Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(83)

Shallow graves took on a life of their own. And eventually, all bodies did what they were meant to do. Decay. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Disappearing back into the earth, until months later, a uniquely shaped depression was formed. The kind of hollow that any experienced homicide detective could look at and say, hey, betcha a body is buried there.

The ME’s full team was out. This kind of retrieval was conducted like an archeological dig, with the leaf-strewn area beneath the trees already marked into a series of grids. Each shovelful of earth that was removed went into a marked container, to be sifted through later for signs of additional evidence. It would take all day for the ME to remove the body, D.D. knew, and weeks, if not months, before Ben would issue his full report.

D.D. and Phil approached, making sure they didn’t get too close. Ben Whitely was very good at his job, which was to say he was territorial and had little patience for stupid cop tricks.

He’d also once been romantically involved with their squad mate Neil. After the breakup . . . everyone was professional. Nothing was quite the same.

“Morning, Ben,” Phil called out. An opening salvo.

He received a grunt from a burly figure hunched over the shallow grave, seemingly brushing at the dirt. D.D. recognized his actions from past retrievals: They had exhumed all the way down to the body, and Ben was now dusting the final layer of fine soil from the mummified skin, bones, whatever was left.

This close, D.D. could catch a whiff of decomp mixing with the peaty smell of soil, fall leaves. So the remains weren’t fully skeletal yet, which would make sense given the timeline of the missing women’s disappearances.

“Male or female?” D.D. asked. Unlike Phil, she didn’t waste time on pleasantries. Which, she happened to know, made her one of Ben’s favorites. He didn’t care for pleasantries either.

“Female.”

“Time of death?”

“Bite me.”

D.D. and Phil exchanged glances. Apparently, that was a question to be answered back at the morgue. Made sense. The rate of decay in shallow graves varied wildly, depending on depth of grave, insect activity, that sort of thing. Ben would have to analyze soil samples taken from beneath the body to pinpoint time of death, and even then he’d grumble about the accuracy. Which made today a better day to be a homicide detective than an ME.

“Clothing, jewelry, any unique indicators we can use for identification?” D.D. asked. Personally, she was hoping for replacement parts—anything from breast implants to artificial knees, all of which came with serial numbers that could be traced back to the recipient.

“Got an earring,” Ben supplied, not looking up. “Gold hoop. Some clothing. Blue jeans maybe. Cotton top. Can’t tell if there’s anything in the pockets. Not there yet.”

D.D. looked at Phil. “Neil and I came across a stash of photos of Natalie Draga in Goulding’s room. I don’t remember her wearing hoop earrings.”

“I’ll call Neil, ask him to double-check,” Phil said. “Kristy Kilker?”

“We didn’t find any pictures of her. Just her driver’s license.”

“He can check that too. Just in case she’s wearing earrings in that photo.”

D.D. nodded, though it was a long shot. Some women wore the same earrings day in and day out, but a twentysomething girl out on the town? Chances were Kristy had different accessories for each outfit, that sort of thing.

“Hair appears to be brown,” Ben offered from the grave.

Which would be consistent with either Natalie or Kristy.

“Got something on the fingernails. Polish. Maybe dark pink, red? Either of your missing girls partial to manicures?”

Phil made a note. One more detail to track down.

“Are you sure there’s only one body?” D.D. called out.

Ben finally glanced up, skewered her with a glance.

“Never mind.” Even D.D. knew when to beat a hasty retreat. “So . . .” She tried to pick her next question carefully. “We have two missing girls. One last seen nine months ago.” Natalie Draga, who’d never collected her last check at work. “One vanished more like five months ago.” Kristy Kilker, who’d called her mother once or twice since the alleged Italy trip.

“If I had to pick between the two . . .” Ben went back to brushing.

“Sure.”

“Body’s on the fresher side. Been here like a two-to-three-month window.”

D.D. glanced at Phil.

“Only tells us how long ago the body was buried,” Phil warned. “Natalie Draga might have gone missing nine months ago, but that doesn’t mean she was killed then.”

D.D. nodded, understanding his point. They didn’t know enough of Goulding and his MO. Had he kept the girls alive for a bit? The haunting photos of Natalie Draga seemed to imply as much. Then again, they had nothing on Kristy except for a bloody license. Questions D.D. would’ve liked to ask Goulding. Except, thanks to Flora Dane, he was no longer available to answer.

“Call Kristy’s mom,” she instructed Phil at last. “Ask her about favorite earrings, nail polish. Maybe she can give us a starting point.”

Phil nodded, moving off to a separate bank of trees to work his phone.

D.D. stood alone, watching the ME carefully brush dirt from the remains of at least one missing girl who would finally go home again.