Hush Little Girl

this type of injury.”
“But you don’t think she fell,” Josie said. “Earlier, at the scene, you said she had bruising around her neck and petechiae in her eyes.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Feist. “If you would have a look…” she trailed off, staring at them both, waiting for them to consent to seeing Holly’s body once more.
Josie nodded and followed Dr. Feist over to Holly’s body. Noah trailed them. With great care, Dr. Feist pulled the sheet down and tucked it over Holly’s shoulders. Her eyes were closed, her white eyelashes stark beneath the overhead light. “Poliosis,” said Dr. Feist, following Josie’s gaze.
“Yes,” Josie said. “Lorelei said she had it.”
“It’s usually seen in the form of a white forelock or a white patch of hair somewhere on the head, but sometimes results in white eyelashes. It’s simply a lack of melanin in the hair roots. On its own, without a co-occurring medical condition, it’s entirely harmless.”
“Is it genetic?” Noah asked.
Dr. Feist nodded. “Usually, yes.”
Josie said, “Did she have a co-occurring condition?”
“I found no evidence of any medical conditions on exam.”
Their eyes returned to Holly’s face. Dr. Feist had arranged her hair so that they couldn’t see where she’d used the bone saw to cut into Holly’s skull. She wasn’t the first child victim they’d ever seen, and she would certainly not be the last, but it never got easier to stand over the body of a young person who had had so much life ahead of them. Josie made a silent vow to find who had done this to Holly and make sure they never hurt anyone ever again.
Dr. Feist snapped on a pair of latex gloves and pointed to several dark, finger-sized bruises scattered over Holly’s throat and neck. “She had significant soft tissue injuries to her throat and neck, but nothing that would have killed her.”
“Someone tried strangling her and then changed their mind and hit her on the head?” Noah asked.
“Or someone tried to strangle her, she put up a fight, and they ultimately hit her on the head.”
Josie said, “But you said she was alive for some time after her head injury.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Feist. “She had to have been.”
“Would she have been down for any length of time so that the killer might think she was dead?” Noah asked.
“Perhaps. Or the killer was with her until her decline and death and then staged her body. There are a few other things you should be aware of.” Dr. Feist lifted a side of the sheet to expose one of Holly’s delicate hands. “We did get a great deal of skin from beneath her fingernails. Hummel has sent it to the state police lab for DNA analysis. She managed to scratch up her attacker pretty well.”
Josie felt a small spiral of excitement. They could now check any suspects for scratches, and if they found a suspect, they’d have DNA to match him against, although it would take weeks, if not months, to get a DNA profile back.
“Also, the bottoms of her feet are freshly scraped up,” Dr. Feist went on, moving to the bottom of the table and uncovering Holly’s bare feet. Josie and Noah crowded around for a closer look. There were several fresh lacerations crisscrossing the soles of her feet.
Dr. Feist said, “When they brought her in, her feet were covered in dirt and mud, and I dug some pine needles out of one of the cuts in her feet.”
“She was in the forest,” Josie said. “Before she died.”
“I believe so,” said Dr. Feist.
“She got out of the house,” said Noah.
“She might have even witnessed Lorelei’s murder,” Josie agreed. “Or maybe she knew what might happen. She told Emily to hide, and then at some point she had a confrontation with the killer—either while she was still at the house or after she made it into the woods.”
“Or,” Noah said, “the killer attacked her and tried to strangle her, but she escaped into the woods and then he tracked her down and gave her a head injury sufficient to kill her.”
“Regardless of the order of things,” Dr. Feist said, “the manner of death is homicide.”
“Any signs of sexual assault?” Josie asked.
“No. None at all, but there is one more thing you should be aware of. I believe that this girl was the victim of ongoing physical abuse.”
Josie’s head snapped toward Dr. Feist. “Really? What makes you say that?”
Dr. Feist went back to Holly’s head and used her index finger to beckon them closer. Once they were beside her, she gently brushed the hair away from Holly’s left ear.
“Jesus,” said Noah.
The ear was grossly deformed. The outer part of the ear was swollen, bulbous, and lumpy. “Cauliflower ear,” Josie muttered.
“Right,” said Dr. Feist. “Blood clots form beneath the skin. The skin pulls away from the cartilage, and fibrous tissue forms. That’s the least scientific version. It forms as a result of repeated trauma to the outer ear. Either this kid was a pro wrestler or someone was routinely hitting her around the head. This isn’t something that happens with one strike. It develops over time.”
“My God,” Josie said. She thought of the medications in Lorelei’s kitchen cabinets. While violence wasn’t a hallmark of either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, it wasn’t out of the question that a person suffering from either of those illnesses could become violent. However, Josie still couldn’t quite believe that Lorelei was abusive. She had been killed today, too. She’d built a secret hiding place for her girls between the walls of the bedrooms. She kept sharp objects in a secret cubby under her mattress. Had there been someone else living with them?
“There are also a few other indicators of chronic physical abuse,” Dr. Feist went on. She walked over to her laptop and motioned them over. Several clicks later, x-ray images of a rib cage lit the screen. “Here, here, and here you can see healed posterior rib fractures. They’re quite old, but as I said, they’re posterior, which is almost always indicative of