was something Craig understood. They worked hard at the morgue—very, very hard. Every floor, every table, every instrument in the place was cleaned and cleaned again; antibacterial agents ruled.
And still the scent of death was strong.
They were offered paper suits and masks; two minutes later, they were in the room where there were actually two autopsies in process.
Their victim waited for them, tragically naked but clean, ready for the knife.
Anthony Andrews adjusted the mic he wore and cleared his throat. He identified their Jane Doe by date and circumstance and stated the date, his own work as the ME, Jerry Sanders as his assistant, and Mike and Craig as witnesses.
And he set to work.
Y incisions were, to the layman—and to Craig this many years into his work—little less than horrendous. The sound of the ribs breaking seemed extremely brutal.
But Craig was also passionate in his belief that the dead did speak. Autopsy was incredibly important. He believed in God or a higher power, and that when the soul was long gone, the body could no longer be hurt. But, it was still hard to watch sometimes.
The process today was the usual. Andrews and his assistant worked over the body. The organs were studied and weighed; samples of blood and stomach contents were taken.
Lance Kendall arrived sometime soon after the first hour. He stood as Mike and Craig did—still and listening. Craig hadn’t met Kendall before he’d arrived at the scene of the murder on Friday, though he did know many of the men with the Major Case Squad of the NYPD. At the crime scene, Kendall had been thorough and detailed—polite to Craig, and making no comments about not needing the FBI for a murder on the street. He was, Craig imagined, ambitious, but didn’t seem the kind to put ambition before results. Of course, Craig had no idea how the man felt about it all now that the case had been handed to a task force and the FBI was taking the lead.
“This is something you need to see,” Dr. Andrews said.
He was inspecting the corpse’s mouth.
They all moved over, one by one, and the ME pointed out the woman’s dental work.
Craig had no idea of what he was looking at—only silver fillings here and there.
He knew that Andrews would explain.
“I believe that this woman is approximately forty—though she does look fifty. She has not, however, recently borne a child, so the baby is not hers. What I was showing you, that isn’t American dental work, and it isn’t new. It was probably done more than ten years ago, and I’d say that it was done somewhere in Eastern Europe—a country that was once part of the Soviet Union or under the Communist bloc, most likely. Russia maybe, the Ukraine...but, then again, maybe Albania or somewhere in the former Yugoslavia. In other words, I do believe she’s of Eastern European descent, but she’s not malnourished. She’s healthy—just worn. I don’t believe she’s taken care of herself well—she’s probably faced tremendous stress to look ten years older than I believe her age to be. She’s worked hard—manually, I believe. Take a look at her hands. Possibly, she worked as a maid. We’re trying for an ID, naturally, through fingerprints. We’ll search through dental records, but I doubt we’ll find local records for her.”
“We are testing to see if she was related to the baby,” Craig said. It wasn’t really a question; it was an obvious action to be taken.
“Of course,” Andrews said. He looked at Lance Kendall. “As your FBI team members noted, the one stab wound in the back that killed her most probably occurred swiftly—she didn’t know what hit her. She staggered toward Miss Finnegan in the street because you instinctively turn when you’re attacked from behind. The attack was planned and fluid—that type of knife isn’t just in everyone’s daily purse or briefcase.”
“So our Jane Doe was followed to the offices of Fuller and Miro. And she went to those offices to hand the baby to Kieran Finnegan. Why?” Kendall asked.
“We don’t know,” Craig said. Andrews cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, I’ve given you what I can. I’ll make sure you all receive a hard copy of the report. If we discover anything else on our end, of course, you’ll be notified.”
“What about ethnicity through DNA?” Craig asked.
“Well, we might be able to pinpoint an area of most likely ancestry,” Andrews said.
“That will be helpful,” Craig said.
“Of course,” Andrews said. “I’ll keep everyone informed on any information that I get. As soon as I have it, naturally.” He stared at them all.
It was their cue to leave. The three of them thanked him and headed toward the building entrance. As they did so, a man was hurrying in. He was very tall and lean, with tawny eyes and sandy hair. He was in a polo shirt and jeans and a jacket. Beneath the jacket, Craig was aware, the man was carrying a weapon.
“LeBlanc?” he asked. “Hank LeBlanc?”
The US Marshal nodded and intros went around. “So we have the whole gang. I imagine we’ll get a counterpart from Homeland Security before this is all over,” LeBlanc said.
“Good,” Kendall responded, his voice vehement. They all looked at him, and he shrugged. “Maybe we’ll get somewhere, working together. As long as we all keep it real—keep the contact going.”
“Sure, yeah. Of course,” LeBlanc said. “I, uh, I’m trying to see if I recognize our dead woman right now, if she might have been one of ours. Informant or witness. We lose them now and then. Except...”
“Except what?” Craig asked.
“She’s not one of ours, I’m pretty sure. I’m here because they want every t crossed on this thing. If she had been ours, we would have known something. Everyone in every local agency knows about this—we all know enough to know we don’t know a damned thing but that someone thinks they’re getting away with murder.”
“Not this time,” Kendall said flatly.
“Nope, not this time,” Mike agreed. “Hell, the best of the best, right? We’re all on it.”
Nods went around.
“We’ll keep it tight,” Mike said. “I’ll be the liaison between agencies—make sure we’re always all up to speed on what’s going on.”
LeBlanc thanked him and headed on in as they continued out to the street.
“So the woman—our dead woman—knew your girlfriend by name,” Kendall said to Craig as they reached the street.
“We established that the other night,” Craig said.
“There has to be a reason,” Kendall said.
“Yes, we actually figured that, too,” Mike said quickly, his tone easy, as if he was afraid that Kendall and Craig might get heated over the facts. “But, as you know, Kieran had never seen the woman before. Of course, we all realize that the woman knew about Kieran somehow—or, perhaps, she knew about Fuller and Miro and knew that Kieran handled a great deal of their therapy and exploratory work.
