“We’re not,” I say.“But we received instructions from someone at the club after Rouge told Alissa that May had been suspended for breaking the club’s rules.Those instructions led us to where her head was buried in this hatbox.”
“We need you to run some tests,” Alissa says.“If we can match her dental records or DNA, we might be able to link this back to Rouge.She was the one who brought her over from her native Vietnam.”
“And if you can find out how she was killed, that might be helpful too,” I add.
Bill shifts his gaze.“I would presume decapitation.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”I roll my eyes.“But is there something else?If we can figure out the nature of her death, we might be able to backtrack from her last known location.Another way to pin this on Rouge or her allies.Is there anything you can tell us from her head alone?”
“And her hands,” Alissa says.“The fingertips are burned off, but her hands are in the box, too.”
“Of course,” Bill says.“It isn’t often, but we do occasionally have to perform autopsies with only a portion of the body of the deceased.”He puts on a pair of latex gloves, removes May’s head from the hatbox, and places it on the exam table.He pulls back her eyelids and looks into her lifeless eyes.“Ah, I thought so.”
“What is it?”I ask.
“Petechial hemorrhages.”He shines a light into May’s eyes and then takes some notes in a pad.“Tiny red spots in her eyes.Often the result of death by strangulation or suffocation.”He places May’s head on its side.“Her throat is intact as well.I may be able to examine it to see if strangulation was indeed the method of choice for whoever did this.”He continues to examine the base of her neck.“The cut is clean.Her head was removed with something sharp.Not a lot of evidence of excessive bleeding, which may imply a perimortem decapitation.”
“Meaning?”I ask.
“The decapitation occurred at or near the time of death,” Bill replies.“If the heart was still beating when the head was removed, there would be significant evidence of blood loss, which I’m not seeing here.”
“So Rouge strangled her first?”Alissa asks.“Are you absolutely sure about that?”
“I can only tell you what I’m seeing from a preliminary scan,” Bill says.“A more in-depth analysis will take more time.”He looks up at me.“How long do you have?”
I frown.“I mean, it’s obviously important to us, but it’s not like there’s a ticking clock.”
Bill cocks his head.“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Maddox.If you’re on Rouge Montrose’s shitlist, it’s entirely possible that you could have a target on your back.”He puts May’s head back in the hatbox and places it in one of his refrigerated drawers.“Did anyone see you between now and the discovery of this young woman’s head?”
“No.”
“Not exactly true,” Alissa says.“We were stopped by a cop on the way here.And he noticed the hatbox.Asked some questions.”
“Fuck.”I rub my forehead.“She’s right.And the chief of police is a member of the club.”
Bill raises a hand.“I don’t mean to alarm you.It’s likely that a minor traffic stop won’t get back to the chief of police.And even if it does, if the police officer didn’t search the vehicle, they have nothing to go on.I will do my examination of the head as discreetly as possible, but I would suggest that the two of you keep a low profile over the next few days until things blow over.”
“Fair enough.We’ll do that,” Alissa says.“But will you be able to verify her identity?If we can learn her last name, maybe we can get in contact with her family.Let them know what happened to her.”
“Her teeth are intact, so we can try our hand at comparing dental records.”Bill jots a few more notes on his pad.“You said her given name was May, correct?”
I nod.“We don’t know her last name, though.But if you can figure it out, we might be able to dig up her immigration papers.From there we can at least tie Rouge into this as a person of interest.”
“You could,” Bill says.“But you two aren’t the first people who have tried to take down Rouge Montrose.A woman of her stature is too big to fall, no matter what horrible acts she’s done.”His lip twitches.“And that’s assuming that she had anything to do with this at all.”
My heart sinks.
We really don’t have much of a case.The only reason we found May in the first place is because of the riddle that got placed in my jacket pocket.We don’t know who the message came from.The only information we have right now is that May was suspended yesterday afternoon for breaking the rules, and sometime between then and now her head ended up buried in the green space by O’Hare.
We have that…and my memory of that dark day in the club when Rouge took me to her private quarters.
My memory that could be completely fabricated.I was on a cocktail of mind-altering drugs.
What I saw… What IthinkI saw…
If it was real, then Rouge is absolutely the one responsible for this.
But Rouge is also a genius.She’s exceptionally good at wriggling herself out of any bind.I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone has figured out what she’s up to—what shemaybe up to—and she’s probably got a plan for any given eventuality.
