Free Merciless by Mary Burton

help?”
    “Always.”

Chapter 6
    Wednesday, October 5, 11 A.M.
    Malcolm and Garrison arrived at the Commonwealth’s Northern District medical examiner’s office. Though the center was located in the neighboring county, the office served the entire Northern Virginia area, which included Alexandria.
    They pushed through the metal doors on Dr. Henson’s floor. Immediately, the strong scent of bleach greeted them as they moved down the tiled hallway. Fluorescent bulbs cast a bright, if not antiseptic light on the entire floor.
    Malcolm hated this place. He hated the smell, the gray tones, and the feel of death that hovered here. This place was a necessary evil that he would endure for the case.
    He checked his watch. “Henson has had the bones seven hours. She said she’d get right on them.”
    Autopsies often required a twenty-four to forty-eight-hour turnaround at best, but if Henson said a case rose to the top of her list, it did.
    They reached the last set of doors and pushed through. They found Dr. Henson in Examining Room Three. She wore green scrubs, a mask with an eye guard, and a cap. She leaned over a stainless-steel exam table that now held the bones laid out in anatomical order. Her assistant Bruce, also dressed in scrubs, stood with a clipboard in hand.
    “Dr. Henson,” Malcolm said.
    She glanced up. “Detectives.”
    “Thought we’d swing by and see if you’ve made progress.”
    “I only just received the dental records from Ms. Day’s dentist and was preparing to compare them to the teeth in Jane Doe’s mouth. It might take me another few hours before I can get to it.”
    “Anything you can tell us so far?”
    “My earlier assumptions were correct. Female. Mid-twenties. She had healthy bones. Didn’t suffer from malnutrition, and she did have good dental care. She had veneers put in fairly recently.”
    “Sierra’s husband said he paid for his wife’s veneers,” Malcolm said.
    She cocked a brow. “Really?”
    Moving to a desk, she picked up a manila file, pulled x-rays, and stuck them on a light box. “Might as well have a look now.”
    Henson leaned into the film. “Sierra did have veneers. And also she had two fillings. Both in the back right molar.”
    She turned to the skull and examined the teeth. “Veneers and right back molar with two fillings.”
    Malcolm leaned in. “So you’re saying this is Sierra Day?”
    “I’ll run DNA on the marrow to be one hundred percent certain.”
    “You and I both know that will take weeks or months.”
    “She has very distinctive teeth. If I had to call it now, I’d say this was Sierra Day.”
    “Sierra Day has only been missing ten days. That’s not enough time for Mother Nature to strip the bones.”
    Henson nodded. “Not given the current climate. Too cold.” She picked up a bone. “No trauma to the bones at all. In fact, I see no signs of saw marks or ax marks that would suggest she’d been hacked apart.”
    “She didn’t just fall apart, Doc.”
    Wisps of red hair peeked out from the edges of Henson’s cap. “Well, if you strip the flesh and tendons from the bones, then there is nothing to hold them together, and they do fall apart.”
    “How do you do something like that? Acid?”
    “I don’t think acid was used. Acid would have left marks on the bones. If I had to guess I’d say the flesh was soaked off.”
    “Soaked?”
    “It’s a common process.”
    Malcolm rested his hands on his hips. “For who?”
    “Companies that process animal bones for museums. You ever been to an exhibit and seen a display with an animal skeleton?”
    “Sure.”
    “Well, I can promise you that those bones did not arrive from nature all clean, white, and odor free.”
    Garrison glanced at the bones on the table, which had a yellowish hue. There was no stench or sign of flesh. “These are not pristine by any stretch of the imagination.”
    “Well, there are a few more steps. Next is the beetletank. The bones are laid in a tank full of