“Did you see this?” Kane indicated inside the roof of the mine entrance. “That’s spatter from something being tossed and tumbling, throwing out a pinwheel pattern.” He pulled out his Maglite and scanned the sandy bottom of the entrance. “No footprints or brush marks.” He turned to Wolfe and smiled. “I figure he threw the murder weapon down the mine shaft.”
Wolfe moved closer. “You don’t say?” He examined the marks. “I concur but how far does this cave go before it drops into oblivion?”
“The main shaft would be covered.” Kane edged inside keeping to the wall. “It’s for safety reasons and they blocked them off, when the place was sold. With luck we’ll find the weapon inside.”
Intrigued, Wolfe followed close behind, searching the ground with the beam of his Maglite. “There’s a fresh chip out of that beam, it must have ricochet off and be close to you.”
“Found it.” Kane crouched and shone his light over a screwdriver. “Do you want soil samples from in here as well?”
Wolfe slipped the screwdriver into an evidence bag, labeled it, and waited for Kane. “This is vital. I sure hope we find prints on it.” He made his way back to the body. “Add it to the chain of custody book for me and there’s a milk crate in the back of my van. Drop it in there with the soil samples.”
“Sure.” Kane took the evidence bags and strode out the mine.
Wolfe went back to the body to examine the wounds. He had little doubt they’d found the weapon. He leaned in closer and spotted something in the victim’s mouth. He turned to Emily. “She has something thrust inside her mouth. I’ll open her jaw for you to pull out the object.” He looked at Webber. “Open an evidence bag, we don’t want any contamination.”
He opened the jaw and it moved easily—rigor had come and gone. Now he made out a ball of fabric and as Emily lifted it from the victim’s mouth using tongs, he shook his head in disbelief. “Get that bag sealed.” He turned to Jenna. “The victim has a pair of men’s briefs in her mouth. This means something to the killer. It’s significant.”
“What do you think, Kane?” Jenna turned and stared at him.
“I agree.” Kane moved closer. “This entire scene is weird. I’m not speculating until Wolfe has her on the table. I see strangulation marks as well. Nothing makes sense here.”
“Weird is right.” Rio shook his head. “I’d like to know what was going on inside the head of this killer.”
Wolfe looked at Jenna. “We’ll
need Dr. Turner’s DNA for comparison but mitochondrial DNA would be better. Can you contact her mother? When you speak to either of them, I would advise they not view the body and leave the identification up to me.”
“Her mother works at the beauty salon in town.” Jenna’s expression was troubled. “I really won’t enjoy giving her the bad news. I know we can’t confirm anything but we all know this is Laurie Turner. I’ve seen enough here. I’ll go by the salon and see if we can find her mother. Will you be conducting the post this afternoon?”
Intrigued by what he was seeing before him, Wolfe nodded. “Yeah. There is so much here to process. I’ll be starting on the preliminary examination as soon as we return to the morgue.” He frowned. “She’s well into decomposition. I’ll be able to get a TOD for you when I get her back to the lab but I’d say from her temperature and state of rigor she died around the time she climbed into the vehicle.”
“So maybe strangulation?” Jenna rubbed her temples.
Exasperated, Wolfe raised his eyebrows. “You know darn well I can’t give you a cause of death until I’ve completed the autopsy. It’s obvious she received some type of restriction to her neck from the bruising but from the lack of it as well, it appears to be what I’d usually see from a cord tightened from behind.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” Jenna kicked a clump of grass and looked at Kane. “It’s just that, she was in the vehicle and from what I’m seeing is bruising way up under the neck, as if someone was in the back seat and strangled her from behind.”
“Yeah.” Kane moved in closer. “Or more likely attacked her from behind when she climbed out of the vehicle. Mrs. York has a pretty good recollection of the event. She doesn’t mention Laurie looking in the back seat, and people usually acknowledge another person in a vehicle. Why would the second person be in the back seat? It’s a sedan, most friends would ride shotgun.”
Wolfe looked from one to the other. “Until I determine the cause of death, this discussion is a waste of time.” He nodded toward Rio. “Are you coming to the autopsy as well?”
“Sure, if I’m not needed elsewhere.” Rio glanced at Jenna. “Would you like me to relieve Rowley?”
“You’ll need to familiarize yourself with the running of the office before I let you do that.” Jenna cleared her throat. “The locals will be suspicious of you at first. With Rowley, when he gives them advice, they take it.”
“Good to know.” Rio moved away to speak to Emily, who was bagging the victim’s hands.
Wolfe stood back and waited for Emily to finish and then turned to Jenna. “I’m done here. We’ll bag her up and get her into the morgue. Autopsy is at two but I need the DNA sample from Mrs. Turner yesterday.”
“I’m on it.” Jenna nodded and looked at Rio. “Head back to the office and get the images and footage uploaded, Rowley will give you the passwords and make sure Wolfe has all the data first. We’ll be back soon.” At his nod, she turned to Kane. “Let’s go hunt down Mrs. Turner.”
Wolfe stared after her. Jenna was wearing her detached facade again. It was just as well; informing a mother her daughter might have been murdered was gut-wrenching but worst of all was having to insist they refrain from viewing the body. Some would always insist and then the image of their mutilated child remained with them forever.
Twelve
Pushing down the emotion of seeing a brutally murdered young woman dumped like garbage, Jenna walked away, took a few deep breaths to clear her mind, and removed her facemask and gloves. She balled them up and shoved them into a paper bag Kane was holding out for her. As he rolled up the top of the bag and stowed it on the floor of the back seat of his truck, she looked at him closely. His eyelashes covered his expression but she knew that his brain was working overtime. During her time at Quantico, she’d become close friends with a writer and often he’d go quiet and stare into the distance or just sit and do nothing. Kane did the same and she often wondered what was going through his mind. Her friend told her it was a writer’s trance, the time when the magic would happen and a story would drop into a creative mind but with Kane maybe he was weighing up the evidence. As he gave Duke a rub around the ears, she heard him whisper something to the dog that made him bark. The loud noise inside the cab of Kane’s truck startled her. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s fine.” Kane smiled at her. “I just told him we’d be heading to Aunt Betty’s Café soon and as it’s Monday, Susie will have some leftovers from the Sunday special for him. She always puts something by for Duke.”