False Mermaid

“At first I thought that was strange, since people run dogs down there all the time. But it’s a floodplain—things shift around in high water. There’s quite a lot of debris, and very little undergrowth in the area where she was found, and I wondered if the body might have been buried deeper by sediment and floodwater. Might be a contributing factor to the state of preservation—and it could be one reason she didn’t turn up before now.”

“The gravesite itself—the surrounding material—what was that like?”

“Primarily organic,” Solomon said. “Lots of peat. The crime scene folks took plenty of samples. It seemed very wet for this late in the year—the ground all around her was completely sodden.”

“Probably a spring or a seepage area nearby. There are spots like that all over at Hidden Falls. It makes a huge difference in preservation, the water levels and temperature. Do you mind if I take a closer look?”

Solomon pulled the lighted magnifying glass into position for her. “Be my guest.”

Nora studied the broken edges of bone through the plate-sized lens, gently probing with gloved fingers and noting the angle of the breaks—the inward slope suggested impact from a convex shape, a rounded weapon. A fleeting impression flashed through the synapses in her brain: a raised hand, a heavy weight delivering a crushing blow. And not just once, but over and over again. Asking the next question meant straying from her consultant role. “Frank said you were thinking blunt force as the cause of death?”

“Looks that way,” Solomon said. “From the uniform weathering, it looks like the fractures occurred perimortem.”

“What about defensive wounds?”

“No marks indicating use of a sharp weapon, no trauma to the hands or forearms that would indicate defense against blunt force. Chances are the first blow was fatal and everything after that was unnecessary. Overkill.”

Overkill.The same word Buck Callaway had used about Tríona.

Nora asked: “How long will it take to find out who she is?”

“We’ve got eight missing women still on the books,” Cordova said. “Most don’t fit her description, so that helps narrow it down.”

“It helps that she took good care of her teeth,” Solomon said. “The incisors have come loose, but we recovered all of her teeth from the site. Just one filling. The forensic odontologist was here yesterday. She’s comparing dental records from missing persons right now. And this particular consultant is also an expert on facial trauma, so she should be able to provide information on the degree of force, maybe even the sort of weapon used. I’m guessing she’ll have an answer for us today or tomorrow.”

“You said you had clothing and personal effects?” Cordova asked.

“Right here,” Solomon said, reaching behind him for the marked evidence bags, which he handed over. “Running clothes, shoes and socks, a watch. No ID. Everything’s there.”

Solomon’s glance tracked over Cordova’s shoulder to the doorway, where the receptionist was signaling a call for him. “Sorry, that may be the odontologist. I asked them to track me down if she called.”

After he left the room, Nora spoke under her breath: “These injuries, Frank, they’re identical—exactly the same as Tríona’s. And the location—a black ash swamp—it can’t just be coincidence.”

“As soon as we figure out who she is—”

Solomon came back through the door, looking satisfied. “Looks like you won’t have to wait. The odontologist is faxing over her report right now. The dental chart matched one of your missing persons, a twenty-two-year-old female—”

Frank Cordova finished the sentence for him: “Natalie Russo. I’ve been going through the missing persons files, too. Natalie disappeared the third of June—five years ago.”

The words sent a cold knife down Nora’s spine. She had often been gripped by the paralyzing notion that her sister would not be Peter Hallett’s final victim. But for some reason it had never occurred to her that Tríona might not have been the first.

3

Cormac stood at the window of the hospital room, looking in at his father. No one had ever been able to explain what had prompted Joseph Maguire to leave Ireland. Perhaps he didn’t fully understand the reasons himself. Now he lay in a hospital bed on the other side of the glass, breathing steadily with the help of a ventilator, as the nurse checked intravenous lines, his pulse, his oxygen level.