Tattooed (10 page)

“Of course.” He did an admirable job keeping his tone casual, Kate thought. Too admirable. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do,” she lied.

9

M
cNally switched on the shaver, humming under his breath.

After years of shaving with cheap disposable razors, this mundane task had become one of his daily pleasures. His adrenaline surged when the vibration of the electric shaver connected with his jaw. He took his time—because he could.

He ran his hand over his cheeks. Nice and smooth. He guided the beard trimmer along the sides of his goatee. His hand was steady, the edge precise and symmetrical. He cleaned up the line running down the middle of his chin with a triple-blade razor. It had been expensive—but he would never use a cheap blade again.

Nice work, McNally
. He wondered if Kenzie would recognize him with the goatee. He had filled in, too. His face was squarer, his neck thicker, his shoulders dense with muscle.

He squirted the citrus-smelling aftershave gel into his palm and smoothed it over his skin.
Mmm
.

He turned his head back and forth, examining his reflection in the mirror. A week’s growth had obscured the tattoo, but his hair needed cleaning up. The uniform one-eighth inch burr cut had a few uneven patches.

And today, of all days, he wanted to look his best.

He grabbed the clippers, flicked on the switch, and ran it over his scalp. Christ. He had nicked himself.

He took a deep breath and leaned in closer to the mirror. The nick wasn’t noticeable behind his ear.

Steady now.
He ran the clippers over the back of his skull, imagining it skimming the threads of the spiderweb tattoo stretching from ear to ear.

His freshly cut hair bristled under his palm, yet the hair was soft. When he had been out on parole, he discovered that women loved to rub their hands over his burr cut, never failing to compare it to a cat’s tongue.

Kenzie, he remembered, liked cats.

Kenzie, massaging his shoulders, licking his neck, whispering to him that he was the only one for her.

The familiar pressure tightened his chest.

Easy.

He tapped the stubble out of his grooming supplies and laid them side-by-side in a drawer in the vanity. He glanced at his watch. It was 8:40 a.m. He grabbed his jacket, put on a ball cap, despising Rick Lovett for making him wear it in the apartment building. McNally didn’t have much choice. This was the best job he could get. Right now.

Who the hell do you think you are, you ugly son of a bitch?
It was a familiar refrain. He could write a song about it. Lovett had never dared to tell him what to do before McNally had gone to prison.

He’s got it all, now.

And you’ve got nothing.

But his luck was changing. He locked the door to his apartment, shoved his hands in his pocket and headed down the hallway, his step slowing as he neared number 114. A faint throb sounded through the walls—the stereo was turned up too high. He knocked on
the door.

No answer.

Music was too loud.

He knocked again. “It’s the superintendent,” he yelled.

He heard the chain sliding out of the lock. His blood thudded in his veins. The door swung open.

“Yeah?” A cute girl in her early twenties cracked the door open a few inches. Her hair was disheveled. She wore no bra under her tank top.

He fought the urge to push the door open.

Her gaze traveled over him. A flicker of fear in her eyes gave him a corresponding shiver of satisfaction.

“Your music is too loud. Turn it down,” he said.

He smiled and walked away, lifting his ball cap and rubbing his hand over his death’s-head tatt. He smiled all the way down to the car park.

He had parked the truck—screw Lovett, it was
his
now—right by the stairs. He loved the gearshift. He could control the engine, make it do what he wanted. He backed out of the parking spot, then shifted up to second gear and roared out of the underground parking. Lovett would shit bricks if he saw that. He switched on the radio, the tunes feeding his adrenaline. He was going to get his work done, and then wait outside Yakusoku Tattoo until Kenzie finished her appointments.

She would be so surprised to see him.

He could just imagine her reaction.

Her mouth, painted a deep red to match her hair, curved in delight. “John,” she said. She grabbed his face between her hands and kissed him on the lips. A hard, excited kiss that grew soft. And lingered.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she murmured into his ear. “I should never have left.”

Pain twisted his gut.

No. You should never have left.

His palms smoothed over her shoulders, a hard ridge beneath his palms. He collared her neck with his hands. “Why didn’t you call?”

“I’m sorry. I was so stupid.” Tears glittered in those gorgeous, heartless eyes. “I still love you, John.”

His hands tightened, squeezing.

She accepted her punishment.

“How much do you love me?” He increased the pressure.

She gasped, “With all my heart.”

10

“E
veryone and their dog is here,” Ethan said to Lamond, as they walked into the autopsy suite.

Any of the staff of the medical examiner’s office that hadn’t been required at other scenes were clustered around the autopsy cart. Ethan spotted the gingery ponytail of Dr. Hughes, and took a final gulp of his coffee, tossing the cup in the garbage. He hadn’t shut down his computer until close to three last night. He wished he had time to run upstairs to Tim Hortons for another cup but it looked as if Dr. Guthro was getting ready to start. Lamond handed him a gown, and they slipped them on as they walked over to Sergeant Detective Deb Ferguson. Ethan was surprised to see the head of the Major Crimes Unit here. Usually only the primary investigator and an FIS detective showed up for autopsies.

But as they and the rest of the world knew, this was no ordinary autopsy. Although the conversation was muted, there was an undercurrent of suppressed excitement amongst the medical team.

Ferguson was already gowned, her unruly hair pinned in a bun. Freckles dotted her broad features. In her blue gown, she resembled a Scottish milkmaid awaiting her annual checkup. “Did you see the paper this morning?”

“Yup,” Lamond said, rolling his eyes.

Ethan hadn’t had a chance to look at it, but he had heard the reports on the radio.

“I’ve had to triple patrol at the scene. And we’ve already caught one journalist trying to sneak in from the woods.” Her jaw was tight. “I had three reporters calling me this morning to see if this was a burial ground for multiple victims.”

Lamond glanced at Ethan. They had both worked Halifax’s last sensational murder case. They knew how tough it was to control the media when they got the scent of blood. “It’s the Body Butcher hangover,” Ethan said, shrugging. Last year, Halifax had been shocked into the gruesome world of serial killers when the Body Butcher had been killed in the act of trying to commit yet another horrendous murder. Since then, every time a homicide victim was discovered, there was always the fear that there were other victims not yet discovered. It wasn’t just the media or the general public who harbored this anxiety—the murder squad did, as well.

“Have FIS or Search and Rescue found any bone scatter around the scene?”

Ferguson shook her head. “So far, it seems like just one body was buried in the peat bog. The sooner we can get a positive ident on it, the better. Not only for the family. We need to keep the media from getting the public all stirred up.”

“Good morning, detectives,” Dr. Guthro said, joining the trio with a broad smile on his face. He held a camera in his gloved hands. “We are ready to begin.”

They followed him to the autopsy cart. Several of the onlookers broke away, leaving room for the detectives to view the procedure. Ethan nodded to Dr. Hughes, who appeared surprisingly fresh given the arduous work of yesterday.

The morgue attendant, a young woman whose impassive expression was in stark contrast to the anticipatory gleam in the gazes of the medical examiner’s staff, unzipped the bag. Even though they all knew the body wore a rubber Halloween mask, the sight still caused indrawn breaths upon first viewing. Dr. Guthro walked around the cart, taking photos of each section of the decedent, and of the dirty rope coiled into the corpse’s shoulder.

The body was removed from the bag and placed on the autopsy table. While Dr. Guthro photographed it, the staff from the M.E.’s office took turns at the head of the table, examining the mummified tissue. Ethan had seen many bodies, in many stages of decomposition, but never a mummified body. He edged closer to study the remains. They were lucky that the neck and upper body weren’t skeletonized. The M.E. might actually be able to determine cause of death. And from what he could tell, the body had breasts. It must be female.

It must be Heather.

“I was going to have chicken for supper tonight,” Lamond whispered. “But I just changed my mind.”

“Is that what chicken looks like after you cook it?” Ethan asked under his breath. “Remind me not to eat at your house.” He had to admit, though, that the mummified tissue resembled an overcooked chicken breast: yellowy-brown and dry.

Ferguson gave them both a look. “Dr. Guthro, what are your initial thoughts about the gender of this body?”

The medical examiner leaned over the bog body’s pelvis. Unlike the torso, it was mainly skeletonized. “I’d say female. The sacrum is short and wide. And the body of the pubis is quadrangular.”

Ethan hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath until now. If the body had been male, then all his work on the Rigby case would have been futile. And they would have to start over.

“Now for the X-rays,” Dr. Guthro said. “Everyone please clear the area.” The X-ray technician rolled the portable X-ray machine over to the autopsy table. “We will recommence in half an hour.”

“Perfect,” Ethan muttered to Lamond. “Time for at least one coffee.”

Lamond arched a brow. “Is Cold Case so dull that you are willing to aggravate that ulcer?”

“The ulcer is fine. Ever since I left Homicide,” Ethan said, throwing a dark look at his former partner. It was part jest, part truth. He missed Homicide, but he had been on a downward spiral. There had been too much stress, too much frustration, in the past twelve months. He had given up coffee, but as soon as his ulcer had settled, he had warmed up his espresso machine and was back to his usual habits.

After they grabbed a coffee and a muffin—Ethan couldn’t resist advising Lamond to eat something that wouldn’t stain his clothes if he brought it all up during the autopsy—Ethan bought a newspaper at the gift store while Lamond hit the men’s room. He hadn’t realized how bang on he had been about the phenomenon of the Body Butcher hangover until he saw the front page. The media were all over the titillating question of whether the bog body could be victim zero of the Body Butcher. Accompanying the article was a photo of Kate taken after the Body Butcher’s attack last year, her face battered, her eyes haunted. His gut clenched at the sight of it.
God.
A year later, and his heart still rushed into his throat when he thought about her lying in the parking lot, nearly dead.

She had almost died. And he had let her walk out of his life.

But he couldn’t keep living like this anymore.

One of them could die at any time—he could take a bullet in the head on his job, or she could develop CJD. Either way, life was too short. He would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t give things one more try.

Third time’s the charm.

He folded the paper, ensuring that the front cover was tucked inward, and stuck it under his elbow.

When they arrived back at the autopsy suite, the dregs of their coffees consumed in the elevator, the
X-rays had been loaded into the view box. Dr. Guthro hovered in front, his tall, gowned form hunched in concentration.

“Excellent news,” Dr. Guthro said, peering at an X-ray of the chest area. “Looks like there’s a bullet in there.” He pointed at the glowing white firefly lodged between two lower ribs.

Ferguson grinned at Ethan and Lamond. “We are in business, Dr. Guthro.”

“We certainly are.”

The rest of the X-rays showed no obvious signs of trauma or injury. “No skull fractures, no major bone fractures,” Dr. Guthro murmured. “Let’s take the mask off and see what we have under there. Dr. Hughes, would you like to hold the skull?” His request was an act of professional courtesy, a nod to the assistance that the forensic anthropologist had provided yesterday.

Dr. Hughes stood at the head of the table and gently held the top of the skull. Dr. Guthro gripped the bottom edges of the mask. As he peeled up the first inch, he nodded to himself. “A ligature,” he said. The rope, which they knew was attached to the neck, had been tied with a slipknot. It obviously had been very tight, because even with the shrinkage of the tissue, it was still taut around the throat.

The rubber was brittle, and it took some time for Dr. Guthro and Dr. Hughes to ease it off the skull. “The epidermis has slipped,” Dr. Guthro said, “hence the lack of hair and eyebrows. But there appears to be a considerable amount of hair on the interior of the mask.” He placed the mask on a tray, and with a pair of tweezers, removed a hair for the standard for the homicide team, which they would use as a benchmark for comparison and analysis with any other hairs found on the scene, then bagged and labeled it. The mask would be bagged and labeled later, and sent to the FIS lab for analysis.

As one, the team studied what remained of the face of the victim. Her eyes were long gone, her lips dried and shriveled. Both ears were still intact, as was her nose. The mask had obviously protected her face from rodents. Ethan mentally overlaid an image of the smiling, fresh-faced girl from his university criminology class and decided that this shriveled, eyeless head could be her face.

Or not.

Who knew? He needed to keep reminding himself that they had no objective confirmation that this dead girl was Heather Rigby. He had jumped to conclusions before, with disastrous results.

Right now, all they knew was that the body was likely female.

It could be any female.

And that realization chilled him.

Kate could have ended up in the morgue last year, along with the Body Butcher’s other victims.

She could have been the one on the autopsy table, her remains being examined to determine how she had died, how she had defended herself.

She would have been identified as “female, age twenty-five to thirty-five, shoulder-length brown hair.”

But what she felt, and who had occupied her last thoughts, no one would have ever known.

He wanted Kate’s last moments to be with him. With love in her heart. And the knowledge that they had been happy together.

When he faced his maker, he wanted to be with Kate the same way.

And have no regrets.

He had seen enough dead bodies on these autopsy tables to know that some would have regretted their actions that led them to this final destination; others would have regrets for actions not taken before this final destination.

He did not want regrets.

This desiccated body, this leathery shell that had once housed a vibrant young woman was impetus enough.

Why was he wasting time?

Life was too short.

He’d never know until he tried.

Remember, third time’s the charm, Drake.

He would call Kate. Tonight.

If nothing else, to stop the self-help clichés that kept urging him on.

“The hair inside the mask is brown,” Lamond said, as if reading Ethan’s mind. He shivered. Kate’s hair was brown. That must be a sign from the universe.

Stop it, Drake.

Dr. Guthro began the external exam. The mummified tissue extended to just below the diaphragm. The left arm was also mummified, but the rest of her limbs were skeletonized. The skeleton was surprisingly intact—again, a sign that rodents hadn’t found it—with the exception of the ulna that Rebecca Chen had unwittingly removed in her zeal to complete her biology lab.

“Some evidence of adipocere on the left anterior femur,” Dr. Guthro said. Adipocere, Ethan had learned from experience, was a white waxy substance that occurred when the fatty tissues of a body had a post-mortem enzyme reaction due to cold, moist conditions, resulting in saponification of the tissue. Essentially, the chemical reaction of the fatty tissues created a soaplike substance, known as grave wax.

The morgue attendant turned the body over. At first glance, the decomposition on the posterior view was almost identical to the anterior: mummification of the tissue to a midpoint of the torso, as well as the entire left arm. The rest of the body was skeletonized with adipocere on the coccyx and upper left femur. A member of the FIS team took photos while Dr. Guthro slowly circled the body. But it was Dr. Hughes who noticed the mark first.