Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(47)

“They drowned,” DeWinter said.

“Drowned.” Eve stepped in, looked down at the remains, up at the screen. “You can determine that, conclusively, from bones.”

“I can. You see on screen a sample of the diatoms I extracted from the bone marrow of the third victim identified. That would be—”

“Lupa Dison.”

“Yes. I also have similar samples from the first two victims, and the fourth. I’ll continue to conduct the procedure on all the remains. But I can conclude for the four on which I’ve conducted the tests, these girls drowned. The diatoms here reached the lungs and penetrated the alveolar wall, and the bone marrow. Comparing these samples to samples of water I took from the crime scene—”

Eve tossed up a hand to stop the flow. “You went back to the crime scene? Without notifying the primary?”

“I didn’t think it was necessary until I’d reached my conclusions, which indeed—in consultation with Dr. Morris—I have. Now, these unicellular organisms have a silica shell, and as you can see, truly gorgeous sculpturing. The aquatic diatom—”

“Stop.” Eve held up a hand again, added the other, and caught Morris grinning out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t want a science lesson. I need to know if you’ve found COD.”

DeWinter just frowned at her. “As I just said, drowning, in city water. While certain additives have changed or been deleted from the city’s water in the last fifteen years, the basic biology remains. Such as—”

“Stop there, too. City water? No chance of, say, pool water, river water, seawater?”

“No, again, aquatic diatoms—”

“Just no’s enough. The bathtub then. It’s not impossible to drown a girl in a sink, or just pour water down her throat, stick her head in the john. But with the lack of injury at or around time of death, the bathtub makes more sense. Plus, it’s right there if you want to drown a bunch of girls.”

She walked around the slabs as she worked it out.

“They’d have fought back if they could. Drowning’s a hard way to go. You’d flail around, kick, knock your elbows, try to grab whoever’s holding you under. They didn’t do that, according to what you’ve seen.”

“No, there were no fractures or other appearance of damage to the bones so far examined at or around TOD. However—”

“So he tranq’d them first. Just enough to make them go under easy. Enough so maybe he could bind their hands and feet, make it easier yet. Tranq them, maybe restrain them, then slide them in, hold their heads under. One at a time.”

She studied the remains again, brought the bathrooms of the crime scene into her head. “You can’t let one of the others see what you’re doing. So one at a time. Maybe you’ve got another on tap, but you can’t risk her coming around enough to make a fuss. When she’s out, you undress her. That’s practical, the clothes will add to the weight when they’re wet. And it’s more a thrill anyway, seeing that young, naked body. If she’s out enough, maybe you rape her first. Slip her a little Whore or Rabbit, even something a little milder, she won’t fight you.”

She circled around the slab as she spoke, studying the bones, seeing the flesh and blood that had once covered them.

“When you’re done with her, after you’ve watched her die, you take her out, put her on the plastic. You take the restraints off so you can use them on the next girl. And you roll her up.”

Eve looked over at Morris, nodded. “That’s how I see it. He’d probably already started the false wall, easier if he’d done that. Just leave a section of the board out. He’d put her back here, in the dark, out of sight, probably tack the board up. Nobody’s going to come in, nobody but him and the next girl.”

She shifted her gaze to DeWinter. “Does that work for you, fit with your conclusions so far?”

“Yes. Yes, it does. Though there’s no way to conclude if they were restrained as there are no signs of damage from struggling against restraints on the wrists or ankles. And it’s simply not possible to determine if they were raped.”

“It’s a theory. Let me know when you’ve done that diorama test on the others.”

“Diatom.”

“Right. And let me know if you plan to revisit the crime scene. The one about a killer returning to the scene of the crime’s a cliché for a reason. See you around, Morris.”

DeWinter took a long breath when Eve and Peabody left. “That was disturbing. It’s disturbing to be walked through murder that way, as if by the murderer.”

“It’s a particular skill of hers.”

“I can see them. The victims, the dead, through their bones. I can tell how they lived, how they died. But I wouldn’t like to have their killer inside my head.”

“Putting them there helps her find them.”

“I’m very glad that’s not my job.”

“And she sees them, too, Garnet. She sees the dead, just as you and I do.”

• • •

Eve saw them now, as she started out of the maze, the ones whose faces she knew.

“I hope you’re right about the tranqing,” Peabody said. “It wouldn’t have been so painful and terrifying that way.”