Free Picture Me Dead by Heather Graham

never, in all his years of work, lost compassion for the victims, whether of accident or violence. “We’ll find out who she is,” he assured Jake.
    â€œI need your findings on this as fast as possible,” Jake said.
    Gannet nodded. “Naturally,” he said, a slight touch of sarcasm in his voice. Unfortunately, untimely deaths occurred with a certain frequency in the county. He looked up at Jake again. “Don’t worry. I intend to get right on this one.” He stared at Jake a moment longer. Maybe he knew Gannet too well, Jake thought.
    During the last spate of similar murders, Jake had worked the case aggressively on behalf of the victims. Even after the suicide of the “confessed” killer. And even after Bordon’s incarceration.
    For the victims.
    And because he’d suspected that Bordon had been involved in another death, as well.
    Another death…Nothing like this. But far too close to home. Nancy’s death.
    Not too many others on the force had agreed with him on that one. They’d thought he was creating scenarios of Bordon’s guilt because he had to find a guilty party and couldn’t accept a verdict of accidental death in the case of a fellow cop.
    Or even suicide, as some had suggested.
    Suicide. Never. It was a theory to be rejected entirely. No one who’d known her could ever even begin to accept such a possibility.
    â€œAre you going to be all right with this?” Gannet asked softly.
    â€œYou bet. I’m a professional, Gannet. And if we do need to make comparisons to past cases, there’s no one out there who knows both the facts and the theories better than I do.”
    â€œYeah, you’re right,” Gannet said. Gloves on, he looked over the remains. Two assistants from the morgue had arrived to take the body when Gannet and the scene-of-crime investigators had finished their site inspection. Gannet nodded an acknowledgment to the others and quietly asked them to make sure they included the dirt and scrub around the body when they removed it from the site.
    â€œAny idea on the actual cause of death?” Jake asked.
    â€œNot natural,” Gannet said.
    â€œWow. I don’t have a medical degree, and I knew that.”
    Gannet grimaced at him. “Knife…big knife. Maybe a machete.”
    Jake looked at him in surprise. “There’s not enough flesh—”
    â€œA few courses in forensics and you’d see this just fine.”
    â€œI’ve had a few forensics courses,” Jake reminded him dryly.
    â€œMaybe. But the condition of the corpse makes it hard to see the forest for the trees. Almost literally. Shift this foliage and filth around a little and you get a good look at the bone. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s covered with dirt. But see? If you look really closely…the scratch there? I have to do a full autopsy, but I’d bet we’re talking a very large blade. And you’d need a blade to do that to the ears…and the features. The animals have been at her, but still…those aren’t teeth marks. Definitely made by a blade. And, as we’ve both seen, the flesh was removed from the fingers. You’ve been at this a while, and you seem to know more than you let on most of the time, because you want me to make what you’re already pretty damned sure you do know, official. Yeah, animals have been at her. But the flesh from her fingers was cut off, not gnawed away, or simply decomposed.”
    â€œHell. This is more than déjà vu. We could definitely be talking the same—” Jake began.
    â€œFrom what I see so far, yes, but don’t go taking anything as absolute yet. Let me get her down to the morgue. And don’t forget, Jake, what we both already know, as well. There can be copycats out there. There have been cases where murders have been researched and studied and duplicated almost perfectly. There are victims assumed to have been murdered