Darisse lay beside a row of dumpsters, outside one of the warehouses.
Robbie, Everett and Janine were gathered a distance away from the body.
Poor Janine. So much for her plan to be unconscious.
Ren and Gary went straight to Donna Darisse’s body. She was naked, except for her bloodstained white cowboy boots, lying on her stomach, facing away from the wall, her arms behind her back, her wrists bound with cable ties. Her face was swollen to twice its size, the flesh bursting and cut and oozing. Her red dress and tiny red lace G-string were discarded ten feet away, along with a blonde wig. Cheap glamor, transformed into something poignant and tragic when met with such boundless savagery.
Ren looked for a moment at the stars above, and breathed in and out, in and out, until she could face looking back down.
This is beyond horrific.
From her lower back, down her bare buttocks, and between Donna Darisse’s legs was a terrible mess that could have been nothing other than the result of a chemical burn.
Acid.
Ren felt like her body was liquefying inside. She felt spikes of pain in the same places where Donna Darisse had been brutalized. Her stomach churned.
I have no words.
They went over to join the others. Everyone looked grim-faced and tired.
‘Dr Tolman is on vacation,’ said Janine. ‘We have a stand-in …’
A hooting laugh broke out. They all looked up, knowing that it meant who that stand-in was: Dr Mark Gaston, the new Medical Examiner for the 18th Judicial District, which covered Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Lincoln Counties. Gaston was forty-five, but looked early thirties. His pouting lips were his most striking feature, followed by the prince-from-an-animation hair: light brown, thick, and wavy, the type of hair that marked out generations of the same family, the type that was celebrated in portraits.
Arrogant hair. Book of Wrong.
Gaston walked toward them.
Ren leaned into the others. ‘Gaston always looks like he’s been called away from seducing a nineteen-year-old. “OMG – you’re a Medical Examiner! So hot!”’
Gaston was too close for them to laugh.
‘Is that a dead hooker on the ground or are you making excuses to see me?’ said Gaston, smiling at Ren. He crouched down beside Donna Darisse. ‘Yes, she is dead. Despite all signs to the contrary.’ He stood up. ‘And that’s acid. That’s a man who’s going all out not to leave any swimmers behind. Die, boys, die!’
Swimmers … ugh.
‘How long’s she been missing?’ said Gaston.
‘About forty-eight hours,’ said Ren.
‘I’m guessing she was killed not long after that,’ said Gaston. ‘Not here, though. The scene is too clean. But you don’t need me to tell you that. Let me do my thang and I’ll let your boys in. Stand back, bitches. Dr G is here.’
Dear.
God.
‘I’m going to do you a favor here,’ he said, when he was finished. ‘I’m going to prioritize this little lady. So, if you want to meet me at the autopsy suite at seven a.m., I’ll bump her to the top of my list.’
He’s a hooker with a heart.
‘Appreciate it,’ said Gary.
‘Ren?’ said Gaston. ‘You up for the early-morning autopsy?’ He almost winked.
‘Yes,’ said Gary. He turned to Ren. ‘I gotta go – can I leave this with you? I need to get back.’
To whom?
‘No problem,’ said Ren. She looked at Gaston. ‘You won’t be too tired?’
‘I’ve done a ton of coke,’ said Gaston. ‘I was expecting a different night.’ He laughed loud.
‘Everett?’ said Ren. ‘You up for it?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She turned to Janine. Her face was white, her eyes narrowed in pain. ‘Janine, you go home, sleep,’ said Ren. ‘Robbie, we’ll notify the next-of-kin. Everett – here are the keys to my place. We’ll join you there right after.’
‘What?’ said Everett.
‘I don’t want to waste any time,’ said Ren. ‘You can sleep on the sofa for a half hour. And I promise you high-end coffee on our return.’
Ren and Robbie arrived back to the apartment at four a.m. and woke Everett up.
‘That was suitably grim,’ said Ren.
‘Your sofa, on the other hand, was not,’ said Everett, stretching out his legs, standing up, and walking around the living room. ‘You promised high-end coffee, remember.’
‘A promise I am following through on,’ Ren called from the kitchen. ‘God, though, this apartment depresses me. And this micro-kitchen. I love cooking, and I don’t even cook here. Most of my kitchen stuff’s all packed away in boxes in Annie’s attic. I’ve got all their crappy utensils, blunt knives, shady-looking forks. It’s like the whole place is designed to guide you to the microwave so you can stand – alone – and watch your meal-for-one perform a tragic pirouette.’
‘You are not alone tonight,’ said Robbie.
‘This morning,’ said Everett. ‘Need us to come in there and make the kitchen feel like it’s hopping?’
‘You just concentrate on squeezing yourselves around that table, leaving enough room for me and my expansive mind.’
She came in and set the tray down at the center of the table.
‘I hate glass tables,’ said Ren. ‘I need a tablecloth. But I’m not a big fan of tablecloths either. Actually, that’s wrong – it’s the pressure of keeping them clean that bothers me. I love tablecloths.’ She put a coffee mug in front of each of them.
‘No cookies?’ said Everett, forlorn.
‘Much as I’d love to soften the blow of mutilated genitals, I have nothing,’ said Ren.
‘Toast even?’ said Robbie.
‘I have arugula,’ said Ren. ‘And an angry inch of parmesan.’
‘Mind if I order in?’ said Robbie.
Inward narrowing of eyes. You are replacing sex with food, Robbie Truax. Jesus … does anyone not have an issue with food?
‘You order whatever you like,’ said
