I could see a muscle in his jaw twitch. He opened his mouth to reply, but Doc spoke, interrupting the brittle tableau.

“She was strangled repeatedly.”

Agent Kristoff and I both turned to Doc. I stepped over to the table. “Repeatedly?” I asked, peering down at the neck muscles that had been peeled back.

“See the bruising?” he said, pointing to clots of blood within the muscle with the tip of his scalpel. “It’s in several lines across these strap muscles. She died of ligature strangulation, but it was tightened and loosened several times.”

“More torture,” I murmured. “Poor thing.” I wanted to add, Just like his other victims, for Agent Kristoff’s benefit, but managed to resist.

Doc grimaced. “Yeah, she didn’t die easy, that’s for sure.”

I glanced at Agent Kristoff. He was watching me again, those too-pretty eyes fixed on me and an unreadable expression on his face. He shifted his gaze back to the body when he saw my attention, not speaking.

I felt another flare of annoyance. Was he looking down on me because I expressed sympathy for the victim? I’d run into that a time or two among other police officers—disdain for people who’d lived the sort of lifestyle that made them easy prey.

Well, if he’s that sort, he won’t last long on my task force, I decided. Not that I was sure I even had the power to remove people, but it made me feel better to think it.

We stepped back as Carl snapped pictures of each layer of muscle, showing the depth and position of the bruising. Then Dr. Lanza took a pair of scissors and removed the throat. I watched him as he palpated the trachea.

“Hyoid bone’s fractured. Definitely a strangulation.”

This wasn’t a surprise, since the markings had been so livid on the girl’s neck, plus there’d been so much haemorrhaging in her eyes and face. But it was still hard hearing it actually said out loud. It was almost as if it could be denied, as if the obscene cruelty had not occurred if it was not voiced.

“So that was the cause of death?” I asked.

Doc nodded and set the section of throat aside. “That’s what I’m going to put in my report. I mean, she’s suffered a ton of other trauma, but as hideous as it all is, none of it’s life-threatening. She was tortured for probably close to a week, then killed slowly.”

“Fucker,” Agent Kristoff muttered. I glanced at him, then back to the body. Finally something we could agree on.

“But I think she was bled too,” Doc continued.

A cold knot formed in my gut. “What do you mean?”

Doc lifted her arm and pointed to a notch cut in the crook of her elbow. “The vein is nicked there, and there are similar cuts in the other elbow and in her ankles.” My sick horror grew as Doc pointed out the notches in the veins. I’d missed those deeper cuts among all the other shallow ones. Had those been on the other victims? After a couple of weeks of decomposition, there’d be no way to tell with all of the other trauma.

“So she might have died of blood loss?” Agent Kristoff asked.

Doc shook his head. “No. She died of the strangulation, but she could have lost up to a liter of blood and still been alive when he decided to finish her off with the ligature.”

I suppressed a shudder, with effort. This was very unwelcome news. Especially with the arcane traces on the body and the timing of this new murder. Bloodletting and death magic were an ugly combination that could lead to all sorts of unpleasant possibilities.

Dr. Lanza stepped back and motioned to Carl to take over and sew the body up. He peeled off his bloody gloves, then stripped off the apron and plastic smock and tossed both into a wastebasket with a red plastic liner. “I’m just glad that this one was so fresh. I’d say that she’d been dead only a few hours when she was found. Rigor was beginning to recede and lividity wasn’t fixed.”

“Can you give a closer estimate of time of death?” Agent Kristoff asked as I pulled my gloves and shoe covers off and dropped them into the same biohazard container.

“Nope,” Doc said flatly as he picked up his clipboard and started to make notes. “Time of death is pretty inexact and depends on too many different factors, despite what you see on TV. Unless the death is witnessed, all the other factors are merely sufficient to give a range of time. Skin slippage—when the body decomposes enough that the outer layer of skin starts to slough off—is usually around three days, but that can be hastened or slowed by humidity, temperature, etcetera. Rigor mortis can come and go anywhere from three to thirty-six hours, depending on the person’s physical condition and what they were doing right before they died. Lividity—the settling of blood in the body—is a good indicator, but even that gives us a pretty broad range of time.”

I resisted the urge to smirk. I’d been through this with Doc before. People were always trying to pin him down about time of death, but he maintained that if he was the one who had to get on the stand and testify to it, he wasn’t going to just guesstimate. Especially since, most of the time, it really didn’t make a difference.

“Very well, then,” Agent Kristoff said, extending his hand to Doc. “I appreciate you allowing me in to view this autopsy, Dr. Lanza. I’ll be heading back to the office now.”

Dr. Lanza shook his hand. “Glad to have you.”

Agent Kristoff gave me a slight nod, then brushed past me and exited.

Doc glanced at me. “Don’t sweat it, Kara. Maybe his mind’s on something else.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said with a scowl, unconvinced. Or maybe a pair of pretty eyes is wasted on a total prick.

Chapter 6

I kept my promise to myself and went home to change clothes as soon as I finished at the morgue. This time I made a point of dressing as if I actually had a clue about being a detective, pulling on black twill pants and a tailored blue shirt, belting on my Glock 9mm and badge, and telling myself that this was not because I might see the obnoxious Special Agent Kristoff again. I was just trying to look professional. Yeah, right, a tiny voice in my head mocked me. But I also took the time to brush my hair out and apply proper makeup. Just trying to look professional.

It was late afternoon when I made it back to the station, and there were two news vans in the parking lot when I arrived—media from New Orleans, which surprised me. Someone had probably tipped them off that the Symbol Man might be back in action. I could see the chief of police, Eddie Morse, standing in front of the station, cleverly positioned so that the Beaulac Police sign with the picture of the badge was just over his right shoulder as he spoke to the reporters. Chief Morse was slightly above average height, with perfectly styled gray hair and barely an ounce of spare fat visible. He had an angular face that looked as if it had been carved from stone and never smoothed out, yet its “tight” look had many people whispering that he’d had some work done. Set in this chiseled face were blue eyes that were always scanning, as if trying to find the best person in the room to be seen with. He proclaimed himself to be a model of physical fitness and often stated that he wished to be an inspiration for the men and women who served below him. He ran, lifted weights, bicycled, and ate a clean, healthful diet. He looked like he was in his forties, even though he was probably into his sixties. He was never sick and credited his healthy lifestyle for the fact that he’d had no need to see a doctor in over a decade. He claimed to be unaffected by the heat, even going so far as to work out in long pants and long-sleeved shirts.

He was roundly despised.

I made a face as I drove past. I was all for being in good shape—especially as a police officer—but no one liked to have it shoved down their throat.

I parked on the far side of the lot, well away from the little news conference out front. I had no doubts as to the subject matter. The only interesting thing that had happened in the parish for the last month was the murder, and since I was supposedly leading the investigation, I didn’t want to risk being called to speak on camera. I was a little surprised that the chief was even allowing himself to be interviewed; he usually preferred to let the Public Information Officer handle press conferences. He definitely wasn’t a media whore like most of the public figures around here. Then again, he was appointed, not elected, so he didn’t have to be. But I supposed a possible Symbol Man murder was interesting enough that he felt obliged to make a statement. I walked quickly and quietly to the back door, managing to duck in before anyone outside spotted me. I’d been on camera once before, after a large check-fraud operation was shut down, and had managed to give a fantastic impression of a babbling idiot. I had no desire to repeat the experience.

“… waiting on autopsy results before we are willing to connect this murder with the Symbol Man murders.” I heard the chief’s voice as the door closed, and I continued down the wood-paneled hall and on to my closet-size office. Other than his fitness fanaticism, the chief didn’t seem like a bad sort, though I had shockingly little personal experience from which to form any real opinion of him. He was appointed chief of police by the mayor nearly a decade ago, causing more than a few bruised feelings among the upper echelon of the Beaulac PD at the time. Eddie Morse was not a local boy. A former deputy chief of a small town in north Louisiana, he had moved to Beaulac only about a year before his appointment. After the previous chief died of a heart attack, the higher-ranking officers at the Beaulac PD were all jockeying for the position, only to have it yanked away and handed to a total stranger, and there were many who felt that the job should have gone to someone with more-intimate knowledge of the area.

Personally, I didn’t think that background mattered at all as long as the chief knew how to be a chief, and in the past decade he’d managed to avoid any major scandals—which was a minor miracle in Louisiana. The only beef I had with him was that he rarely, if ever, associated with any of the patrol officers or nonranking detectives. But, of course, that was a two-edged sword. There were many times when it was nice to go unnoticed.

I could see Detectives Boudreaux and Pellini down the hall by the coffee machine. Their backs were to me, and I paused. Should I make the diplomatic move and ask them for advice? Not that I was all that sure their advice would be worth a crap, but some things were necessary for the sake of diplomacy and making an effort to fit in. I made a sour face. I knew I needed to make some sort of overture to them, since they sure as hell weren’t going to come to me and offer up their assistance.

“… nothing but bullshit cases,” I heard Pellini moan in his distinctive nasal baritone. “I shouldn’t have to work this domestic violence crap. They shoulda been assigned to Gillian, y’know, since she’s a chick.”

“No shit,” Boudreaux answered. “I can’t believe the captain gave the murder to her. What a crock of shit.” I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear the scowl in his voice. “She’s gotta be fucking the captain. Betcha that’s how she scored the transfer too.”

Pellini sniggered, but I didn’t bother waiting to hear his response. Fuck diplomacy, I thought, as I strode up to them.

“Hi, guys!” I chirped as I reached for a coffee cup. “Whoo boy, do I ever need a hit of java right now.” I gave them both an extra-cheerful grin as I poured the coffee. “All that work fucking the captain in order to get all the good cases is wearing me right the fuck out!” I saluted the two with my coffee cup as they stared at me. “Y’all should try it sometime!” Then I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “But you two should probably practice on each other first so’s ya don’t embarrass yourselves. I mean, I know it’s been ages since either of you has fucked anything other than your hand.”

With that I turned and sauntered back down the hall. I could have sworn I heard a bark of laughter come out of Crawford’s office, although when I passed by, his back was to the door and he appeared engrossed in a report on his computer. But Wetzer appeared in the doorway of his office, and to my shock he laughed and lifted his hand in a high-five salute.

“Dude, that was fucking awesome!” he exclaimed.

I grinned and returned the high five. As I ducked into my office, I heard Wetzer as he called down the hall to Pellini and Boudreaux: “Duuuudes, she fuckin’ owned your asses!”

I laughed as I shut the door behind me. The insinuations concerning my sexual activities were more annoying than offensive. I’d grown used to that sort of thing a long time ago and had accepted that I couldn’t talk to anyone of the male persuasion without being suspected of rampant lust. However, it was a seriously cool feeling to realize that I’d just scored points with others in the department for giving the two dickheads a smackdown for stirring up that bullshit. I’m one of them now. I just proved that I can hold my own.

I squeezed past my desk and plunked down into my chair. My office was only about the size of the walk-in closet in my bedroom, but it was mine. The walls were plain white, which I kept meaning to decorate with pictures or posters, but somehow I never managed to get around to it. I had a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet, and barely enough room for one extra chair. I didn’t mind having a small office. That just meant I didn’t have to share.

I spent the next several hours typing up my notes and running more checks on missing persons, placating the twinges of hunger with the cereal bars I kept stashed in my desk for when I worked late. A few possibilities emerged among the missing persons, and those I set aside. They were probably long shots, but I’d get with Dr. Lanza later to see if we could compare dental records, if they were available. DNA comparison would be used only if we were reasonably certain that we’d found a match, since it was expensive and took forever.