“I have a full plate today. But I didn’t want her to wait, in case . . .” Aw. Frank did have a heart. Nice to know. “So far nothing’s come back on the fingerprints. Too bad Chet doesn’t have a set for his daughter. That would have made it easy to rule her out. Waiting must be tough.” Frank paused. “Anyway, I’ll send the DNA in for analysis. The lab promised to expedite the testing. Results should be back in two to three days at the latest.”

“Did you compare her dental records?” Brody asked.

“I did. I can’t comment. Her teeth and jaw are too damaged, and some of her teeth are missing.” Frank shook his head. “I requested a consultation with the state police forensic odontologist.” The New York State Police made forensic dental specialists available through the Medicolegal Investigation Unit. “He’s at a conference and won’t be available until Thursday.”

“Blood type?”

“The corpse is O positive. So is Teresa Thatcher and about one-third of the general population.”

But it was one more factor that weighed in favor of the remains being Teresa. Damn it. Poor Chet.

Brody looked back at the body. An autopsy tech was sewing up the Y-incision with huge black stitches that railroad-tracked up the corpse’s abdomen. “What can you tell me? I’d like to clear this up for Chet faster than three days.”

Frank lifted the clear shield over his face, grabbed a paper towel from a wall dispenser, and mopped the sweat from his head. “The victim is female, Caucasian, approximately seventeen to twenty-five years old, brunette, brown eyes, five foot six inches tall, one hundred ten pounds. Internal organs show no evidence of drug or alcohol abuse, to be confirmed by toxicology reports.”

“Scars?”

“None. She wasn’t wearing any jewelry. Nothing in her pockets except the cigarette receipt we discussed at the scene. We found fibers in the wounds on her face and numerous hairs on her body and clothing,” Frank continued. “Facial trauma was inflicted both pre- and post-mortem, with fists and a blunt instrument, possibly a baseball bat. No tissue under her fingernails. She was raped, but we didn’t find any semen. So he likely used a condom. Cause of death was asphyxia by manual strangulation.”

Frank moved to the table and positioned both of his hands over the base of the victim’s bruise-ringed throat, just below her ruined face. Hovering two inches above the body, his thumbs lined up with two dark purple circles at the base of her neck. “The hyoid bone was fractured. The bruising pattern suggests she was strangled from the front.”

Frank stepped back. He moved to a nearby sink and turned on the water with a foot pedal. “This was a very violent death, but the greatest injuries to her face were inflicted post-mortem.”

“He beat her up, raped her, strangled her, then beat her again?”

“Yes.” Frank lowered the clipboard.