The Night Swim(52)

“Can we go outside? I’m not allowed to smoke here,” he said.

He took her through the morgue itself. It was a white-tiled room that smelled of antiseptic, with a wall of stainless-steel refrigerators for bodies. There was an empty metal stretcher pressed against the wall, blocking access to an external door. He rolled it out of the way and opened the door. They came out into a basement loading area. He lit a cigarette as he leaned back against a raw concrete wall.

“That was a long time ago. Why’re you asking about Jenny Stills now?” he asked.

“Her sister asked me to look into her death. I’m an investigator,” said Rachel, choosing not to mention the podcast. “Her sister was very young at the time, but she believes that her older sister was murdered. Not drowned, which was apparently the official cause of death.”

He nodded and exhaled. “She did drown. Lungs were full of water,” Stuart said.

“But?” Rachel prompted, half-shocked and half-excited that he remembered the case.

“There were bruises. All over her body,” he said. “Not from hitting rocks, like they said afterward. She’d been hit and kicked. Physically beaten. One bruise was in the pattern of the sole of a shoe. I still remember that. Looked to me as if she’d been badly hurt before she drowned.”

“Did you tell anyone?” Rachel asked.

“Did I tell anyone?” he repeated. “Of course I did. I told the medical examiner. Usually he’ll discuss a case like that with me. When I asked afterward what had come out of the autopsy and whether the police were investigating, he was evasive. I asked a friend on the force who confirmed there was no police investigation under way. So, I did the only thing that I could do.”

“Which was?”

“Went to see the girl’s mother. She was in bed. Could barely sit up. Told her that I thought there was more to it than a drowning. That there had been bruises and cuts on her daughter’s body that looked suspicious. Told her that if she wrote a letter requesting an inquest then the authorities would have to look into it properly. I told her to ask for them to investigate it as a potential homicide. I waited while she wrote the letter and then I mailed it for her.”

“Why did you think it was a homicide?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t know if it was a homicide, but it sure was suspicious. Those fresh injuries on her body should have been enough for a homicide investigation. I said as much to the medical examiner at the time. He wouldn’t hear a word of it.”

“The newspaper said there was no investigation. Why?”

“Town was burying those two boys. They died the same night. Drove into a tree. By the time everyone was done grieving, the girl’s mother was dead and there was nobody pushing for an investigation. I’d done everything I could do,” he said. “Couldn’t do any more without risking my job. I had a young family. Needed the income.”

“Is the medical examiner still in town?” Rachel asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Stuart, dropping his cigarette to the ground and stubbing it out with the toe of his shoe. “He’s in town, all right, but six foot under. Dropped dead of a heart attack a good fifteen years ago. Maybe more. We’ve been through three MEs since then.”

He walked back inside, Rachel following behind. “Come with me,” he said with the whispered urgency of someone about to share a secret.

He went through the morgue to his office, where he unlocked the bottom corner filing cabinet. From the back, he retrieved a repurposed rectangular cookie tin. He took off the lid and handed it to Rachel. Inside were faded photographs of a young girl lying on a stretcher. Her hair was wet and her eyes were closed. Her skin was a bluish hue of death.

Rachel went through the photos of Jenny Stills’s body. There were close-ups of ugly bruises on her legs, shoulders, and stomach. Rachel couldn’t imagine how such bruises could have been caused from hitting rocks. More surprising, the photos of Jenny’s head didn’t seem to show any cuts or abrasions. Surely, if Jenny had died from hitting rocks, there would have been injuries to her head. It made no sense.

“Who took the photos?” Rachel asked.

“The medical examiner took these on the morgue camera immediately after she was brought in here and before she was transferred to the county morgue. A week later, he stopped by and asked me for the camera film. He was in a panic. I smelled a rat,” Stuart said.

“In what way?” Rachel asked.

“Can’t say exactly. He was very political. Always brownnosing. The way he asked made me suspicious.”

“So what did you do?”

“Told him I’d thrown out the camera film undeveloped, said there was no point wasting money developing film of an accidental drowning victim. We had big budget cuts around that time, so it wasn’t unusual to do that sort of thing. He never asked me again.”

“Why did you keep the photos all these years?” Rachel asked.

“I suppose it was in case someone like you came calling one day. Never expected it would take this long,” he said, sorting through the photos and giving Rachel a handful.

“Why do you think nobody followed up?” Rachel asked.

“Because it was more convenient for people if that girl’s death was put down as an accident.”