The Body Reader (7 page)

CHAPTER 12

D
ressed in protective gowns, face shields in place, Uriah and his new partner followed the Hennepin County medical examiner into the autopsy suite, where the body of the young girl waited under a white sheet.

They now had a full ID. Delilah Masters. From a wealthy family, attended a private school.

Uriah made a choking sound behind his plastic face shield. The ME, a big blond woman of about fifty, named Ingrid Stevenson, didn’t bat an eye at the overwhelming stench. Jude didn’t seem to notice either, but then again he couldn’t recall her physically reacting to anything other than the visit from her brother. Her current lack of response to the odor told a darker story of abuse conditioning. Captives learned the art of no reaction in order to remove the cause and effect of torture, the joy experienced by the torturer.

“I have to apologize for the air quality,” Ingrid said. “Our air system is acting up. My husband had me take off my clothes before I stepped from the garage into the house last night. Even after I showered, he still complained.”

Uriah tried to breathe shallowly through his mouth. That made him feel light-headed.

“I know it’s unpleasant, but this won’t take long,” Ingrid said. “I have a few things I thought you should see.”

She moved deeper into the room, motioning for them to follow. “What I wanted to show you . . .” She pulled back the sheet, uncovering the girl with the dandelion hair. “Cutting.” She pointed. “Self-mutilation.” The girl’s stomach was a crisscross of scars.

“Recent?” Uriah asked.

“Some fairly new, but some older.”

“How much older?”

“Years. On top of the cutting, I found signs of sexual abuse. Bruising and tissue damage. Some old scarring, but some recent. Maybe less than twenty-four hours old.”

Uriah looked at Jude. He could see she was thinking her theory had merit. In reality, it meant suicide was all the more likely. The poor girl had been in mental distress for a long time. Add sexual abuse to that . . .

“Also, her lungs were filled with water.”

“Drowning,” Uriah said. No surprise there.

“Lake water?” Jude asked.

“I’m glad you brought that up.” Ingrid pushed the overhead lamp aside. “The water we found in her lungs had a high level of chlorine in it.”

That was unexpected. “Interesting.” Uriah might have to toss everything he’d been thinking about suicide. Also? No sign of gloat on Jude’s face. He had to give her credit for that. And no mention of body reading. He’d give her credit for that too. Right now it seemed to be their little secret. He hoped to keep it that way—something that surprised him, given his feelings about Jude coming on board in the first place. One whisper of her “gift” and she’d be out of there. Ortega would see it as proof of Jude’s instability.

“So she drowned, or was drowned, most likely in a swimming pool,” he said.

“That’s correct. There’s no freshwater in her lungs. She was dead before she was put in the lake.”

“Anything else? Signs of struggle?”

“Nothing under the nails, but there’s bruising on the arms that might or might not be significant.”

“Drugs?”

“No signs of needle usage, but we’re running toxicology labs.” Ingrid covered the body. “Should have the results in a couple of days.”

“Thanks.”

Uriah bailed from the room, ripped off his mask, and gulped air—immediately regretting it, since the prep room smelled almost as bad as the autopsy suite. Jude followed at a leisurely pace.

“You were right,” Uriah said once they were outside, in the unmarked car, heading to the girl’s house to interview the parents. A cold call—nobody would be expecting them.

“What do you think? A relative? Boyfriend?” Jude asked. “Assaults her, then, fearing she’ll tell someone, drowns her, fills her pockets with rocks, and tosses her in the lake to make it look like suicide?”

“A valid theory.”

The GPS told him to turn. He turned.

“So you approve of my outfit?” Jude asked.

Like most things about her, the unexpected question was unnerving. When she’d arrived at the department that morning, he’d been surprised to see her wearing something almost stylish: black pants, a white shirt, and a black fitted jacket. Uriah wasn’t into clothes, but in their job it was important to have the right threads. A suit generated a certain amount of respect for the position.

“I never said anything about how you were dressed yesterday.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Of course not.”

“I’d planned on seeing what my boyfriend had done with my clothes, but I kept putting it off. And then I realized none of it would fit me anymore anyway.”

“You could get them altered. I know a guy in Uptown. Believe it or not, I got this suit at a vintage shop. He modernized it.”

“I think it’s better if I start fresh. New person, new clothes.”

He wanted to say that starting over wasn’t always the answer, or starting over was hard, or starting over didn’t really fix anything, or starting over was just a delusion, but he kept his mouth shut.

“You okay?” Jude asked.

Reading him. The suicide stuff had thrown him, and it was obvious she could tell something was off. He didn’t know if he should lie when she’d know he was lying, or tell the truth—which was just too personal. And anyway, she’d find out about him soon enough.

“I’m not okay,” he said, settling on the truth. “But I can’t discuss it.”

What he didn’t say was that he couldn’t talk about it because of what she’d been through. He deserved none of her sympathy. None. He knew that, but damn.

Now she was frowning, watching him, picking up on something in his face. “Did I say something? Do something?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’m sensing you’re holding back.”

“Just because we’re partners doesn’t mean we have to share everything.” Harsh. As soon as the words were spoken, he regretted them.

The victim was from the Tangletown area of Minneapolis. Upper-middle class, nice lawns, most of the houses Tudor-style or what Ellen had called witch houses. The brass frog knocker made a dull thud when it hit the burgundy door. Genevieve Masters, Delilah’s mother, answered. Her hair wasn’t the color of dandelions but had instead been lightened and expensively processed, her roots a darker blond.

Uriah pulled out his badge and made introductions while Jude offered condolences. He was surprised by her genuine effort to reach out to the woman. And she didn’t stop there. “Mind if we come in?” Jude asked.

They got a death stare until the request finally sank in and the woman took a step back, opening the door wider. “I don’t understand,” Mrs. Masters said. “Delilah committed suicide. Why would homicide detectives be here?”

A young boy appeared from around the corner. “Aren’t we leaving?” he asked, skateboard under his arm, hair on the long side.

“In a little bit, honey,” his mother said. “The police just want to talk to me.”

“They already did.”

“It’s okay. Go on outside. We’ll leave in a few minutes.”

Once he was gone, she turned to them and said, “He’s not taking this very well. I thought going to a friend’s might be a good idea.” Her voice faded as she questioned her decision. “Get him out of the house.”

“That’s okay,” Uriah said.

The woman wandered to the couch and sat down. Uriah and Jude followed, taking a seat in the two overstuffed chairs. Between them was an oval table.

Mrs. Masters seemed to pull up a memory of what a hostess should do and say. “Would you like something to drink?” When Jude and Uriah shook their heads, her shoulders sagged in relief.

“First of all,” Jude said, “we’re terribly sorry for your loss.” She glanced at Uriah, and he gave her a slow blink. Better for her to break the news, and she’d done a good job so far. He had the feeling Mrs. Masters would be more receptive hearing it from a woman.

“You asked why we’re here.” Jude leaned forward, elbows on her knees, eyes locked with the mother who’d just lost a child. “We have reason to believe your daughter’s death wasn’t suicide.”

A sluggish move toward understanding as Genevieve Masters’s thoughts sifted through everything she’d dealt with in the past twenty-four hours and struggled to make sense of this new information. “I don’t understand. Yesterday I was told it was a suicide.”

“We just came from the autopsy,” Jude said. “And preliminary evidence indicates she might not have died by her own hand.”

The air left the room. Mrs. Masters clutched her throat and stared at Jude in horror.

It was weird how suicide had most likely seemed unbearable just moments ago. Now the death had gone from being something Delilah’s mother felt she should have seen coming—something a mother should have been able to stop—to this new thing, this even more unbearable thing.

“What . . . ? How . . . ?”

But she didn’t really want to know. They never wanted to know.

Jude glanced at Uriah, and he saw a brief flash of self-doubt in her eyes before she looked down at her clasped hands, pulling herself together. Because it wasn’t about them. Their job was to deliver the information in the most compassionate way possible while maintaining the stability of the room. He wished the husband had been home. They should have waited. Come back. Let her take the kid to his friend’s. What would a few hours matter? And yet Jude was doing a good job. If they’d waited, someone else might have delivered the news. Someone who wasn’t as good at it, like a reporter.

“She didn’t drown in the lake,” Jude said. “Which leads us to believe someone might have killed her.” She didn’t mention the sexual assault. That was good. Let it come later, once Mrs. Masters processed this new information.

“Do you know of anyone who might want to harm your daughter?” Uriah asked. Too abrupt, but sometimes a direct question actually helped. It gave the shocked survivor something to think about.

“No.” She frowned and shook her head in protest. “People loved her. My daughter was an angel.”

Something that might or might not be true.

“Did she have any enemies?” Jude asked. “Maybe at school?”

“I’m sure she didn’t get along with everybody, but Delilah was popular. Friendly. Well liked.” She looked from Jude to Uriah, and he could see her thoughts clarifying. “She had rocks in her pockets.” Suicide.

“We know,” Uriah said evenly. “We think someone else put them there.”

“Do you have a child, Detective? No? Do either of you have a child? I didn’t think so.”

This is how it often played out. The attack. And that was okay. That was fine, although Uriah was now feeling a little guilty for allowing Jude to take the brunt of it. The person delivering the news never left unscathed.

They asked Mrs. Masters the standard questions, along with a request for names and addresses of people her daughter had been in close contact with.

“Did Delilah have a job?” Jude asked as she folded a piece of paper containing the list of classmates.

“No, but she volunteered.”

“Where?”

“A nursing home.”

They learned the husband had moved out recently and was living in a condo in Edina. Then they asked to search Delilah’s room. Mrs. Masters led them upstairs and down a hallway with a long oriental rug, stopping in front of a white door. She pushed it open to reveal a typical teenager’s room.

Transfixed, she stared into the space, then finally whispered, “I can’t bear to be in here.” Her voice trembled. “I have to leave. Try not to disturb anything.” She backed out of the room. “I want it left just the way it is.”

Mothers of dead children were the most likely to shrine, although Uriah had witnessed the behavior among the relatives of adult victims too. The opposite of shrining was packing every memory out of sight and either remodeling the house or moving. “We’ll be careful,” he said.

They searched the dresser and bed; then Uriah moved to Delilah’s laptop while Jude read her diary.

Everything seemed almost boringly commonplace. Jude reported that the diary was filled with the expected entries: writing about friends and writing about boys and writing about classes and movies and music and bands.

Fifteen minutes later, Uriah was about to declare the search a bust when Jude spoke his name in a way that got his attention. He glanced up from the computer as she tapped the diary, head bowed.

“She keeps referring to a nameless person.” Jude read passages aloud. “‘We finally did it.’ Then later, she says, ‘He wants to see me again. I snuck out last night. Lola likes him too, but I think it’s because he’s old enough to buy her beer, not to mention other stuff.’ Frowny face.”

“Beer?” Uriah said. “So not a classmate.”

They bagged and tagged the laptop and diary. Downstairs, they asked about Delilah’s cell phone.

“I haven’t seen it,” Genevieve said. “I didn’t even think about it.” She gave Uriah her daughter’s number, then promised to look for the phone.

They asked about the beer-buying man. Mrs. Masters was surprised by the question and obviously knew nothing. Outside, as the detectives walked toward the car, Uriah called downtown and told their private-data specialist to obtain cell records for Delilah Masters and also see if her current phone location could be pinpointed.

With the list of names given to them by Mrs. Masters, they drove to the high school, where they met with the principal. The girls on the list were brought into a private room one at a time to talk to the detectives. All but the girl named Lola Holt.

“She’s absent today,” the principal explained.

“We really need to talk to her,” Jude said.

The school secretary gave them the address of an impressive colonial located in the affluent Bryn Mawr neighborhood, just a few minutes from downtown Minneapolis. At first no one answered the door. Finally a woman opened it a crack—enough for them to display their badges and introduce themselves. The air smelled like freshly mowed grass, wood chips, and fertilizer.

“I know who you are, and I want you to stay away from my daughter,” the woman said. “She doesn’t want to talk to you. She doesn’t know anything.”

“It’s our understanding that she was a friend of Delilah Masters.”