Girls Like Us(35)

“Or a friend or family member,” Lee adds. “We know her ex-boyfriend had MS-13 affiliation.”

“Any defensive wounds?” I can’t take my eyes off her dismembered body. It’s been reassembled on the slab like a Barbie doll that’s been pulled apart by a child who can’t figure out how to put it back together again. I’ve seen disembodied limbs before, but never a fully deconstructed cadaver, all in one place. Usually, if someone takes the time to dismember a body, they do it so they can dispose of the parts separately, thereby lowering the risk of identification. Why take the time to hack someone up, only to bury them in a neatly wrapped package in a shallow grave in a reasonably well-trafficked public park?

“No defensive wounds that I could see. Most tellingly, she’s got long, artificial nails. The kind that break off easily. These were all intact. If there had been a struggle, I’d expect to see one or more broken off. There are no signs of sexual assault, either, though it’s hard to be definitive, given the level of decomp.”

“If she wasn’t sexually assaulted, and there was no struggle, then why were her wrists bound together?”

Milkowski nods. “Good question. And it wasn’t just her hands. Her ankles were bound as well. By the time the body was discovered, the twine used to bind the ankles had snapped. But we found remnants of it on the scene, and there are markings on the ankles consistent with tight binding.”

I shake my head. “That doesn’t make sense. Who willingly allows themselves to be bound hand and foot?”

“A hooker?” Lee says.

I shoot him a sharp look.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, “sex worker.”

“I was thinking that maybe she was unconscious,” I say coldly. I turn my back to him and face Milkowski.

She shakes her head. “She was bound postmortem.”

“Really? But why?”

“I don’t know. There are abrasions to the wrists and ankles but no evident bleeding.”

I close my eyes. A memory bubbles up. My father and I are standing in the cold. It is night. The stars are brilliant overhead. There is snow on the ground, fresh and wet. There is a hole in the sole of one of my boots. I can feel the ooze of cold, wet mud seeping in, saturating my thick, woolen sock, creeping slowly up the fabric until it surrounds my ankle. My foot is growing numb. I shift my weight, trying to alleviate the discomfort. It’s no use. There are still flakes drifting down. It must have just stopped snowing. The air smells rich, of balsam and pine needles. When I exhale, my breath crystalizes in front of me.

“That one,” Dad says. He points to a small fir, as wide as it is tall. Overhead, clouds rush past the moon. The stars are faint points of light in a sea of darkness. “Nell, what do you think?”

I hesitate. I love the tree. I want it. I can see it with the star on top, brightening the corner of our living room. We haven’t had a tree since Pop died. It’s been two years. Two Christmases with a few small gifts, wrapped in newspaper, piled on my chair at breakfast time. Two years of watching the ornaments collect dust in the crawl space beneath the house. Two years of TV dinners on aluminum trays and a hastily purchased pie from the local supermarket. I miss the red poinsettias that my mother made from felt. I miss popping corn with her so we could string them into garlands and drape them across the boughs. I miss the smell of ham in the oven and feeling my fingers press into the dough she would roll out and turn, like magic, into piecrust.

I want the tree.

But I see the ax in my father’s hands and the impatient look on the nursery owner’s face. The tree is small, no bigger than me. It should grow. Its boughs are bright green, not a faded blue-gray like some of the other, larger trees that have begun to lose their vitality. I know someone will cut it down eventually. Probably this season. But it doesn’t have to be me.

I shake my head. “Taller,” I say.

As we walk past, I look back at the little tree. Its branches curve upward, like the tiers of a pagoda. As if it’s smiling, just for me.

We choose another, more mature tree. Slim with long, less impressive branches. There are hundreds more like it at this nursery alone; thousands, probably, across Long Island. That’s why I pick it. It isn’t special. It won’t be missed.

My father fells the tree. The first hard blow of the ax reverberates through the branches. Pine needles flurry to the ground. It takes several more swings before the tree gives way. I feel my stomach lurch when it does. The nursery owner holds it down while Dad ties up the branches with twine. Together, they wrap it in burlap. Dad carries it himself, over one shoulder. His strides are long and purposeful. I try to jump from one footprint to the next, leaving no tracks of my own.

“It’s how they tie trees,” I say. “You secure the branches first to make it easier to wrap up.”

“Alfonso Morales.” We all turn at the sound of Glenn Dorsey’s voice. It feels like ages since we were on his boat with my father’s ashes. “He spent all of August working on the dune restoration project at Shinnecock County Park. I confirmed it with the South Fork Preservation Society. I’m telling you, he’s good for it.”

Lee nods. “I knew it.”

“There are a few other things I wanted to mention,” Milkowski says. There’s a slight edge in her voice, like a teacher trying to keep her students’ attention. “First, the victim was struck across the abdomen repeatedly, also postmortem. By a wooden object. We were able to withdraw a splinter, which has been sent to the lab for analysis.”