“And Karen is very good with ages,” said Dr. Glendenning. “If I believed in it, I’d say she has a sixth sense for such things.” Dr. Glendenning went on to examine the surface of the skin, where the girl, it was now clear to see, had several tattoos, including a butterfly on the top of her left breast and a heart above her shaved pubic area. She also had a birthmark on the inside of her right thigh. Gerry made sketches and noted the locations, as they would help in identification. The doctor lifted up her left hand to show them the white crisscross marks on her wrist.

“Scars,” he said. “Self-harm, by the looks of it. Perhaps a suicide attempt. More likely a cry for help. She’d never succeed doing it that way. You need to cut along the vein, not across it.”

“Thanks for that advice,” said Annie. “I’ll remember it. Any idea how old?”

“The slash marks?” Dr. Glendenning studied them more closely. “Hard to say. Not recent, though.”

When Dr. Glendenning turned the body over to examine the back, they discovered that she also had a tattoo shaped like a whale’s tail one often saw on girls wearing low-rise jeans and midriff-baring tops. Her back was covered in dark bruises and Annie imagined she could even see where ribs had been broken. Without the dirt and dried mud, the parts that weren’t bruised looked so pale.

“No needle marks as far I can see,” said Dr. Glendenning. “And I think we would be able to see them now if she had them.”

Gerry wobbled a bit when Dr. Glendenning and Karen began their examination of the girl’s private parts, but she managed to hold on. Finally Dr. Glendenning put down his speculum and moved away. “There’s evidence of serious sexual abuse,” he said. “Both vaginal and anal. Also of recent sexual activity. It appears the abuser didn’t wear a condom. Karen’s taking swabs, and we’ll get them analyzed for traces of DNA as soon as possible. The poor girl wasn’t in the water for very long, it seems, which is fortunate for us.”

“We think she was still conscious then,” Annie said. “She managed to drag herself out as soon as she landed and stagger some distance.”

When they had finished with their examinations of the exterior and private parts, Karen placed the body block, a rubber brick, the kind Annie remembered diving for at the bottom of the pool for her life-saving bronze medal, under the girl’s back, to raise the front of her body for internal examination, and Dr. Glendenning picked up his scalpel to begin the Y incision.