Eve walked around the parking lot, trying to calm herself down so she could think clearly. But the crime that Anna McCaig committed was so barbaric that it was hard to remain calm and reasonable, to resist the urge to hunt her down and strangle her to death.
She spoke to Duncan with a forced, measured tone. “I don’t know why there hasn’t been a missing person’s report filed, but I know the real birth mother is dead and her body is at Anna McCaig’s house.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because the baby was still warm, still covered with blood and other fluids, when the paramedics got there.”
“Okay, assuming you’re right, that Anna McCaig abducted a pregnant woman and hacked a baby out of her uterus, that doesn’t mean the body is still on the property. Anna came home from the hospital yesterday. She could have waited until nightfall and disposed of the body somewhere else.”
“That’s easy enough to check by reviewing the front gate videos. If she came or went, we’ll see it. But whether she moved the body or not, the murder happened in the house.”
She saw a family of four, the parents and their two children, emerge from the old administration building. The father carried a black Los Angeles Coroner body bag–style sleeping bag, the mother had on a cap with the department logo, and the kids were wearing matching T-shirts adorned with the chalk outline of a dead body. Eve turned away, disgusted, and walked back to her car. This wasn’t an amusement park and there was nothing fun about death.
“I’ll start writing up a search warrant request for her property, the dumpster, the porta-potty, and her car,” Duncan said.
“How long do you think it will take a judge to grant the warrant?”
“You’ll probably hear a sonic boom before you get back to the station.”
Anna McCaig’s cold house was full of crime scene technicians in white Tyvek, led by Nan Baker, who’d spent three hours checking every room, every surface, and every drain for signs of flesh and blood.
Eve and Duncan stood in the dining room, watching the search unfold. Eve’s arms were crossed under her chest, mostly to retain her warmth, and she tapped her right foot nervously on the floor. Neither the two of them, nor anybody in the CSU, had discovered any evidence yet.
Duncan nodded to the wall of food. “Somebody should search that box of Ding Dongs.”
“You think a murder weapon might be in there?”
His stomach growled. “Or in the bag of Doritos.”
It would be nice if it were, Eve thought. She was half tempted to search them out of desperation, and to keep herself busy, when Nan approached them.
“There’s blood and other bodily fluids on the couch,” she said, “but I can already say nobody bled out there or, as far as we can determine, anywhere else in the house, garage, or backyard.”
“What about in the bathrooms?” Eve asked. “Could the murder have taken place in a bathtub or shower?”
“She obviously did some cleaning in the master bathroom. We detected the presence of cleansers, but we’d still expect to find some traces of blood or flesh after the gutting the medical examiner described,” Nan said. “But we didn’t. And, it goes without saying, but we haven’t found a body anywhere, either.”
Eve, Duncan, and the CSU searched every closet, under every bed, and up in the rafters. The house was built on a flat foundation, so there was no place under the house to stash a body. The garage was full of stacked drywall, two-by-fours, toolboxes, tile-cutting equipment, and other materials for the kitchen renovation, including the new appliances, still in cardboard boxes. They opened every box in the garage and found nothing.
“I know the murder was committed here,” Eve said. “Maybe it was done on a rug, and then Anna rolled up the body in it and took it away.”
Duncan shook his head. “I checked with the guard. Anna McCaig’s car didn’t leave the property last night.”
“We also thoroughly examined her car,” Nan said. “There’s no sign of blood or other bodily fluids inside.”
“Maybe she got someone else in the community to help her dispose of the body.”
Duncan said, “We can talk to every resident and vendor who left the community after Anna returned from the hospital, but I doubt she talked the Amazon delivery guy or Sparkletts guy into helping her out.”
“Maybe a gardener or pool man, though. We should talk to other vendors, too,” Eve said, then turned to Nan. “Did you find anything in the backyard?”