Chapter 11

Later that afternoon, something else happened.

Richard opened the rush report from the outside lab.

He sat at his desk, reading the entire page from start to finish.

When he finished, Richard removed his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Then he put his glasses back on and went through the page again.

He picked up his phone and found Chloe's contact.

But before he could hit call, he hesitated. Richard set the phone down, pulled the initial report from his drawer, and laid it out next to the comparison report on his desk.

There were two numbers on the report. One was the mitochondrial sequence number from the body, and the other was the sequence number extracted from the hair on the comb. The two lines of numbers were identical.

Richard folded the report, slipped it into the innermost pocket of his briefcase, and zipped it shut.

Then he sat there with his hands resting on the edge of the desk. He got lost in thought for a full ten minutes.

Ten minutes later, he stood up, put on his coat, and walked out of the office.

He didn't go to Samuel first, nor did he call Chloe.

Instead, he went to the archives and pulled up an old file from three years ago. It was a copy of Samuel and Emily's marriage registration. There was Emily's photo, her ID number, and her emergency contact information.

The emergency contact listed was Chloe, marked as "Friend."

Richard slipped the copy into his briefcase as well.

This was the day everything started to unravel.

*****

At ten in the morning, in the small conference room on the second floor of the forensic center, Samuel was leading the final review meeting for the unidentified female body case.

Present were Winona, Grace, Ben, and Richard, who had all been notified through the internal system.

Samuel stood in front of the projection screen, a twelve-page comprehensive report spread out before him. "Unidentified female body case, case number 2024-0017. Today, we're conducting the final review. Here's what we know so far."

He flipped to the first page. "The victim is female, aged between twenty-five and thirty-five. She was 5.4 feet tall, and her estimated weight before death was between 110 and 121 pounds.

"No obvious sharp injuries or stab wounds on her body. There's a one-inch laceration on the back of her head, probably caused when she hit something hard on the riverbed after she went into the water."

Samuel flipped to the second page. "The soft tissue on her face is extensively destroyed. Visual identification is impossible. Her fingerprints have sloughed off after being submerged for so long. Dental comparison is ongoing in the database, but so far, no matches have been found."

Winona sat in her chair with her hands folded on her notebook, looking focused.

"Let's move on to the bones," Samuel continued. "There are a couple of notable features. First, there's an old fracture on the distal end of the left radius. Looks like it healed about three to five years ago."

Grace looked up.

"Second, there's a burn scar about 0.5 inches long on the inside of the right scapula," Samuel added.

Grace's fingers curled tightly under the table.

"Third, there's a surgical scar on the lower right abdomen from an appendectomy. It looks like it healed about five to eight years ago. The stitching is an interrupted mattress stitch, which is pretty common in emergency surgeries at smaller hospitals," Samuel said.

He paused for a moment. His fingers faltered as he turned the page.

He looked up and continued, "Based on all this, our preliminary conclusion is accidental drowning. The victim's identity is still unknown. We recommend adding her to the state missing persons database for long-term comparison. Does anyone have anything to add?"

Winona was the first to speak. "I agree with closing the case. The evidence supports drowning as the cause of death. The bruise on the back of her head matches the kind of impact she'd get after falling in the water.

"As for figuring out who she is, we're stuck waiting on the dental database. I've chased them for updates, but nothing has come back yet."

Ben raised his hand. "Samuel, I resubmitted the dental data, and the format is correct this time. But the system still hasn't found any matches."

"Got it," Samuel replied.

Grace sat quietly in the corner, not saying a word. This time, she was cleaning the left lens of her glasses with the hem of her shirt.