and he's drowning in medical debt."

"I'm sure everyone up here has medical debt."

"Not Mercy," he said. "As far as I can tell, she's never had a credit card, a car loan, a bank account. There's no record of her ever filing a tax return. She doesn't have a driver's license. She's never voted. She doesn't have a cell phone account or phone number in her name. No Facebook, Insta, TikTok or other social media accounts. She's not even on the website for the lodge. I've seen some wonky background checks before, but nothing like this. She's a digital ghost."

"Delilah said she was in a bad car accident. That's how she got the scar."

"Her criminal record is clean. I guess it helps if you're family friends with the local sheriff," Will said. "Which brings us to Mercy's parents. Cecil and Imogene McAlpine. There was a huge payout from the insurance company after Cecil's accident. They're both drawing social security. They've got around a million bucks in a private pension fund, another half million in a money market, a quarter of a million in index funds. Credit cards are paid off every month. No outstanding debt. The brother's in good shape, too. Christopher paid off his student loans one year ago. He's got a fishing license, driver's license, two credit cards and a bank account with over two hundred grand in it."

"Good God. He's only a few years older than Mercy."

"I guess it's easy to save money when you don't have to pay room and board, but Mercy's in the same boat he is. Why doesn't she have anything?"

"It sounds deliberate. Maybe they were using money to control her." Sara didn't want to think about how helpless Mercy had felt. "Was there cash in her backpack?"

"Just clothes and the notebook," Will said. "The arson investigator's processing it for evidence, then it's going to be turned over to the lab. The plastic cover on the notebook melted and the pages are soaked from the rain. If they're not careful, the whole thing could be lost. We have to wait it out, but I'd really like to know what Mercy wrote."

Sara shared his eagerness. Mercy had packed the notebook for a reason. "What about her phone?"

"The fire destroyed it, but we tracked the number through Dave's caller ID. She was using a VoIP provider. We're waiting for a sign-off on a warrant for the account. She probably used a pre-filled debit card to pay for it. If we can get the card number, we might find out if she was using it for other things."

Sara felt more anxious with every new detail of Mercy's claustrophobic life. "Did you find out anything about Delilah?"

"She owns her house, but it looks like her main source of income is an online candle-making business and whatever she gets from the family trust. Credit score's reasonable. Her car is almost paid off. She's got around thirty grand in a savings account, which is good, but she's not flush like the rest of the family."

"She's better off than Mercy."

"Yeah." Will rubbed his jaw as he watched a car slowly navigate a two-inch-deep puddle. His body was tensed, almost coiled. If the UTV didn't show up soon, he would probably climb back up the mountain trail on his own. "The chef came back clean. The waiters are teenagers."

Sara asked, "What's the plan?"

"We need to find that broken knife handle, but that's a needle in a haystack. Or a forest. I want to talk to every man who was at the lodge last night. Mercy was raped before she was murdered."

"We don't know for certain that she was raped. Her pants could've been taken down during the struggle." Sara had a job to do, too. She could only follow the science. "I'll note any signs of sexual trauma and do the swabs, and I'm sure whoever performs the autopsy will closely inspect the vaginal vault, but you know assault doesn't always present itself post-mortem."

"Don't say that to Amanda. She hates when you talk like a doctor."

"Why do you think I do it?" Sara knew that would get a smile out of him.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long this time, either.

"Where is this guy?" Will looked at his watch. "I have to get back up to the lodge and start asking questions. They've had too long to get their stories straight. I need Faith to help me pry them apart. I also want to find the guest registry so I can run the names."

"Do you think the McAlpines will make you get a warrant?"

He had a sly smile on his face. "I mentioned to Frank it might be a good thing for him to poke around the office."

"He'll expect a junior police badge before this is over with," Sara said. "Poor Mercy. She was basically a prisoner up there. No car. No money. No support. Completely alone."

"The chef's definitely at the top of my list. He had the most consistent interaction with Mercy."

Sara had noticed the way the chef's eyes had followed Mercy through the kitchen. "You think she wasn't so alone?"

"Maybe," Will said. "I'm going to talk to the waiters first, see if they noticed anything. The bartender's got four DUIs, but they're from the nineties. What is it with DUIs up here?"

"Small town. Not much else to do but get drunk and get in trouble."

"You grew up in a small town."

"I certainly did."

Will's attention was pulled toward the parking lot again. This time, he looked relieved.

The diesel engine of an F-350 rumbled over the downpour. The truck was hauling two Kawasaki Mule side-by-sides with all-terrain tires and GBI markings. Sara's stomach clenched at the thought of Will going back up the mountain. Someone at the lodge had brutally murdered Mercy McAlpine. They were likely feeling safe right now. Will was about to change that.

Sara needed something to do other than worry. She reached up to kiss his cheek. "I'm going in. Nadine is probably ready for me."

"Call me if anything comes up."

She watched Will jump off the loading dock and jog toward the truck. Through sheets of rain. With his injured hand hanging down. With his bandage getting wet again.

Sara made a mental note to track down some antibiotics as she went back into the building. The heavy metal door sealed out the storm. The sudden silence made her ears ring. She walked down the long corridor that led to the morgue. The overhead lights were flickering. Water had seeped under the laminate floor tiles. Equipment from the recently closed maternity ward lined the halls.

She assumed the hospital would be one of the many rural medical centers that closed before the end of the year. Staffing was in short supply. There was only one doctor and two nurses covering the entire emergency department. Double those numbers would've still been short. After medical school, Sara had gotten a tremendous sense of pride from serving her local community. Now, rural hospitals couldn't find staff, let alone keep them. Too much politics and too little sanity had them leaving in droves.

"Dr. Linton?" Amanda was waiting for her outside the closed door to the morgue. She had her phone in her hand and a frown on her face. "We should talk."

Sara braced herself for another battle. "If you're looking for an ally who can help you pull Will away from this case, then you're wasting your time."

"Being well-balanced does not mean carrying a chip on each shoulder."

Sara let her silence be her response.

"Very well," Amanda said. "Run down the victim for me."

Sara took a moment to switch on her work brain. "Mercy McAlpine, thirty-two-year-old Caucasian female. Found on her family property with multiple stab wounds to the chest, back, arms and neck. Her pants were pulled down, which could indicate sexual assault. The murder weapon was broken off inside her upper torso. She was found alive but did not offer any identifying information about her killer. She expired at approximately midnight."

"Was she wearing the same clothing you saw at dinner?"

Sara hadn't thought about it until now, but she answered, "Yes."

"What about everyone else? How were they dressed when you saw them after finding Mercy?"

Sara felt slow on the uptake. Amanda was obviously interviewing her as a witness. "Cecil was shirtless, wearing boxers. Bitty was in a dark red terrycloth robe. Christopher was wearing a bathrobe with fish on it. Chuck was wearing something similar, but with rubber ducks. Delilah was in green pajamas—pants and a button-down shirt. Frank was in boxers and an undershirt. Monica was in a black, knee-length negligée. I didn't see Drew and Keisha or Sydney and Max. The app guys were both in their underwear. Will caught Paul coming out of the shower."

"Paul is the one who was in the shower at one in the morning?"

"Yes," Sara answered. "For what it's worth, I don't think they're the early-to-bed types."

"Nothing struck you as suspicious? No one stood out?"

"I wouldn't call the family's reaction normal, but no."

"Run it down for me."

"Cold is the phrase that keeps coming to mind, but I can't say that I had a good impression of them even before they learned of Mercy's death." Sara tried to think back to the dinner. "The mother is very petite and defers to her husband. She piled on when her daughter was publicly humiliated. The brother is strange in that way that some men can't help but be strange. The father was clearly putting on a show for the guests, but I imagine he would've treated me much differently if he'd known I'm a doctor and not a high school chemistry teacher. He comes off as the type who only likes women in traditional roles from the last century."

"My father was like that," Amanda said. "He was so proud of me when I joined the force, but the minute I outranked him, he started tearing me down."

Sara would've missed the flash of sadness if she hadn't been looking directly at Amanda's face. "I'm sorry. That must've been hard."

"Well, he's dead now," Amanda said. "I need all of your observations documented in writing and sent via email. What's your plan for the body?"

"Uh—" Sara was used to these abrupt switches with Will, but Amanda could teach a master class. "Nadine will help me perform the physical exam. We'll collect any fingernail scrapings, fibers or hairs, blood, urine, any semen. They'll go to the lab for immediate analysis. The full autopsy will happen at headquarters tomorrow afternoon. The scheduling was moved up when I notified them that we no longer have a suspect in custody."

"Find me evidence to remedy that, Dr. Linton." Amanda opened the door.

Sara felt her eyes sting from the bright fluorescent lights. The morgue looked like every small-town hospital morgue built after the Second World War. Low ceilings. Yellow and brown tiles on the floors and walls. Lightboxes on the wall. Adjustable exam lights over the porcelain autopsy table. Stainless-steel sink with a long, attached counter. A computer and keyboard on a wooden school desk. A rolling stool and a mayo tray laid out with various tools for the physical exam. A cold room with twelve total refrigerated mortuary cabinets stacked four across and three high. Sara checked to make sure she had everything she needed for the physical exam: safety gear, camera, specimen tubes, collection bags, nail scrapers, tweezers, scissors, scalpels, slides, rape kit.

Amanda asked, "No luck finding the son?"

Sara shook her head. "Jon's probably hung over, sleeping it off. I'm going back out with the aunt after the exam to look for him."

"Tell him he's going to have to make a statement at some point. He could be valuable pinning down timeline, figuring out who was the last person to see Mercy alive," Amanda said. "Jon was with you when you heard the second and third scream, correct?"

"Correct," Sara said. "I saw him walk out of the house with a backpack. I imagine he was planning on running away. The fight with Mercy at dinner was intense."

"See what you can get out of the aunt while you're searching," Amanda said. "Delilah knows something."

"About the murder?"

"About the family," Amanda said. "You're not the only one on the team who gets gut feelings."

Before Sara could press her for more, the gears on the freight elevator started to make an ominous grinding sound. Water seeped under the bottom of the sliding doors.

Amanda said, "If you had to guess right now, who would be your prime suspect?"

Sara didn't need time to think. "Someone in the family. Mercy was blocking their payday from the sale."

"You sound like Will," Amanda said. "He loves a money motive."

"For good reasons. Outside of the family, I'd say it's Chuck. He's profoundly discomforting. The brother too, for that matter."

Amanda nodded before looking down at her phone.

Sara realized that she had been slow on the uptake again. Only now did it occur to her how strange it was that the deputy director was attending a preliminary external exam. The full autopsy where the body was opened up for examination would take place at headquarters and be performed by someone else on the team. Nothing probative would likely be found during Sara's external exam. She was only doing it to get a head start on collecting blood, urine and trace evidence that would be sent to the lab for processing. Mercy's body had been found partially submerged in water. The likelihood that Sara would find any information this morning that required immediate action was close to zero.

So why was the boss here?

The elevator doors groaned open before she had time to ask the question. More water poured out. Nadine stood on one side of a hospital gurney. Biscuits was on the other. Sara's gaze found the post-mortem bag. White vinyl, heat-sealed edges, a reinforced zipper with thick plastic teeth. The outline of Mercy's body was slight, as if she had managed to do in death what people had been trying to do to her for seemingly her entire life: make her disappear.

Sara let everything else fade away. She thought about the last time she'd seen Mercy alive. The woman had been embarrassed, but proud. She was used to doing everything for herself. Mercy had let Sara take care of her injured thumb. Now, Sara would help take care of her body.

Amanda said, "Sheriff Hartshorne, thank you for joining us."

Her pseudo-gracious tone didn't completely disarm him. "I have a right to be here."

"And you are welcome to exercise that right."

Sara ignored the dumbstruck look on the sheriff's face. She took the foot of the gurney and helped Nadine steer the body into the morgue. They worked together silently, shifting the body bag onto the porcelain table, rolling away the gurney. Next, they each geared up in gowns, respirators, face shields, safety glasses and exam gloves. Sara wasn't going to do a full autopsy, but Mercy had lain in the heat and humidity for hours. Her body had turned into a toxic brew of pathogens.

"Maybe we should put on masks, too," Biscuits said. "Lotta fentanyl up here. Mercy's got a long history of addiction. We could die just from breathing the fumes."

Sara looked at him. "That's not how fentanyl works."

He narrowed his eyes. "I've seen grown men taken down by that stuff."

"I've seen nurses accidentally spill it on their hands and laugh." Sara looked at Nadine. "Ready?"

Nadine gave her a nod before starting on the zipper.

In Sara's first years working as a coroner, body bags had been similar in design to sleeping bags with a gusset at the bottom. They were always made of black plastic and the zippers had been metal. Now, the bags were white and came in various materials and shapes depending on the application. Unlike the previous version, the industrial zippers formed a complete seal. The upgrades were well worth the extra cost. The white color helped in the visual identification of evidence. The waterproof aspect kept fluids from escaping. Both were needed in the case of Mercy McAlpine's corpse. She had been stabbed multiple times. Her bowel had been pierced. Some of her hollow organs had been opened. The body had entered the state of putrefaction where fluids had started to leak from every opening.

"Fuck!" Biscuits cupped both hands over his nose and mouth to block the smell. "Jesus Christ."

Sara helped Nadine free the top half of the bag. Biscuits opened the door and stood with his feet on the threshold. Amanda hadn't moved, but she started typing on her phone.

Sara steeled her composure before she turned her attention to the body.

Mercy had been left inside the bag and fully dressed for X-rays. It could be dangerous handling a corpse. Clothing could conceal weapons, needles, and other sharp objects. Or, in the case of Mercy, a knife lodged inside of her chest.

Will's shirt was still draped across her upper torso. The material was bunched up around the tip of the broken blade, which jutted from Mercy's breastplate like the fin of a shark. Blood and sinew had dried in ropes around the serrated edge. Sara imagined the X-ray would show the blade angled between the sternum and scapula. The killer had likely been right-handed. Hopefully, they would find fingerprints on the missing handle.

Sara let her gaze travel up and down the body. Mercy's eyes were slit open, her corneas clouded. Her mouth was agape. Dried blood and debris patched her pale skin. Several shallow stab wounds had gouged out the flesh of her neck. The white of her right clavicle bone was exposed where the blade had flayed open the skin. The wounds in her lower back and upper thighs were weeping into the body bag. Every inch of exposed skin showed the brutality of her death.

"God bless her soul," Nadine whispered. "Nobody deserves this."

"No, they don't." Sara was not going to let herself feel helpless. She asked Nadine, "Do you record or transcribe?"

"I always feel funny talking into a recorder," Nadine said. "I usually just write things down."

Sara normally recorded, but she was mindful that this was Nadine's turf. "Could you take notes?"

"No problem." Nadine gathered the notebook and pen. She didn't wait for Sara's instruction to start writing. Sara read her block handwriting upside down. Nadine had noted the date, time, and location, then added Sara's name as well as Hartshorne's and her own. She asked Amanda, "Sorry, hon, but can you remind me of your name?"

Sara barely registered Amanda's response as she looked down at Mercy's ravaged body. Her jeans were still down at her ankles, but her bikini-style, dark purple underwear was pulled up around her hips. Dirt was caked into the waistband. Streaks of dirt traveled down her legs and caked into her jeans. There was a cluster of round scars on her upper left thigh. Sara recognized them as cigarette burns. Will had similar scars on his chest.

She felt her throat work at the thought of her husband. Her brain flashed up the memory of nuzzling his shoulder on the lookout bench. Back then, Sara had thought the worst thing that would happen on her honeymoon was watching Will struggle with thoughts of his lost mother.

Mercy was a lost mother, too. She had a sixteen-year-old son who deserved to know who had taken her away from him.

"All right." Nadine flipped to a fresh page in her notebook. "Ready."

Sara continued the external exam, calling out her findings. Mercy's body had passed the peak stages of rigor mortis, but her limbs were still stiff. The muscles of her face had contracted, giving her the appearance of intense pain. Her upper body hadn't been submerged in the lake for long, but the skin at the back of her neck and shoulders was loose and mottled from the water. Her hair was tangled. There was a pink cast to her pale skin from the blood that had swirled into the water.

A flash popped. Nadine had started taking photographs. Sara helped her align rulers for scale. There was debris under Mercy's fingernails. A long scratch traced down the back of her right arm. Her right thumb was still bandaged where Sara had stitched up the cut from the broken water glass. Dark bloodstains indicated the sutures had torn free, likely during the attack. The red strangulation marks Sara had seen on Mercy's neck in the bathroom were more pronounced, but not enough time had elapsed before she died for bruises to appear.

Sara turned Mercy's right arm, checking the underside. Then she checked the right. The fingers and thumbs were curled, but Sara could see the palms. No slashes from the knife. No edema. Not even a cut. "She doesn't appear to have defensive wounds."

"It's just not showing up," Nadine said. "Mercy was a fighter. No way she'd just stand there and take it."

Sara wasn't going to disabuse her of the narrative. The fact was that no one knew how they would respond to an attack until they were attacked. "Her shoes tell us some of the story. Mercy was standing for part of the attack. The spray is from arterial blood. The spatter could be from the knife plunging in and out. There's dirt caked onto the tops around the toes. We saw drag marks from the cottage to the lake. Mercy was face-down when this happened. There's also dirt in the waistband of her underwear, on her knees, inside the folds of her jeans."

Nadine said, "Dirt looks like the same type as what's at the lake shore. I'll go back out later and collect samples for comparison."

Sara nodded as Nadine resumed photographing the findings. For several minutes, the only thing Sara could hear over the hum on the compressor on the refrigerated cabinets was the pop of the camera flash and Amanda typing on her phone.

When Nadine was finally finished, Sara helped her spread white butcher paper underneath the table. Then she picked up the magnifying glass from the tray. They worked in tandem going over every inch of Mercy's clothing in search of trace evidence. Sara found hair fibers, pieces of dirt and debris, all of which went into collection bags. Nadine was quietly efficient, labelling every piece of evidence, then making a notation on the evidence log indicating where it had been found.

The next step was exponentially more difficult than the previous ones. They had to remove Mercy's clothing. Nadine laid out fresh paper on the floor. Then she placed more paper on the long table by the sink so they could search the clothes again once they were removed.

Undressing a corpse was time-consuming and tedious, particularly when the body was still in rigor. Typically a human being had roughly the same amount of bacteria as cells. Most of the bacteria was in the intestines, where it was used to process nutrients. In life, the immune system kept the growth in check. In death, the bacteria took over, feeding on tissues, releasing methane and ammonia. These gases bloated the body, which in turn made the skin expand.

The material of Mercy's T-shirt was stretched so tight that their only choice was to cut it off. The underwire of her bra had to be pried away from her ribcage and left more than a half-centimeter deep divot under her breasts. Sara followed the seam on her underwear to cut it off. The waistband had left its mark. The thin material had to be picked away. Patches of skin came with it. Sara gently placed each strip onto the butcher paper like the pieces of a puzzle.

They couldn't remove the jeans without first taking off the shoes. Nadine untied the laces. Sara helped her remove the sneakers. The bands at the tops of Mercy's cotton athletic socks were loose, which made them easier to remove. Still, the material left a heavy cabled pattern in the skin. Removing the jeans was much more of a production. The material was thick and stiff from blood and other fluids that had dried. Sara carefully cut first one side, then the other, to take them off like a clam shell. Nadine carried the jeans over to the counter. She wrapped both halves in paper to prevent cross contamination.

They all stood silently as Nadine worked. No one was looking at the body. Sara could see the grim set to Amanda's face as she studied her phone. Biscuits was still in the doorway, but his head was turned as if he'd heard something at the end of the hall.

Sara felt her throat tighten as she studied the body. By her count, there were at least twenty visible stab wounds. The torso had received the brunt of the blows, but there was a gash in her left thigh, a gouge on the outside of her right arm. The blade had sunk to the hilt in some places, the skin imprinting with the outline of the missing handle.

The recent wounds weren't the only sign of damage.

Mercy's body revealed a lifetime of abuse. The scar on her face had drained of color, but it was no match for the other scars that riddled her skin. Deep, dark slash marks wrapped around her belly where she'd been whipped with something heavy and textured, probably a rope. Sara easily recognized the impression of a belt buckle imprinted on Mercy's hip. Her left thigh had been burned by an iron. She had multiple cigarette burns around the nipple of her right breast. There was a thin, straight slash bisecting her left wrist.

She asked Nadine, "Do you know of any suicide attempts?"

"More than a few." Biscuits had answered the question. "She had a couple of overdoses. That scar you're looking at is back from high school. Got into another knock-down with Dave. Cut her wrist open in the supply closet off the gym. Coach found her or she would'a bled out."

Sara looked to Nadine for confirmation. The woman had tears in her eyes. She nodded once, then picked up the camera to document the damage.

Again, Sara aligned the ruler for scale. She wondered how long it would take to stab a woman this many times. Twenty seconds? Thirty? There were more stab wounds on the back and legs. Whoever had murdered Mercy McAlpine had well and truly wanted her dead.

That he hadn't completely succeeded, that Mercy had still been alive after the cottage had been set on fire, after Will had run through the forest to find her, was a testament to her grit.

Nadine finally put down the camera. She took another deep breath to brace herself. She knew what was coming next.

The rape kit.

Nadine unsealed the cardboard box that contained everything needed to collect evidence from a sexual assault: sterile containers, swabs, syringes, glass slides, self-sealing envelopes, nail picks, labels, sterile water and saline, a plastic speculum, a comb. Sara could see her hands shaking as she laid each item out on the tray. Nadine used the back of her arm to wipe tears under her safety glasses. Sara's heart went out to the woman. She had been in Nadine's position many times before.

Sara asked, "Should we take a break?"

Nadine shook her head. "I'm not going to fail her this time."

Sara was carrying her own guilt about Mercy. Her brain kept taking her back to that moment in the bathroom off the kitchen. Mercy had told Sara that almost everyone on the mountain wanted to kill her. Sara had tried to press her, but when Mercy had pushed back, Sara had easily let it go.

Sara told Nadine, "Let's begin."

Because Mercy was still in rigor, they had to force her thighs apart. Sara took one leg. Nadine took the other. They pulled until the hip joints gave way with a terrible popping sound.

In the doorway, Biscuits cleared his throat.

Sara held a white square of cardboard below Mercy's pubis. She used the comb first, carefully pulling the teeth through pubic hair. Stray hairs, dirt, and other debris fell onto the paper. Sara was glad to see roots on some of the hairs. Roots meant DNA.

She passed the card and comb to Nadine so that she could seal both in a collection bag.

Next, Sara used several different lengths of swabs to check for semen on the insides of Mercy's thighs. Her rectum. Her lips. Nadine helped her force open the mouth. Again, there was a loud pop from the joint breaking apart. Sara adjusted the overhead light. She didn't see any contusions inside the mouth. She swabbed inside the cheeks, the tongue, the back of the throat.

The plastic speculum was sealed inside a wrapper. Nadine peeled the edges apart, offering the instrument to Sara. Again, Sara adjusted the overhead light. She had to force the speculum into the canal. Nadine handed her swabs.

Sara said, "It looks like there's a trace amount of seminal fluid."

Biscuits cleared his throat again. "So she was raped."

"The fluid suggests sexual intercourse. I don't see any signs of edema or contusions."

Sara handed Nadine the last of the swabs to process. While she waited, Sara changed into fresh gloves. Her thoughts were on all of the men who'd been at the lodge last night. The chef. The two young waiters. Chuck. Frank. Drew. Gordon and Paul. Max, the investor. Even Mercy's brother, Christopher. Sara had sat at the dinner table surrounded by them. Any one of them could be the killer.

Nadine came back to the table. Sara drew blood from the heart into a large syringe. She used a twenty-five-gauge needle to take urine from the bladder. She handed the syringes over to Nadine for labeling. Then, she held a small piece of white cardboard under Mercy's fingers and used the wooden pick to clean out under her nails.

"This might be skin," Sara said. "She could've scraped her attacker."

"Good girl, Merce." Nadine sounded relieved. "I hope you made him bleed."

Sara hoped so, too. There would be a better chance of isolating DNA.

She was about to ask for Nadine's help to turn the body over when a phone buzzed.

Nadine said, "That's me. X-rays are probably uploaded."

Sara felt like they all needed a break. "Let's take a look."

Nadine was visibly relieved. She lowered her mask and took off her gloves as she walked toward the desk. Sara waited until the woman had logged into the computer to stand behind her. A few clicks brought Mercy's X-rays onto the screen. They were little more than thumbnails, but yet again, the history of abuse was writ large.

Sara was not surprised by the old fractures, but the number was substantial. Mercy's right femur had been fractured in two different places, but not at the same time. Some of the bones in her left hand looked like they had been deliberately hammered in two. Screws and plates were in multiple locations. The top of her skull and occipital bones had been fractured. Her nose. Her pelvis. Even her hyoid bone showed signs of an old injury.

Nadine picked up on this last one. She enlarged the image. "A snapped hyoid is a sign of strangulation. I didn't know you could live with it broken."

"It's a potentially life-threatening injury," Sara said. The bone was attached to the larynx and was involved in a lot of airway functions, from producing sound to coughing to breathing. "This looks like an isolated fracture to the greater horn. She could've been intubated or put on bed rest, depending on how she was presenting."

Amanda provided, "When Faith was interviewing Dave, he told her that Mercy drove herself to the hospital after a strangulation episode. She was having difficulty breathing and was admitted."

"I took that report," Biscuits called from the doorway. "Happened at least ten years ago. Mercy didn't say anything about being strangled. She told me she tripped over a log. Smashed into her neck."

Amanda gave Biscuits a pointed look. "So why were you called to take a report?"

Biscuits said nothing.

Sara went back to the X-rays, asking, "Can you show me this fracture?"

Nadine selected the image of the femur bone.

"I'd want a forensic radiologist to weigh in, but that looks decades old." She pointed to the faint line bisecting the lower half of the bone. "An adult fracture generally shows sharp edges, but if it's older, say dating back to childhood, the bone remodels and rounds out the edges."

Amanda asked, "Is that unusual?"

"Femur fractures in children tend to be shaft fractures. The femur is the strongest bone in the body, so it takes a high-energy collision to break it." Sara referred to the film. "Mercy suffered from a distal metaphyseal fracture. There's been a lot of debate about whether or not this kind of fracture indicates abuse, but the recent research isn't dispositive."

Biscuits asked, "What does that mean?"

Nadine said, "Cecil broke her leg when she was a baby."

"Hey now, she didn't say who did it," Biscuits countered. "Don't go blabbing stuff you can't back up with facts."

Nadine let out a long breath as she clicked open two more thumbnails. "This metal plate in her arm is from the car accident I told you about. And this one—see here where they had to reconstruct her pelvis? Good thing she'd already had Jon."

Sara stared at the abdominal X-ray. Mercy's pelvic bones were a stark white against the black, the vertebrae laddering up into the ribcage. The organs were in shadow. The faint outline of the small and large intestines. The liver. The spleen. The stomach. The ghostly blur of a small mass, maybe two inches long, showing early signs of ossification.

Sara had to clear her throat before she could speak. "Nadine, could you help me finish the rape exam before we turn her?"

Nadine looked confused, but she grabbed another pair of gloves before joining Sara at the table. "What do you need me to do?"

Sara didn't need her to do anything but revert to her comforting silence. There was an ultrasound machine in the hallway, but Sara wasn't going to ask for it with Biscuits in the room. Nadine had delivered a short lecture on Old Bachelor Trail about the glue that fixed life in a small town, but she had forgotten one very important lesson: there was no such thing as a secret.

Sara would have to use a pelvic exam to confirm what she had seen on the X-ray.

Mercy was pregnant.