strangulation, with subsequent attempted disposal by burning.
On the posterior aspect of the right forearm is a linear 3- × 1-inch contusion with a 1- × ½-inch abrasion in its center. Wrists show evidence of binding ligature injuries.
The captain believed Alexandra had been sexually assaulted. He found semen in her vagina and pubic hairs of a different color than her own. However, as he had written at the end of his letter to the Guamans, the lab had been ordered to end all analyses of blood and other fluids. As a result, there was no toxicology report and no rape kit.
I lay back in the sofa bed, staring at the ceiling. There were spider-webs in the corners and a trail of web hanging from the drapes. Cleanliness is next to impossible, one of my college friends used to say, and she was right.
I pictured Cristina Guaman and her husband reading Captain Walker’s letter. Tintrey had sent Alexandra’s body home to them, telling them their daughter had died of burns from an IED, burns so bad that they advised against viewing her body. With the horror of that news still fresh in their minds, they suddenly learned that Alexandra had been raped, murdered, and then set on fire and left in a public place so that everyone would assume she had been the victim of an Iraqi assault.
Who had left her there? Who had violated her, killed her, tried to cover the murder up? Her boss, Mossbach? The programmer, Jerry? Whoever it was, Tintrey knew. They had put pressure on Colonel Cleburne to end the forensic investigation and destroy the report.
When Cristina and Lazar Guaman got Captain Walker’s letter, they must have tried to find out why his report was so different from what Tintrey had told them. Had they considered an exhumation so they could order their own autopsy by an impartial pathologist?
Maybe Cristina called Tintrey’s office up in Deerfield. Or maybe it had been Ernest, Ernest, the good and loving brother before his injuries took his mind from him. I wondered again whether Ernest’s accident had been arranged, if he’d been run down deliberately, targeted as the one person who might really push for an investigation into his sister’s death. I’d never be able to prove it one way or the other, but it might be important to find out the timing of the accident—had he been injured before or after the Guamans received Walker’s letter?
However it happened, as Cristina and Lazar were agonizing over how to handle the pathologist’s report, Rainier Cowles suddenly arrived, waving a large check under their noses.
Take this. It will cover Ernest’s medical care, with enough left over to send Clara to college as Alexandra wished. All you have to do in return is never discuss Alexandra’s death with another living soul.
Nadia had been furious. Blood money, she’d called it. She and her mother fought so wildly over taking the money that Nadia felt she had to move out. Clara hadn’t been privy to the details, either of Captain Walker’s letter or Rainier Cowles’s offer. She was told simply that she must never discuss Alexandra’s death with anyone.
It had taken over a year for Nadia to feel strong enough to read Alexandra’s journal. But when she did, the description of her sister’s unhappiness, and Alexandra’s ongoing torment over her sexuality, drove Nadia to desperate action. She made a crucifix with a doll’s head, her sister, superimposed on Christ’s body.
She sought out the Body Artist, who left her feeling even more helpless. Nadia wanted someone who could talk to her about her adored sister, but the Artist was like a black hole: she drew emotions in, but reflected nothing out. Nadia’s anger kept growing. She started coming to the club and painting on the Artist, painting the fire that had burned her sister, the fire that burned inside Nadia herself as rage. I could feel Nadia’s helplessness and fury. I could imagine why she did what she did, but I couldn’t imagine a way to prove it.
I went to my bedroom, where Clara was deeply asleep, fingers still clutching Peppy’s fur. Peppy softly thumped her tail, but she seemed to realize she shouldn’t leave the girl. Clara didn’t stir as I tiptoed into my closet to put the autopsy report into the safe.
I went to the kitchen and surveyed the backyard, returned to the front room and looked up and down the street. No one seemed to be watching my building.
I climbed back into the sofa