he has some info to share.” He popped the piece of bread into his mouth.
She took another sip of her coffee. “On a Sunday?”
“Murder doesn’t sleep, Emily. Doc said he worked most of yesterday and was back in his office this morning at six a.m.”
“Too early for me.” She shook her head and pulled a small piece of bread off. “But it’ll be good to have some news from the doc. Don’t forget we have that meeting this afternoon about the Jade Thai Spa sting.”
“I emailed my contact at the Boise PD about that, and he wants me to be part of the meeting this afternoon. If we do need the SWAT team involved, he can mobilize them pretty quickly. Do you know if Isabel made contact with the FBI agents who are watching that place?”
“Only what she said last night when she called—remember when we were driving down to meet with Mr. Osterman. She mentioned she’d spoken to someone about it, and that agent told her Jethro was in the hospital.”
“That’s right. I’d forgotten about that.”
“I haven’t heard from her this morning, but it’s still early—very early.”
“Okay, okay, I get the point.”
“If she said she’d call me and let me know what she found out, she will. Besides, she’ll be at the meeting this afternoon, too.” Emily wiped the napkin over her lips, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the box. She leaned over and kissed Colin lightly before standing up. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“My pleasure.” He rose from the couch and followed her to the door.
She slipped on her flats that sat in the entry. “I’ll finish my cappuccino in the car.”
“Grab your purse then and let’s roll.”
~*~
“What do you have for us, Doc?” Colin asked as they stood around the body of the young Asian woman on the steel table, draped from the shoulders down with a white sheet.
“It’s hard to determine time of death, since she was in the cold water when she was found. Likely a day or two. She had drugs in her system, like Valium, but not enough to kill her. I believe the cause of death was that she had been beaten to death. She suffered blunt force trauma to the head and had quite a bit of internal bleeding in her abdomen too.”
“That poor woman,” Emily sighed.
“The saddest part is that she was about six weeks pregnant,” Doc added. “Such a shame. Two lives cut short—and for what?”
“That’s what we need to find out.” Colin pursed his lips and shook his head with disgust. “What about her fingerprints? Did they turn up anything?”
“No, she wasn’t in the system.”
“Had she been sexually assaulted?” Emily asked.
“It’s hard to tell. She did appear to have quite a bit of tissue damage, scarring really, and I was able to extract some semen. But I won’t have DNA results back for days. They don’t come back as fast as they do on TV, you know.”
“Any gut feelings, Doc?” Emily asked.
“I have seen this before, the tissue damage and scarring, I mean. It was on a prostitute that had been murdered a few years ago here in Boise.”
“You think this girl could have been a prostitute?” Emily shot Colin a look.
“It’s possible, with this type of damage.”
“How old would you say this woman was?” Colin asked.
“I would hardly call her a woman, Detective. Based on various markers, I’d say she’s no more than eighteen, maybe younger.”
Emily grabbed Colin’s forearm when she heard the medical examiner’s words. This was exactly what she was afraid of. If she was one of the girls working at the Jade Thai Spa and she was being forced into prostitution, so were the other girls in that house.
Colin patted her hand. “We’ll do our best to get the S.O.B. that did this to her.” He pulled out his phone and took a photo of the girl’s face. “Maybe someone will recognize her.”
“Anything else, Doc?” Emily asked, willing herself not to cry.
“Not at the moment. I’ll let you know when I have more test results back.”
~*~
“Since we didn’t have much of a breakfast, let’s grab some lunch real quick,” Emily suggested.
“Sounds good. Where would you like to go?”
“We can get a sandwich pretty fast at Hugo’s Deli. It’s right up here on the right.”
Colin swung his Jeep into the parking lot and they went inside and ordered. Finding a table on the outdoor patio, they unwrapped their sandwiches and dug in.
“After talking to Doc Walters, I’m feeling more certain than ever that we’re on