The Dollmaker(The Forgotten Files #2)(64)

The first page was a diagram of the victim’s body. There were a couple of scrapes on the knees and palms, suggesting a fall, but other than those minor injuries, there were no other signs of trauma to the body. She flipped the page to her first look at Kara’s body lying on the autopsy table. Kara’s thick dark hair was brushed away from her freshly scrubbed pale face, which was splotched with decomposition stippling. Her jaw was slack and her eyes half-open. The image took her breath away.

She sat back in her chair and took off her glasses as she raised her hand to her mouth. She thought about the argument Holly had remembered Tessa having with Kara. “It had to have been so petty and stupid.”

Shaking herself mentally, she drew back her emotions and focused on the facts. The victim had been missing for five days but had only been dead thirty to forty hours when found. The temperatures had been unseasonably high, and decomposition had been rapid. By the time the body had been found, gasses from decomposition had bloated the corpse. When the crews moved her, she’d popped and deflated.

Tessa had seen this before and accepted this process as natural. But she’d also watched seasoned detectives when she’d been in Baltimore wilt and run to the nearest bathroom or bush to be sick. Death was inevitable, but it wasn’t pretty.

The inventory of the victim’s organs found them healthy. Her heart was of normal size, as was her liver. Stomach contents were minimal. There’d been traces of crackers and some broth. Wherever she’d been during those missing days, she’d been eating.

The medical examiner had conducted a vaginal examination and found traces of seminal fluid, but no signs of vaginal tearing or bruising, which suggested she’d not resisted intercourse. The fluids had been sent off for DNA, but when the results came back six months later, there’d been no match.

She flipped through the photos taken right after Kara’s body had been brought to the medical examiner’s office. In these images, her face hadn’t been scrubbed by the technician yet. Though at first glance the face was clean, as she looked closer, she could see definite traces of pale makeup around her hairline and ears. Shadows of bright-red lipstick colored her lips, and hints of a pale blue shaded her eyelids. Though it appeared her face had been wiped clean, she’d clearly been heavily made up.

Kara had never been a big fan of makeup, and the night of the Halloween party had been no exception. Whereas Diane, Elena, and Tessa had had fun exaggerating their doll features, Kara had not warmed to the garish look. “I’m a natural doll,” she’d quipped as she straightened her red dress. And yet there were traces of makeup on her face five days after she vanished.

Where had the makeup come from? And why had it been wiped from her face before she arrived at the medical examiner’s office? She’d been missing five days, but according to liver temperature readings taken in the medical examiner’s office, she’d only been dead about thirty hours. There were no signs of exposure, so presumably she’d been inside. So if there had been makeup, one night in the elements, even if it rained, would not have been enough to erase the makeup so completely.

Tessa checked the inventory of the patient’s belongings. She’d been wearing a simple red dress, black high heels, and a bow in her hair. The description matched the pictures Tessa had taken the night of the party. The only discrepancy was the bow. Kara had not been wearing a bow.

No one would have thought twice about the makeup or bow given Kara had been at a Halloween party before she vanished.

Kara’s toxicology report revealed lethal levels of barbiturates. The drugs had caused her breathing to depress and finally her heart to stop. The drugs also explained the lack of vaginal tearing. If the sex had not been consensual, she’d have been too drugged to resist anyone.

Tessa checked the files and discovered there was still DNA logged in the evidence lockers that were kept refrigerated. Knowing how much science had advanced in the last dozen years, she ordered new DNA testing on the seminal fluids found in Kara as well as a cross-check with the DNA found in Diane and on Terrance Dillon. Two women made up, one with tattoos and the other presumably with makeup. Both deaths also involved high levels of drugs that led to overdose, and there was evidence both women had had intercourse near time of death.

Terrance Dillon was still the outlier, but if he had been killed in a drug deal involving propofol, then that was a solid link to Diane, who’d died from the drug. Yes, a dozen years separated the first death and the most recent two, but the otherwise unique cases showed too many signs of interconnection to be ignored.

A couple of days ago, everyone would have considered the tests too speculative and wouldn’t have ordered them. Now she wasn’t so sure this was a long shot.

She might get flak for the expedited tests and their costs, but as Sharp once said, it was easier to seek forgiveness than ask permission.




In the park, the laughter of children swirled around Sharp as he stood in front of the spot where Diane Richardson had been found three days ago. Though most of the crime scene tape was now gone, a trace of it was tangled in a bush and drifted in the fall breeze.

He tried to imagine the possible paths the killer would have taken to get her body here. The forensic team had found faint tire tracks and taken impressions. There’d also been one partial boot print found near the body.

He walked back toward the parking lot counting the steps. Diane Richardson had not been a big woman, but carrying a dead body was unwieldy, even for the fittest killer. This guy had stamina. He walked to his car and looked back toward the tree. What was it about this place? Why bring her here?