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Chapter 1
Stories They Tell
Reggie
There’s nothing more fascinating than a lifeless body preserved to halt the hands of decomposition. It still amazes me how something so animated and dynamic can be confined into such a static form. It’s in this stillness where I dwell, where I thrive.
It’s easy to assume that as the daughter of the Cortez cartel kingpin turned forensic pathologist, I am doing it to rebel against the crimes of my father, trying to do some good in the world when he rules with fire and death. But that’s not it.
I’m simply fascinated by the stories dead bodies tell. And murdered ones tell the most interesting stories.1
Like the one in front of me that’s cold, gray, and cloaked in the smell of death, with a roughly sutured Y-incision carving down her chest and abdomen—no need to worry about scarring on a corpse. The stitches are remnants of the initial autopsy done at the June Harbor Medical Examiner’s Office before the body went unclaimed and was donated to the Verano Institute for Forensic Anthropology. Their donations are always more fun than the old people who croak and have their bodies donated to science.
Female. Caucasian. Twenty to thirty years old. Mechanism of death: asphyxia by manual strangulation, fractured hyoid bone present. Manner of death: Homicide.
That’s only the beginning and the end of her story, but I’m interested in the middle. She’s covered with perimortem injuries. Abrasions scatter her cheeks and limbs—most likely defensive or accidental wounds, not from a weapon. Fresh bruises in the form of handprints ring her throat, and another bruise, older by perhaps a couple of days, shades her cheekbone. Raw skin at her ankles and wrists indicates she’d been bound. Her feet were cleaned by the medical examiner, but dirt still lingers under her toenails. The minor abrasions that lash her soles are consistent with running barefoot outside.
Her teeth and hair show no signs of malnourishment or poor health, so she couldn’t have been held captive for a long period of time. In fact, her hair is dyed in a balayage style—a service that easily costs several hundred dollars—and I can tell she had orthodontic work done. No signs of drug addiction. This isn’t the type of person that disappears without anybody looking for them. So, why did her body go unclaimed?
The familiar taste of mystery coats my tongue, my pulse increasing steadily with eagerness to dig deeper.
I see so many bodies working here that often the details begin to bleed together. After all, killers are rarely original. People watch crime dramas and think that every murder has a unique ritual to it, carried out by some madman with mommy issues that would give Freud a raging hard-on. The truth is that most are committed by misogynistic pricks who can’t control their emotions.
But when two cases present almost identical injuries…it catches my attention.
I carefully shift the body onto its front, and my heart pounds a little harder. The shoulder blade has a garish burn mark on it that was done postmortem. This wasn’t an act of torture. I take a closer look, and my palms grow sweaty under my nitrile gloves. Just like the body of another woman that came to us last week, the burn disfigures a previously existing tattoo, small traces of ink still visible.
It’s not uncommon for killers to try to make it harder to identify their victims, and in turn, any connection that may lead back to themselves—cutting off fingers, removing teeth, obscuring identifiable marks or tattoos. But there are simply too many similarities to ignore.
Someone is keeping and killing women.
I stare at my computer screen in the lab, not able to process what I’m seeing. It’s the same. And, yet, it’s different.
I’ve been comparing measurements of the handprints on both Jane Does’ necks for the better part of an hour trying to see where I’m going wrong, because they don’t match. Two very differently sized hands mean two different killers.
But everything else is the same, even down to the soil samples taken from the bodies. The unique composition is an exact match. I’m increasingly frustrated that our database of composition with location doesn't have this one.
There must be two—or more—killers murdering women. I can’t believe I haven’t heard anything about this in the news. Another potential serial killer would certainly be blasted on every channel, especially after the shit storm the June Harbor Slayer stirred up.
But it’s not my job to solve the case, it’s law enforcement’s. They’ve already examined the bodies and must not have come to the same conclusion. Are they wrong, or am I?
I push my rolling chair away from the desk and spin around, staring up at the fluorescent lights while I think. I twirl toward the door when I hear it open.
“Buenos, mija.” Dr. Verano walks in, coffee in hand, and sets his leather messenger bag down on his desk. “What’s got you spinning today?” he asks with a warm chuckle. While technically my boss, he’s also like an uncle to me.
“I think there’s another serial killer.” I stop my chair and plant my elbows on my knees. I push up the sleeves of my scrubs, exposing my snake tattoo coiling around my wrist. Verano looks at me through his wire-rim glasses while he takes a sip from his coffee mug.
He sits down, draping his blazer over the back of his chair like he does every morning. I don’t know why he even bothers wearing it in the first place. This is his research facility; he doesn’t have anyone to impress, especially right now when we don’t have any interns or students. “What makes you say that?”
I tell him everything I discovered this morning, and he gives me a look I know well. It means slow down, think it through. I’ve always been impulsive, quick to react and jump to conclusions. Dr. Verano was the cartel’s doctor before he retired and my father gifted him the funds to start this institute. So, I’ve been getting this look for a long time.
“One coincidence doesn’t make a pattern. Keep digging.” I give him a mock salute like a soldier taking orders, excited to continue down this rabbit hole until I have definitive proof. He shuffles some papers into a manilla folder, then stands up. “I am meeting with a family who wants a second look at their son’s drowning, but I’ll be curious for an update when I’m done.”
Our primary purpose here is researching different stages of the decomposition of bodies, looking for distinguishing markers of each stage to better help in forensic cases. But we also take private autopsy clients who want a second opinion or aren’t satisfied with the medical examiner’s conclusion.
“Suena bien.” He waves goodbye, and I pull up the catalog of all the bodies we’ve processed through this facility and type two words into the search: burn + tattoo.
My stomach twists at the number of results; there’s maybe two dozen hits going back three years. When I narrow it down to females under forty years old, only two listings filter out. I open each remaining file and begin to jot down any similarities with the cases I already know.
