Beneath Devil's Bridge(14)

“Would be consistent, yes,” says Backmann. She examines Leena’s hands, fingers. “Broken and torn nails.” She moves her attention down the rest of the body. “No external indication of disease. Healthy-looking girl.”

The camera flashes again. I notice that Tucker’s hands are trembling. The skin on his brow shines with sweat. I can smell the stress on him, beneath the layers of formaldehyde and disinfectant that permeate the cold room.

Dr. Backmann’s hands, however, remain steady, her demeanor calm. She’s well respected in her field. On the drive from Twin Falls, Luke told me Dr. Backmann gained her expertise in stab wounds by studying puncture holes in pigskin. She learned how to identify signs of drowning by poking at the lungs of drowned cats. The parallels with how a serial killer might study and perfect his craft with small animals are not lost on me. As Luke informed me of these things, he glanced at me and smiled. And I realized that despite his grizzled exterior and macabre experience, Sergeant O’Leary was a sweet guy with a sense of humor, and he was trying to put me at ease. It helped. A little. It also didn’t help. Because I hate that I’m such an open book, that he can so obviously read my discomfort and tell that I am way out of my professional depth.

“The body is intact,” the doc says in her gravelly tone, “but the skin on her hands and feet is starting to slip away.” Another flash of the camera. “I estimate she spent about a week in cold water.”

I clear my throat. “So she likely went into the river shortly after the bonfire, on November the fourteenth—the night she was last seen?”

Dr. Backmann glances at me. “Or the early hours of November the fifteenth. This would be consistent with my initial external observations.”

Scrapings are taken from under Leena’s nails. A number of swab samples are taken from the mouth and vaginal areas. Then, with the help of her assistant, the pathologist removes Leena’s bra and carefully disentangles and cuts away the camisole twisted around the girl’s neck. The camisole and bra go into evidence bags to be signed for by me. They will then go to the RCMP crime lab.

“Bloody discharge in her nostrils. Hmm—” She brings her magnifying glass down. “Seems to be some kind of thermal burn just inside the left nostril.” She leans closer. “And a circular red mark almost in the center of her forehead. Made by something hot. A round shape.” The camera flashes.

“Like a lit cigarette?” asks Luke.

I glance at him.

“Seen it before,” he explains quietly. “Usually on the insides of arms. Often on kids, sadly.”

Dr. Backmann nods. “Injuries are consistent with cigarette burns.”

“Someone stubbed a cigarette out on her forehead?” I ask.

“And possibly inside her nostril,” the doc says, pointing.

Silence fills the morgue. I feel sick.

Dr. Backmann reaches for forceps and begins to extract debris from the abrasions on Leena’s cheeks and forehead. “Small stones, dirt, some pine needles, and . . . pieces of bark. Stringy bark.” She puts the extracted bits of debris into a metal basin that the diener holds out for her.

I say, “Forensic techs found blood on the base of a cedar tree growing under Devil’s Bridge on the north side. Could that be cedar bark?”

“We’ll know soon enough if it’s a match to the tree, and whether the blood on the tree is a match to Leena’s,” Luke says, his attention fixed on the body.

“Bruising along the collarbone,” Dr. Backmann says as she continues the external appraisal. “A large bruise on the left side of the voice box. This bruise appears to be from a karate chop–type blow,” she says. “There are red marks on the tops of both her shoulders . . . an odd symmetry to these marks . . . almost a circle on each side.” The pathologist opens Leena’s mouth. “The teeth are clenched. Her tongue is clenched in her teeth.”

I feel time stretch as the examination for sexual assault commences.

“Evidence of genital trauma—vaginal tearing.”

My thoughts whip back to my own daughter. Anger tightens my throat. “So . . . she was sexually assaulted?”

“Signs are consistent with rough intercourse shortly before death.”

“Semen?” asks Luke.

“Lab results from swabs might tell us more,” says the doc. “But she’s been in water for a week, and if a condom was used . . .”

“Might be nothing of use left,” finishes Luke.

Dr. Backmann asks her assistant to help turn over the body.

“Extensive bruising also apparent on the decedent’s back. There’s bruising that shows a pattern of what looks like a shoe or boot imprint . . . consistent with stomping.” She measures the bruise. “Eleven inches.” The camera flashes. Tucker moves around for a better angle, shoots again.

My anger sharpens to a white-hot point in the middle of my own forehead. My skin feels hot and clammy, despite the coolness in the morgue.

“She has luxurious, long, dark hair,” the doctor says softly, dropping her clinical facade for a moment. The chink in her professional armor, the sudden glimpse of tenderness, nearly undoes me. I hold my mouth tightly shut in an effort to keep in my emotions as the diener begins shearing off the dark tresses. The hair falls away from Leena’s skull. In my mind I see her hair floating like velvet on the dark water, among the eelgrass. An Ophelia in the reeds, among the dead fish.