“What are you saying, Stefan?” Annie asked. “That she was in the ditch here?” She was glad to see a sheen of sweat on the crime-scene manager’s handsome face. At least someone else was human, and that it was the ever-so-dreamy, ever-so-cool Stefan Nowak was even better.

“If you observe the way the dirt and grass are disturbed here, I’d say it indicates that someone climbed out of this ditch onto the road and starting walking north, back towards the Eastvale road. The water’s dried up, but you can see the outlines her muddy feet made. No shoes. And it seems as if she was limping. I’m saying there’s a strong likelihood it was our girl. If she was naked, she would have been covered in filthy ditchwater and mud, like the girl’s body back up the road. And she would also show evidence of barbed wire and broken glass cuts, as the body does. If you move closer, you can also see that a handful of grass has been pulled out right there.” He pointed. Annie could see it. “To my thinking, if someone crawled out of the ditch, they had to get in there in the first place. It’s an explanation. She went in here, and for some reason, she tried to get a hold on the grass, perhaps to prevent herself falling in or help haul herself out.”

“So she was moving fast when she went in?”

“Possibly. I’d say so. Rolling too fast to stop herself. And you saw the hip injury. Dr. Burns says it’s probably broken. A fall could cause an injury like that, if she bumped it on the road surface, for example. You know what I’m getting at, don’t you, Annie?”

“Someone chucked her in the ditch, most likely from a moving vehicle. You can see where it skidded on the verge close to where she came out. The grass is flattened in a direction that indicates the van was traveling south. She climbed out again, after getting a mud bath and cutting herself up a bit, then started walking back the way she’d come—hence the muddy footprints—most likely hoping for a lift home. Which means she wasn’t actually beaten to death until later, farther up. Unless she simply collapsed and died of her injuries.”

“I’d say she was most likely killed by the roadside up there, where the body is, but she was already naked and injured when she got there.”

“Well, the position and attitude of the body certainly bear that out. But the car she was thrown from had already . . . I mean, what happened? Did he turn back for her?”

“There’s no evidence of that so far,” Stefan said. “You can see the sort of swerve those skid marks indicate. Someone stopped or slowed rather quickly and lost control of the steering for a second or two. It happens.”