Evil – #1

AT THE VERY BEGINNING, she had seen his face and knew he would not let her live.

She couldn’t plead with him, he’d sealed her mouth shut. No way to beg, to appeal to his humanity. He had no humanity. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Had she been so blind that when he looked at her she couldn’t see the hatred, the anger, the sick lust?

She’d trusted him because she had no reason not to, but looking at him now, she saw the evil he’d hidden so well for so long.

The pain that had kept her awake for two nights had dulled, her body numb from abuse. She didn’t think about it, didn’t think about him, turned into herself, and remembered swimming at the beach. Or talking to her friends. Or how her mom was so proud of her when she graduated high school with honors.

Burning tears leaked from her eyes.

I’m so sorry, Mom.

He untied her once, to give her a bath. She was too weak to run, too tired to fight. But fierce pain reawakened when he scrubbed her body with soap, making her scream, a deep rumbling in her chest that couldn’t escape through her glued lips.

“I need to wash your body,” he told her calmly. “Just in case.”

Just in case of what? The water hurt, but it also woke her up. Maybe she had a chance. Maybe she could escape. If she could just scream, someone would come. Wouldn’t they?

She didn’t even know where she was.

He carried her back to the bed that reeked of her blood, her urine, and worse. She tried to get up, to run, but her legs gave way and she slipped to the floor. He gave an odd, coarse laugh at her weak attempt to escape before picking her up as if she weighed nothing and dropping her on the bed.

Then she saw the garbage bag.

No!

She heard herself but no one else could as the bag came over her head. She fought him with everything she had and the bag tore.

Slap.

The pain across her face was nothing compared to what she had already endured, but her strength didn’t match his. Another dark green plastic bag slid down over her face. She tried to hold her breath but couldn’t. Something else was pulled over her legs. She began to fade. She almost didn’t feel him tie up her body. She was light, a feather.

Death was her escape. There had to be something better than this, something brighter, something happy.

A heavy weight covered her body. Him. He was on top of her and she couldn’t breathe.

Plastic molded to her nose and her chest tightened.

No air…

She couldn’t fight, but her body tried. Her legs weakly kicked, her fingers clawed at the slick lining.

So tired. Can’t.

In the brief moment between life and death, when her body fought but her mind knew there was no hope, an odd peace washed over her.

I’m sorry, Mom.

HER DEATH HAD NOT BEEN EASY.

Homicide detective Carina Kincaid stared at the dead, naked corpse of the young woman, avoiding the wide-eyed terror etched on her face. Her mouth was gagged, but what drew Carina’s eye was the word slut scrawled in thick black marker across her chest. A small red rose was tattooed on her left breast.

The victim lay in a disjointed fetal position, dried blood on her legs and vicious red welts on her breasts, indicating that her murder had followed a sexual assault. In California, that made the killer eligible for the death penalty. One small step toward justice, but it didn’t satisfy Carina. This Jane Doe would still be dead.

She glanced away from the body, just for a moment, and watched the waves roll up the beach. Back and forth, calming. Her cheeks stung from the early-morning salt air, but in just a few hours she’d be tugging off her windbreaker as the sun peaked over San Diego.

When she first arrived on the scene with Jim Gage, supervisor of the Forensic Field Services Unit of the San Diego Police Department, they immediately documented that the evidence had been contaminated. Three layers of heavy-duty green garbage bags had been cut away from the body. The park ranger hadn’t been able to lift what he thought was trash, so he sliced it open. What had he been thinking?

“I didn’t think there was a body inside,” he’d said when Carina questioned him.

By the tension in Jim’s jaw, it was obvious that he was pissed. But true to form he didn’t say anything. He never said anything, which had been the primary reason Carina had broken up with him last year. She could handle his moodiness-she had four brothers, she could put up with almost anything-but his refusal to talk about what bugged him, on the job and off, was a relationship breaker.

Or maybe they hadn’t loved each other enough to make it work.

Carina glanced behind them when she heard a car approach. The coroner’s van pulled into the empty parking lot and a short, trim, well-dressed Asian man exited the vehicle. Assistant Coroner Ted Chen, the perfectionist. Carina liked it when he pulled one of her cases, even if he made her a bit self-conscious. She triple-checked her reports when he was the responding coroner, afraid to appear the novice despite her nearly eleven years on the job.

“Doctor Chen is here,” she told Jim.

“Hmm.” Jim finished photographing the body and surrounding area, glancing up as Doctor Chen crossed the sand to where the body lay. “Hello, Ted.”

“Gage. Detective.” Chen nodded toward the victim. “Was the body found in this condition?”

“The bag had been intact. The park ranger opened it.”

“Why on earth would he do that?”

Jim removed his wire-rim glasses and rubbed his eyes with his forearm. “Thought it was filled with garbage and planned on taking multiple trips to dispose of the contents.”

Chen shook his head in disgust, his thin lips a tight line. He knelt in the sand, careful to prevent further granules from rolling into the plastic. “She suffocated,” he said quietly.

“You mean she was put into the bag alive?” Carina asked for clarification.

“It would appear so, but the crime lab will need to go over the bag to confirm it,” Chen said. “See her discoloration?” The victim appeared bluish, almost purple. “No oxygen. No sign of strangulation, and no blood in her eyes or ears to indicate it, either. I can give you a better answer at the autopsy.” He glanced at his watch. “I have three autopsies scheduled this morning, but I’ll postpone the afternoon schedule to fit her in.”

“Thanks, Doctor Chen. I appreciate it.”

“I’ll have her on the table at two.”

Carina nodded, caught Jim staring at her, his face unreadable. “You going to join us?” she asked.

“We’ll see how far my team can get with the bag. We’re backlogged as it is.”

No surprise. Contrary to popular television, most evidence wasn’t processed until a suspect was apprehended and a court date set. The wheels of justice also turned the cogs of the laboratory.

Carina forced herself to stare at the victim’s face while Chen and Jim prepared her for transportation to the morgue. She looked so young. Eighteen, maybe. Was she a college student? There were two universities within spitting distance of the beach. Maybe she was still in high school.

She thought about her baby sister. Well, Lucy wasn’t a baby anymore. She was a high school senior and smart enough to go to just about any college she wanted. Their parents wanted her to stay close to home; Lucy desperately wanted to move away. But college campuses were dangerous, and Carina found herself siding with her parents on this one.