Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(7)

She spotted her partner, Detective Peabody, walking fast toward the crime scene tape. “We’ll follow up now. Peabody.” Eve crossed to the tape.

“Sorry! Subway glitch, so I ditched it. I put half a mile on my feet and shift just started.”

“Yoga guy there found the body. The uniforms got his statement. Follow up before you let him go.”

“Got it.” Peabody took off her rainbow sunshades, slid them into a pocket of her jacket. Maybe the sun beamed, but she knew how Eve felt about rainbow sunshades on the job. “She looks like a kid.”

“She was. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen. I’ll take the body, you take the wit.”

Eve turned, walked back, crouched down.

Opening her field kit, she took out her Identi-pad first and pressed it to the victim’s right thumb.

“Victim is identified as Mina Rose Cabot, age thirteen, of Devon, Pennsylvania. Caucasian, red and green. Five feet, four inches, a hundred and six pounds. Parents, Rae and Oliver Cabot, same address, one sib, Ethan, age eleven.”

She got out her gauges. “TOD, twenty-three-oh-six. COD appears to be the approximately eighteen-inch-by-three-inch piece of wood or wood product impaled mid-chest. ME to confirm, lab to verify weapon.”

With her sealed hands, Eve picked up and examined the victim’s. “Some bruising on the knuckles, some dried blood.” She took a sample of the blood, sealed it, then put on microgoggles, studied both palms. “Looks like a couple splinters in the palms, both hands. Blood on the shirt around the wound consistent with the injury. Some drops on the cuff of the shirt, some on the pants. Not consistent with the wound.”

She shook her head. “Where the hell did that spear thing come from?”

She sat back on her heels. “Put up a fight, didn’t you, Mina? Grabbed for the spear of wood—or maybe you held it to begin with and the killer used it against you.”

“Victim has pierced ears—two on the left, one in the right. No earrings. No shoes, no ’link, no wallet or purse. She’s got a little—looks like silver—heart on a chain. Chain’s broken.

“So the killer takes her earrings, her shoes, whatever else she had on her, but doesn’t take the necklace. Maybe heard somebody coming and ran before he could grab it. Maybe.”

She replaced her tools. “No visible facial wounds or other visible injuries. Clothes are intact. ME to check for sexual assault or rape, but it looks like a mugging gone way wrong. What the hell were you doing in New York, Mina from Pennsylvania?”

Family trip, Eve thought, a runaway? She sure as hell didn’t look like a kid who’d spent any time on the streets.

She pushed up as Peabody walked to her.

“Mr. Meadows’s statement jibes. I’ve got all his information. He’s lived here for eighteen years, works as a life coach for Healthy You and Me—thirty-three years there. Married for forty-one years. His wife’s a fitness coach, same company. His wife’s a redhead, so are their daughter and their oldest granddaughter. He said he had one horrible instant when he thought the victim was his granddaughter, Abigail. He knew it wasn’t—but he had that instant.”

“She’s Mina Cabot, from Devon, Pennsylvania. Looks like a mugging, but…” Eve looked back. “See how she’s laid out? Not posed or anything, but it’s still neat. Not like she took the spear in the chest and fell. And no grass stains on her clothes. No blood on the ground—we’ll have the sweepers check that, but … Let’s roll her.”

Together they went back to the body. Peabody sealed her hands with the can Eve passed her, then they carefully turned Mina on her side. “Let’s amend the size of the spear to closer to twenty-four inches,” noted Eve. “Look at the blood on the back of the shirt. It pierced her back. But there’s no blood under her.”

“Dump site?” Peabody asked.

“Her shirt’s damp—hasn’t dried through—and TOD confirms she died during that storm last night. But the pants? They’re dry, and the blood on them? Rain didn’t hit that.”

“They fit her though. Well, maybe just a tad short, like she had a little growth spurt.”

“Her ID lists her at five-four. Morris to verify.”

“They’re good pants. School-uniform navy.”

Eve’s eyes narrowed. “‘School uniform’?”

“That’s how they strike me. Private school uniform. They’re usually navy or gray, maybe khaki for the summer. These aren’t summer weight though.”

“Not summer weight,” Eve repeated thoughtfully. “Morris will check for rape. Why change her pants? Take her shoes—you can see by the condition of the bottom of her feet she wasn’t walking around the city barefoot. Why take her shoes, remove her earrings, take her ID, her ’link, if she had all that, but take the time to change her pants? Because I’m damned if she died in these. Or died here.”

“Pretty kid,” Peabody said. “Seriously pretty.”

“Yeah, she was. Look at her nails—fingers and toes. Perfectly kept, clean, neat. Soft hands. She hasn’t spent any time on the streets. Check with missing persons in Devon, see if they have anything on her. I’ll call for the dead wagon and the sweepers.”

Moved her here, Eve thought as she made the contacts. Set it up to look like a mugging. But it wasn’t about a pair of shoes or a pocket ’link.