I swallowed, trying to remain calm. I stared at the young girl, then thought of my own daughter Charlene.
“Anything to identify her?”
He shook his head. “She’s barely wearing any clothes.”
“Did she drown?” I asked.
“That’s what I thought at first.”
Uh-oh. I didn’t like the sound of that.
“But…?”
He sighed, then pointed at the girl’s neck. Seeing this made me close my eyes briefly to compose myself. I had seen bruises like these before.
“Death by asphyxiation,” I said. “She was strangled.”
He nodded. “That would be my initial judgment yes. But of course, I can’t tell you with certainty until after the autopsy. I will have to open her up and see if she has water in her lungs, to determine if she was dead before she fell in.”
“Someone hurt her,” I said, “whether that’s what killed her or not.”
He exhaled. “Yes, and the bruises are very likely made by a rope or a cord of some sort that was wrapped around her throat from behind.”
I rubbed the bridge between my eyes. It was always worse when it was children. “All right. I need that autopsy ASAP,” I told Dr. Phillips. I stood up. In the meantime, it was my job to find out who this poor girl was.
SIXMARISSA
Marissa could hear her own pulse. It was pounding in her ears, making it impossible for her to hear anything else. She tried to listen to the chatter among the spectators as she elbowed her way through the crowd. Words like body and child were among those she heard, and they terrified her. She wanted to get closer to the pond, so she could see.
“Excuse me,” she said and pushed her way past a man. He grumbled something angrily at her, but moved aside.
“Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.”
She continued till she could see the police blockade and the officer guarding it. Then she stopped. She didn’t want to get so close they might see her in the crowd. Instead, she stood on her tippy-toes, and soon she could see enough for her to realize that there were people in blue bodysuits crowding the area. She knew enough to realize that there had to be a body.
Her heart stopped.
Could it be her Emma?
She had been searching for her all over the house, and even in the attic. She had then taken her bike and ridden around the neighborhood, searching for her everywhere and also around the pond. But she had been nowhere to be found. All day and the entire night, she had looked for her everywhere. She had passed out when she returned home, before she was woken up by the sound of sirens and saw police car after police car arrive, along with an ambulance.
She had watched them from the house, heart throbbing, paralyzed, until she worked up the courage to approach the crowd.
“Excuse me, I was actually standing there,” a voice said behind her. “And now you’re blocking my view.”
Marissa turned to look at the woman behind her. She was short and stubby and wearing a red T-shirt that read:
IF YOU THINK I’M SHORT, YOU SHOULD SEE MY PATIENCE.
Marissa stared at her, confused. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
She moved to the side and found another spot where she could see. The area where she believed the body to be was covered by a screen, so she had to hunch down by the edge of it where there was a small crack. The crowd surrounding the pond was growing rapidly as news spread fast about the finding of a body. It wasn’t every day that type of thing happened in their quaint little town. This would be something the neighbors would talk about for years to come. Mostly the chatter was about the sight of a coyote or the one time someone claimed to have seen a black panther on the beach. Most people believed it had just been a big black housecat, but it was still a topic they discussed from time to time. That and then the rocket launches.
Please tell me it’s not my daughter.
Marissa could barely breathe as she watched a female police officer walk toward the body, and a man pull off the sheet. It was hard to see properly through the crack. She braced herself for it, told herself it probably was her daughter, and she prepared herself for the shock it would be to lose the biggest love of her life.
Marissa gasped lightly as she could see the color of the girl’s hair. She tried to move, yet she still couldn’t see much. She felt like someone was sitting on her chest, but as the sheet was removed completely, she slowly realized this wasn’t her worst nightmare.
It wasn’t Emma.
Baffled at this, Marissa rose back up, then backed out of the crowd and rushed back into her house, where she closed the door and fell onto her knees behind it, crying.
This might not have been her nightmare, but she had a feeling it was about to become something even worse.
SEVENBILLIE ANN
I searched for Tom and found him still talking to the responding officer. I approached him, wondering how we were going to identify our victim. Dr. Phillips had told me he believed her to be between fourteen and fifteen years old, but that was all we knew so far. Would we have to wait for forensics to get a look at her teeth? Would we be combing through missing person records? As far as I was aware there were no children missing—no one had reported anything yesterday or the day before.
“What have you got?” I asked.
“Officer Steele here was first on scene,” Tom said. “Got the call at seven forty-one on his radio while on traffic patrol nearby. A runner found the body in the pond when she was out on her morning jog. I talked to her and got her statement, but she couldn’t help us much. She was very shocked and could just tell me that she saw the body bobbing on the surface then called nine-one-one.”
“Okay, we will keep her name on the notepad for now,” I said, “and focus on finding out who the girl is. Has anyone reported a teenage girl missing in town? I haven’t heard of it, and usually it’s something we all know about from the second it happens. There have been no reports, have there? No search parties?”
Tom shook his head. “Nope. I called the Chief just to be certain, and he said they heard nothing.”
“Does anyone know this girl?” I asked.
