Novak nodded before stepping past her into the small room. The air was dry, but there was no scent of rotting flesh. “Natasha, what do you have?”
Her gaze sparked with keen curiosity. “A woman who was locked in this room, which was probably a root cellar at one time. By the looks of her clothes, I’d say she’s been here around twenty-five years.”
“Twenty-five years?” Novak pulled dark-rimmed glasses from his pocket and slid them on as he accepted a flashlight from Natasha. “Were you born twenty-five years ago?”
Natasha glanced in her viewfinder. “Barely. You?”
“Very funny,” he said. The forensic technician looked like a kid. Natasha Warner couldn’t have been much older than his daughter. Frequent workouts kept Novak’s body trim, but the glasses and the flecks of gray at his temples gave away his approaching forty-second birthday.
Lying on the floor were skeletal remains of a body appearing to be lying on its back, arm and leg bones outstretched. The mandible, or lower jaw, was slightly agape. The clothing was intact and amounted to what remained of a faded pair of jeans with yellow and white flowers embroidered on the pockets and a pale-blue blouse with a wide collar and cuffs. What had been the victim’s long red hair remained partially intact and still knotted into a braid that draped over her shoulder.
“You said female,” he said.
“Clothing is one clue, but the deciding factor is her brow ridge. It’s thin, indicating female.”
“She’s only bones.”
“In Virginia’s hot and humid climate, this kind of decomposition is expected. And she’s intact because she was in a sealed room. Animals would have scattered her bones if she had been outside.”
Novak studied the position of the arms and legs. “She looks posed.”
“Or she did it herself,” Natasha said. “I worked a suicide once that was like this. The woman took a couple handfuls of pills and then laid herself out on her bed.”
“Presenting herself to the Almighty?” Novak asked.
Natasha shrugged. “Her husband said they’d argued that morning and she’d promised to ‘show him.’ He said the suicide was an f-you message to him.”
The summary struck a sharp nerve. His late wife had killed herself. But she’d not chosen pills. That was too passive for Stephanie. No, she’d driven her car into a lake. The kicker had been that she’d strapped Bella, their one-year-old, into her car seat. Fortunately, someone had seen Stephanie’s car plunge into the water. Bella had been pulled out as Stephanie screamed and fought to be left alone. The lake had quickly sucked under the car, and by the time Stephanie had been pulled from the water, she was dead.
Two days later, a letter from Stephanie posted the day she died had arrived at their home. In it, she blamed him for her dark moods and miserable life. At the time, he’d been too damn angry to care about why. She’d tried to kill Bella, and that was unforgivable.
His father had moved in with them, helping with child care while Novak worked. From then on, his priorities had been simple. Raise Bella and catch bad guys. She’d been an easy kid. Smart. Funny. Strong. His father had passed two years ago, and when Bella had left for the University of Virginia last year, he’d thought he’d finally get a chance to enjoy a bachelor’s life. Instead, the house remained too empty. Too quiet. Until a few weeks ago, he’d pacified the restless silence with extra work.
Novak thought again about the woman he’d left in her warm bed. For the first time in a long while, he resented the job. “Any sign of a weapon or pills?”
“None.” Natasha nodded toward the far corner behind Novak. “I did find a purse in the corner, but I haven’t opened it yet.”
“How about a suicide letter?”
“None that I’ve seen.”
Novak studied the skull still attached to the neck vertebrae. A small heart-shaped gold pendant winked at the base of what had been her throat. He crouched by the remains and inspected the skull closely. “What’s this on the underside of her skull?”
Natasha came around to the other side and turned the skull gently until a one-inch round fracture became visible. “I take back what I said about suicide.”
“Looks like the size of a hammer’s head,” he said.
“I’ll leave the cause of death to the medical examiner.”
“Is the medical examiner’s office sending someone?” The medical examiner had jurisdiction over any crime-scene body. Sometimes they sent a technician, and sometimes they allowed the local jurisdiction to transport the remains to their morgue.
“Dr. Tessa McGowan is on call. I spoke to her and told her what we have. She’ll be here in about a half hour.”
Dr. McGowan was new. He’d crossed paths with her once and had been impressed. “You check the dead woman’s pockets?”
“All empty.”
“Mind if I have a look at the purse?”
“No, go ahead. Let me photograph you as you go.”
His long legs crossed the confined space in a couple of strides. He squatted in front of a small black purse trimmed with fringe. As Natasha photographed, he slowly opened the purse.
Inside was a smooth leather wallet. The folds creaked and protested as he opened it. Natasha took more pictures. There were fifteen one-dollar bills in the side pouch, and in the change pocket were a few nickels, a dime, and a penny. The coins dated back to the sixties and seventies. One penny was minted in 1991. He shifted to a small compartment, which contained a Virginia driver’s license for a Rita Marie Gallagher born in 1969. Her address was a suburban Far West End apartment complex located near the hospital. He snapped pictures of the license with his phone.
Rita Gallagher’s identification picture featured a smiling young woman with long bright-red hair and a round face. She was wearing the same gold necklace as the corpse. The license stated her height at five foot three inches. “The body matches the description on the license. Unless the medical examiner finds evidence to suggest otherwise, I’d say this is Rita Gallagher,” he said.
In the wallet were a handful of receipts. One from a fast-food chain that was so faded he couldn’t read the date. Another was from a clothing store. It was handwritten in blue ballpoint pen and detailed the purchase of a new pair of jeans and blouse on November 1, 1992, at a Regency Square Mall. The description on the clothing receipt matched what she was wearing. “The receipt places her at the mall over twenty years ago.” Rita Gallagher would have been twenty-three in 1992 when she had purchased the last outfit she’d ever wear.