up, the white windowless van stopping in front of it.
“We need photos, and most of all, swabs, because the quicker we can get her DNA profile in NamUs and especially NDIS, the better.” I continue going through what needs to be done immediately.
“PERK her, clean up really fast, and get to court.” I hold on to a thread of hope that law enforcement somewhere has entered this missing woman into the National DNA Index System.
“Tell Bryce to contact Dan and let him know we just got back from a difficult scene and I’m hurrying as fast as I can. Damn waste,” I then mutter. “Ridiculous. Pure harassment. Unadulterated effort to interfere and create a spectacle.”
“Yeah, you’ve only said it fifty times.” Marino grabs the scene cases out of the back of the SUV, and I gather the evidence bags of the fishing gear Pamela Quick gave to me and the barnacle I extracted from the leatherback.
We walk into the bay, the van rumbling in behind us and parking. The driver’s door swings open, and Toby hops out in his investigative uniform, a baseball cap pulled over his shaved head, a fad I’m sure Marino started, and it never fails to amaze me the influence he has without seeming to be aware of it. At least half of my male investigators now shave their heads as glossy smooth as cue balls and have got tattoos, including Toby, whose left arm is a solid sleeve of what reminds me of subway graffiti.
No one is immune to the Marino effect, as I’ve come to call the need his investigators have to emulate him for better or worse. I’m told that Sherry’s gotten Mortui vivos docent tattooed on her back and has taken up boxing, and Barbara now rides a Harley.
“What’s the plan?” Toby pulls on gloves and opens the tailgate. “You want her in decomp? I assume she’s a homicide, probably dead first and dumped so she would sink, right? Really weird shit. Any idea who she is?”
“We need a few minutes with her before she goes into the cooler, and don’t assume nothing,” Marino says gruffly.
“You’ll do her in the morning?”
“I’m definitely not waiting until the morning,” I answer him. “As soon as I’m out of court I’m back here. She’s going to be in bad shape very fast. Let’s bring her straight into decomp, and we’ll get a temperature and some photos. We can weigh and measure her later.”
Toby unlocks the wheels of the stretcher with its black body bag that looks oversized and pitifully flat, as if what’s zipped inside has shrunk in transit.
“What about the other stuff?” he asks.
In the back of the cargo area are the black plastic–covered shapes of what was recovered from the bay.
“All of it will go to trace, but not now,” I tell him. “Let’s get everything inside ID.”
I instruct him to cover a table with disposable sheets and place all of the items inside, and to document them with photographs and lock the door. When I’m back from court I’ll remove the wrappings, take a look and find out what interest or questions the police or FBI might have in the fishing gear, the boat fender, and all the rest. We’ll submit all this to trace evidence first thing tomorrow morning, I tell Toby, and I ask him to give Ernie Koppel, the section chief, a heads-up about what’s coming.
“Everything locked up tight and secured,” I repeat. “Nobody’s to touch anything without clearing it with me first.”
They lift the stretcher out, slam shut the tailgate, and roll the body inside and toward the decomp room as the bay door begins to loudly crank back down. I stop by the security guard’s window and check the sign-in log again, relieved that no other cases have come in since I last looked. The two motor-vehicle fatalities have been autopsied, their bodies picked up by funeral homes. That leaves the blunt-force trauma and possible drug overdose suicide to be released. Luke Zenner did those autopsies, I notice, and that’s what I’ve come to expect. It’s his nature to request the most complicated cases or assign them to himself because he wants experience and loves a challenge.
“Is there anything I need to know about?” I ask Ron, through his open window.
“No, ma’am, Chief,” he answers from inside his office, where security monitors mounted on three walls are split into quadrants, each showing exterior and interior areas of special interest for surveillance. “It’s been real quiet. Just two