Читать книгу Dream Chasers - Barbara Fradkin - Страница 8

Lea Kovacev had travelled a mere hundred metres from where she’d probably entered the water, and had come to rest on the rocky point of a small island just below the falls. The Rideau River, having picked up speed on its plunge through the gorge, raced white and angry over the rocks below the falls and split to encircle the tiny island in its path. Only five metres of water separated the island from the eastern shore, and it was easily crossed by a person wearing rubber boots.

She was still face down in the shallow water when Green arrived, her bloated body rocking gently in the reeds and rocks that marked the shore. MacPhail was completing his examination, and Lyle Cunningham was photographing the scene. Green splashed out to join Brian Sullivan, who stood knee-deep in the river a safe distance away. The rest of the officers clustered on the eastern shore of the mainland opposite. The roar of the falls rushed in to fill the human silence that had descended on the scene.

“Likely caught underwater on a lip of rock in the gorge and only dislodged when the body began to bloat,” MacPhail intoned, showing none of the glee that usually accompanied even the grisliest of deaths. His mood was reflected in the faces of all the police officers on the scene. They had known the odds and read the danger signals, but they had hoped against all reason that they would find her alive. Dejection radiated from their slumping shoulders and their listless search of the grounds. There was no urgency now, no race against time. There never had been.

On his way to the scene, Green had pushed through the media, who were pinned back in the park above, mercifully out of sight. They were suitably sombre, waxing poetic as they spun the sparse information they’d been given into full-bodied stories of Lea’s ill-fated end. Green knew that within minutes, the news would be on all the airwaves, reaching her school, her friends, and her mother. Someone needed to get to the woman first.

He eyed the body, which appeared to be naked. Lea’s mother had said the bikini came off easily, and Green wondered whether the river had torn it free, or some human hand.

“Has MacPhail said anything about sexual assault?” he asked Sullivan.

Sullivan shook his head. “So far he’s observed no signs of trauma, except some tearing of the skin on her shoulders and hips. Post mortem, he said, likely caused by the rocks in the river.”

“Thank God for that small mercy. It might be a comfort to her mother, if anything could be. She needs to be informed before she catches the whole discovery on TV.”

Sullivan nodded. “I sent Bob Gibbs and a woman from Victim Support over to give her the news. They’ll bring her to the morgue for the ID when MacPhail gives us the word.”

The two detectives watched in silence as MacPhail prowled around the body with his powerful flashlight, probing every inch and frequently signalling Cunningham to photograph a particular detail. Cunningham’s partner could be seen stalking through the trees on the island, marking every broken beer bottle, used condom and cigarette butt to be photographed and collected. On this picturesque little island a stone’s throw from Carleton University campus, there were sure to be plenty of all three.

It felt like an eternity before MacPhail straightened up, nodded to Cunningham and headed back towards Green and Sullivan. He strode through the water, oblivious as it engulfed his hiking boots.

“I came prepared for dirt and trees, not water,” he announced in his booming Scottish brogue. Dr. Alexander MacPhail hadn’t been near the Highlands in the last thirty of his sixtyodd years, but managed to sound more Scottish with each passing year. The joke in the police force was that he was drinking up Scotland shot by shot. It did not appear to diminish his acumen one bit, however.

He snapped off his latex gloves and crushed Green’s hand in his powerful grip. “I thought you were on holidays, laddie.”

Green stifled a grimace at the thought of where the hand had just been. “I am. Just dropping by.”

“Oh, aye.” MacPhail shot him a knowing smile. “ HRH will be calling you back in, mark my words. Any time the press is going to shine a spotlight, she likes all her boys lined up neatly in a row. In their Sunday best as well,” he added, arching one eyebrow at Green’s T-shirt.

Green was wondering himself when Superintendent Devine would call. No doubt when the news of the body reached her ears. God forbid she should actually oversee the case all by herself. After ten years as Ottawa’s chief forensic pathologist, MacPhail had her pegged to a T.

“Before she calls, I’d like some facts to feed her,” Green replied. “What can you tell us?”

“Well, from the degree of putrefaction and the absence of rigor, I’d say she’s been dead about two to three days, so she likely died sometime the night she disappeared. We know she only surfaced in the past twelve hours, since your lads searched this entire area yesterday evening, but with the water still so cold, it’s difficult to estimate how long she was under beforehand.”

“Cause of death? Drowning?”

MacPhail hesitated. “Impossible to tell at this point, till I get a peek inside. There are no signs of obvious trauma, such as a gunshot wound or crushed skull. There’s water in her lungs, but that is inconclusive after three days submerged. There is some water debris in her nasal and oral passages which could also be consistent with drowning, but the debris could have been washed in post mortem.”

“Debris? Like sand?”

“And algae. But I’ll need microscopic analysis of her blood and bone marrow in order to confirm whether she was still alive when she hit the water.”

“Any other points? Sexual activity?”

“I can’t see anything forced. No bruising or tearing around the genitals. But as for consensual sex, that’s impossible to tell, given the amount of edema. She was a sexually active girl, I can tell that, and with any luck the river won’t have washed away all the semen if she had intercourse before she died.”

With any luck, Green thought. Semen would go a long way towards pinpointing who she’d been with the night she died, and perhaps unravelling the mystery of how she’d ended up in the water without any clothes. Even if her ultimate death proved to be drowning by misadventure, that mystery lover had a lot to answer for.

“However,” MacPhail was saying, and the twinkle in his blue eyes stirred Green’s interest, “there is one thing, difficult to detect with the edema and the discoloration. I’ll know more when I can get her on the table this afternoon, so I may have a more definitive answer for you then.”

Green’s eyes narrowed. “What thing?”

“Ach, it’s naught but a wee tiny detail. Better lighting or a close look at the tissue will do the trick.”

“What wee tiny detail?”

MacPhail swept his hand in invitation towards the body, grinning. “Shall we take a look?”

Green grimaced. He knew he should be taking a close look at the body, but the words edema and discoloration were deterrent enough. “Just tell me.”

MacPhail laughed then lunged forward to grip Green by the upper arms. Green jumped back reflexively, thinking he meant to drag him over to the body, but in the next instant the doctor softened his grip and struck a didactic pose. “She’s got these very small dark spots on her arms that could be bruises. Just like someone’s thumbs were holding her very hard. Mind you, with the degree of putrefaction and the time in the water...”

“So you’re saying it’s possible she didn’t drown accidentally?”

“I’m not saying that. Odds are she did. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be packing away your interview forms and your evidence kits just yet.”

Before Green could even digest the implications, a highpitched scream echoed down the river bank, and all three men spun around to see a commotion in the woods by the shoreline.