If it takes a village to raise a child, does it also take a village to kill one? Was everyone in Twin Falls complicit, even in some tiny way, in the tragic death of Leena Rai?
I leave the kitchen and make for a door that leads down into the basement. I hesitate at the door, then creak it open. I click on the light at the head of the stairs and begin to descend carefully. At the bottom I flick on a bare bulb that dangles on a wire. It sways, and shadows in the basement leap to life. They dart and duck behind me as I make my way toward steel shelving along the back wall. A damp, musty scent fills my nostrils. Disturbed dust motes float in front of me.
I wipe spiderwebs off the storage boxes on the shelves, checking labels. I find the box I am hunting for. It contains old binders, police notes, copies of the Leena Rai autopsy report, transcripts of witness interviews, the interviews with Clay Pelley, duplicates of photographs—I kept them because the case had consumed me.
I drag the box off the shelf, carry it upstairs, and take it into my office. I set it on a table and lift the lid. It comes off with a poof of dust that makes me cough. The document lying on the top is the postmortem report.
My mind slides back into the murk of time. Slowly I reach for the report.
Case number 97-2749-33. Deceased female.
RACHEL
THEN
Monday, November 24, 1997.
The morgue is in the concrete bowels of the big hospital in Vancouver. The dead are sent here from other health facilities in the Greater Vancouver area, on the Sunshine Coast, and in the Sea to Sky corridor. The morgue pathologist also conducts autopsies requested by the BC and Yukon coroners’ services.
I’m gloved and gowned, with slip-on booties over my shoes. I’m here to observe, to take notes, and to accept into evidence whatever comes off the body. Standing beside me, similarly gowned, is Sergeant Luke O’Leary, a homicide detective with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Twin Falls PD chief Raymond Doyle has asked for RCMP assistance in the murder investigation. It’s high profile. Attracting relentless and national media attention. Reporters are clamoring to know how the juvenile teen was killed, and by whom. There’s a violent killer out there. Our community is frightened for its young women. And our Twin Falls department is tiny. We have limited homicide expertise and scant resources. With Sergeant O’Leary come RCMP forensic techs, the use of RCMP crime labs, plus any other additional experts and manpower we might require.
Luke is a burly, gruff-looking cop with sandy hair and bright-blue eyes. A veteran homicide investigator who started his career as a K9 officer. He told me on the drive into Vancouver that he still volunteers with search and rescue teams around the province, helping handlers train search dogs. I figure Luke to be in his early forties. The attending pathologist is Dr. Hannah Backmann, a silver-haired woman who appears well past retirement age. She’s being assisted by a young male diener and a female medical student. Tucker is present to take photos.
Leena lies on the slab in front of us. She’s naked apart from her bra and the cheap-looking camisole still tangled around her neck, as we found her. A stand supports her head. Her face is smashed and lacerated beyond recognition. A knot fists in my stomach. My jaw tightens. I haven’t attended a postmortem since police academy. I need to get through this without losing my breakfast. I must do it for Leena.
For her parents.
For Leena’s little brother, Ganesh, and her beloved older cousin, Darsh, who adores her. For her devoted uncle and aunt, who sponsored Leena’s mom and dad when they came from India fifteen years ago. I must do this for the kids at Twin Falls Secondary. For the teachers. For my town. For my own career if I am going to follow in my dad’s big footsteps and prove that I can lead the police department into the future, as he expected me to.
For my own daughter, who is the same age as this girl lying violated on the slab.
“You okay?” Luke says quietly. I nod without looking at him.
A somber mood presses down, heavy like the dismal November weather outside. Dr. Backmann commences her external examination, narrating her actions into an overhead recording device as she goes.
“Case number 97-2749-33,” she says in a gravelly smoker’s voice. “Deceased female. South Asian in appearance. Measured, the girl is five feet, six inches. She weighs one hundred and eighty-two pounds.”
The girl.
That’s what Leena has become.
A case number. The decedent. Reduced to a general appearance and measurements.
“It’s apparent the decedent received a very severe beating,” Backmann says. “Most severe on the front of her face. Bruising, lacerations, swelling—it forms almost a complete mask . . . Her nose appears to be broken. There’s some debris in the epidermis—bits of stone, soil.”
The pathologist proceeds to examine the tender skin along the insides of Leena’s arms. She’s gentle in her touch. “No needle marks evident. No overt signs of drug use.” The camera flashes. “There are abrasions on the outside of the arms.”
“Defensive wounds?” asks Luke.
“Would be consistent, yes,” says Backmann. She examines Leena’s hands, fingers. “Broken and torn nails.” She moves her attention down the rest of the body. “No external indication of disease. Healthy-looking girl.”
The camera flashes again. I notice that Tucker’s hands are trembling. The skin on his brow shines with sweat. I can smell the stress on him, beneath the layers of formaldehyde and disinfectant that permeate the cold room.
Dr. Backmann’s hands, however, remain steady, her demeanor calm. She’s well respected in her field. On the drive from Twin Falls, Luke told me Dr. Backmann gained her expertise in stab wounds by studying puncture holes in pigskin. She learned how to identify signs of drowning by poking at the lungs of drowned cats. The parallels with how a serial killer might study and perfect his craft with small animals are not lost on me. As Luke informed me of these things, he glanced at me and smiled. And I realized that despite his grizzled exterior and macabre experience, Sergeant O’Leary was a sweet guy with a sense of humor, and he was trying to put me at ease. It helped. A little. It also didn’t help. Because I hate that I’m such an open book, that he can so obviously read my discomfort and tell that I am way out of my professional depth.
“The body is intact,” the doc says in her gravelly tone, “but the skin on her hands and feet is starting to slip away.” Another flash of the camera. “I estimate she spent about a week in cold water.”
I clear my throat. “So she likely went into the river shortly after the bonfire, on November the fourteenth—the night she was last seen?”
Dr. Backmann glances at me. “Or the early hours of November the fifteenth. This would be consistent with my initial external observations.”
Scrapings are taken from under Leena’s nails. A number of swab samples are taken from the mouth and vaginal areas. Then, with the help of her assistant, the pathologist removes Leena’s bra and carefully disentangles and cuts away the camisole twisted around the girl’s neck. The camisole and bra go into evidence bags to be signed for by me. They will then go to the RCMP crime lab.
“Bloody discharge in her nostrils. Hmm—” She brings her magnifying glass down. “Seems to be some kind of thermal burn just inside the left nostril.” She leans closer. “And a circular red mark almost in the center of her forehead. Made by something hot. A round shape.” The camera flashes.