“Do you know if she’d had sexual intercourse?” Butch asked.
Havers inclined his head. “I believe she had, but I don’t know at this point whether it was before or after her death. As I said, I’ve only performed a cursory examination of her.”
“I need you to answer that question for me.”
“I’m afraid that until we find the family, I do not feel comfortable performing an autopsy.”
“You may have to get over that.” Butch looked across the body at the doctor. “We can’t wait long because the trail of her killer is growing cold as we speak.”
Boone had coughed at the mention of sex . . . but as the doctor and the Brother continued to talk, he began to look at the body differently, seeing the marks on her skin, the wounds, the swollen places, as sources of information, rather than—
“What’s that under her skin?” he asked as he pointed.
On the female’s upper arm, there appeared to be a splinter of something dark beneath the gray of her skin. It was only a half inch long at the most and thin as the lead of a pencil—and it seemed to be angled into the flesh.
“I don’t know,” Butch said as he leaned down. “Havers, can we get whatever this is out of her?”
“But of course. One moment.”
Butch took out his phone and snapped a series of photographs, not just of that discrete spot but of others like the meat hook, the bruises on her upper arms, the abrasions on her side, knees, and shins. Meanwhile, Havers returned gloved up with a scalpel and a tissue-collection jar. After cutting into the skin, he teased the object out with the tip of the blade.
“It appears to be a tiny nail,” he remarked as he put whatever it was into the plastic container.
The thing made a soft impact sound, a plunk, as it landed.
“Looks like it,” Butch said as he stared inside the jar. “Maybe it was from the scene, as he dragged her over to where he was hanging her up. There was a lot of debris in that storage room.”
“Would you prefer to keep this?” Havers asked as he screwed a blue top on. “I need to label it first, but you are collecting all the evidence, aren’t you?”
“I am. And I’ll take it, yes. I’m going to set up a de facto investigation room for the case at the training center.”
“Very good.”
After Havers put the scalpel down and marked a label up with a gold pen, the container changed hands and Boone was aware of an awkward silence.
“However is my sister?” Havers inquired softly.
“She’s perfect in every way.”
“Good. That is . . . very good.”
The Brother nodded at the body as if he wanted to redirect the conversation. “You’ll let us know if anybody shows up to ID her.”
“Yes, I will.”
“If no one comes forward in the next twenty-four hours, I’m going to order you to do the autopsy. And even if someone does, we’re going to get that done with or without family consent.”
“I shall request the King’s signature. On either account.”
“I will make sure you have it.”
“Thank you.” Havers looked at Boone. “And now, would you care to sign for your father’s urn?”
Boone swallowed his honest answer—because he’d rather just leave the remains here. Forever. Accepting them meant he couldn’t avoid the Fade Ceremony, and the last thing he wanted to do was get social with a bunch of glymera gawkers. Or, to use another term, his extended family.
Undoubtedly, they all knew how his father had passed by now. And every one of them was going to want to warm their cold hearts before a crackling blaze of gossip.
“Yes,” he forced himself to reply. “I’ll take the urn home with me.”
As sunlight threatened in the east, Boone walked through the front door of his sire’s house and closed the heavy weight behind himself. All around, the blackout shutters on the insides of the windows were coming down, the subtle whirring in the formal rooms a familiar sound, the soft clicking as they locked in place barely audible over the heat that whistled up through the old grates set into the floor.
The fact that he had a brass urn with his father’s ashes in it under his arm—like the thing was a newspaper he’d picked up in the front yard—was yet another bizarro-world distortion of the way his life should have been going.