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"Good morning, Pakad Sharavi," the man said with mock deference. He held a test tube up to the sunlight, shook it gently, and placed it in an open evidence case.
"Steinfeld," acknowledged Daniel. He ran his eyes over the site. Searching for revelations, seeing only the gray of stone, the dun of soil. Torsos of olive trees twisting through the dust, their tops shimmering silver-green. A kilometer of sloping rocky field; beyond it the deep, narrow valley of Wadi el Joz. Sheikh Jarrah, with its jumble of alleys and vanilla-colored houses. Flashes of turquoise: wrought-iron grills painted in the hue the Arabs believed would repel evil spirits. The towers and steeples of the American colony meshing with tangles of television ante
No blood spatter, no trail of crushed foliage, no bits of clothing adhering conveniently to jutting tree limbs. No geographical confession. Just a white form lying under a tree. Isolated, ovoid, out of place. Like an egg dropped out of the sky by some giant, careless bird.
"Did Dr. Levi have anything to say after his examination?" he asked.
"Clucked his tongue a lot." Steinfeld picked up another test tube, examined it, put it down.
Daniel noticed several plaster casts in the case and asked, "Any clear footprints?"
"Just those of the Hagah man," the technician said disgustedly. "If there were others, he obliterated them. He also threw up. Over there." He pointed to a dry, whitening patch a meter to the left of the sheet. "Missed the body. Good aim, eh?"
The woman was a new hire named Avital. She knelt in the dirt, taking samples of leaves, twigs, and dung, scooping them into plastic bags, working quickly and silently with an intent expression on her face. When she'd sealed the bags she looked up and grimaced. "You don't want to look at this one, adoni.'
"How true," said Daniel. He got down on his knees and lifted up the sheet.
The face had been left intact. It lay tilted in an u
How old could she have been? he thought. Fifteen, maybe sixteen? A hot anger kindled in his abdomen. Avital was staring at him and he realized he was clenching his fists. Quickly he relaxed them, felt the fingertips tingle.
"Was the hair like this when you found it?" he asked.
"Like what?" asked Steinfeld.
"Clean. Combed."
The technicians looked at each other.
"Yes," said Avital.
Steinfeld nodded and paused expectantly, as if waiting for another question. When none came he shrugged and went back to work.
Daniel leaned in closer and sniffed. The stench of death had begun to issue from the corpse but through it he made out the clean, sweet scent of soap. Someone had washed her.
He raised his head and continued examining the face. The mouth hung slightly agape, revealing a hint of white but widely spaced teeth. The lower ones were crowded and chipped. An upper canine was missing. Not a rich girl. Pierced ears but no earrings. No tribal tattoos, scars, birthmarks, or blemishes.
"Any identification?"
"Life should be so easy," said Steinfeld.
Daniel stared a bit longer, then ceased his inspection of individual features. Shifting his perspective, he regarded the face as an entity and searched for ethnic characteristics. She appeared Oriental, but that meant little. It was a rare Jerusalem face that told a definite ethnic story-Arab, Ashkenazi, Druze, Bukharan, Armenian. Each had its prototype, but the overlap was substantial. He'd seen too many blond, blue-eyed Arabs, too many swarthy Germans to be confident about racial guesses. Still, it would have been nice to find something, somewhere to start
A shiny green fly settled on the lower lip and began exploring. He shooed it away. Forced his eyes downward.
The throat had been cut deeply from ear to ear, severing gullet and trachea, separating the ivory knobs of the spinal cord, millimeters from complete decapitation. Each small breast was circled by stab wounds. The abdomen had been sliced open under the ribs on the right side, swooping down to the pelvis and back up to the left. Glossy bits of tissue peeked out from under the flap of the wound. The pubic region was an unrecognizable mass of gore.
The fire in his belly intensified. He covered the body from the neck down.
"She wasn't killed here," he said.
Steinfeld shook his head in agreement. "Not enough blood for that. Almost no blood at all, in fact. Looks as if she's been drained."
"What do you mean?"
Steinfeld pointed to the wound flap. "No blood on the body. What's visible under the wound looks pale-like a lab specimen. Drained."
"What about semen?"
"Nothing conspicuous-we took scrapings. Levi's internal will tell you more."
Daniel thought of the destruction that had been visited upon the genitals. "Do you think Dr. Levi will be able to get anything from the vaginal vault?"
"You'll have to ask Dr. Levi." Steinfeld snapped the evidence case shut.
"Someone cleaned her up thoroughly," said Daniel, more to himself than to the techs.
"I suppose."
There was a camera next to the case.
"You've taken your pictures?"
"All the usual ones."
"Take some extra ones. Just in case."
"We've already shot three rolls," said Steinfeld.
"Shoot more," said Daniel. "Let's not have a repeat of the Aboutboul disaster."
"I had nothing to do with Aboutboul," said Steinfeld, defensively. But the look on his face bespoke more than defensiveness.
He's horrified, thought Daniel, and fighting to hide it. He softened his tone.
"I know that, Meir."
"Some defective from Northern District on loan to the National Staff," the technician continued to complain. "Takes the camera and opens it in a lighted room-bye-bye evidence."