Page 78 of Little Girls Sleeping
“There was such a huge amount of chloroform in her system that her nose and mouth have slight burns from the contact. It’s possible that she fell into a coma due to acute inhalation of chloroform, and then it would have been easy to obstruct her nose and mouth to suffocate her. When such a large amount of contaminated chloroform is ingested into the system, it begins to have detrimental effects on the body, from nausea and vomiting to renal and hepatic damage.”
“How would the chloroform have been contaminated?” she asked.
“If it’s been stored improperly or is old, it will begin to oxidize in combination with air or light and become lethal. It can show up in the body as a type of oxygen poisoning.”
Katie took in all the information and began to create a picture in her mind of the signature behavior of the killer.
“Were her kidneys damaged?” she asked.
“Yes, they showed signs of heavy toxins; not what you would expect to see from an otherwise healthy eleven-year-old girl.”
“Are there any other signs of abuse or anything that’s not accounted for?”
“She had some older minor bruises that would be consistent with playing sports.”
“Could she have been given any other chemical intravenously?” Katie wanted to completely understand everything she could about the drugs.
“There are no tiny punctures where a needle would have been; it would be more convenient to administer it with a rag over the nose and mouth.
“To keep her sedated.” Katie nodded. “Given the precise planning, it would make sense that the killer would keep administering the chloroform until he was ready for her to die.”
The room fell quiet for a moment.
Katie asked, “Would a large amount of chloroform help to preserve the body, like formaldehyde?”
The medical examiner pulled more of the plain sheet away from the frail body of the girl. “See how the skin on her chest and legs looks translucent, more than normal. Her internal organs show a slight hardening. All of that is caused by the large amounts of chloroform. But to answer your question, no, it’s not a formula for preservation.”
Katie nodded. “Okay.”
“Chloroform is a heckuva signature for a killer,” said McGaven.
Katie had almost forgotten about the deputy standing in the room. She was intensely aware of her headache, making it difficult to concentrate.
“Thank you, Dr. Dean. We won’t take up any more of your time,” she said.
“Jeff.”
“What?”
“Please call me Jeff,” the doctor said.
“Of course. Thank you, Jeff.”
She turned to leave, this time following McGaven out of the examination room. An uncontainable shudder went down her spine. There was something about the morgue and about these cases that unnerved her.
Katie had just spoken to two carpenters who specialized in miniatures and wooden toys, but hadn’t learned anything new about the coffin construction. Both men had confirmed that the work had been done painstakingly. She wasn’t going to give up yet, though—there was more to learn.
Her phone buzzed with a message, and she pulled to the side of the road to read it. Denise had sent her the details of other carpenters who might be able to help. “Here’s someone I know,” she said. “Charles Rey. Let’s go see what he has to say about the construction.” She nosed the SUV back into traffic. She knew the address where they were headed and didn’t need a GPS to guide her.
With a possible serial killer on the loose, local people were uncomfortable, distrustful, and scared, but Katie was determined to find and bring that killer to justice. Sifting through her notes, she had seen from many of the comments that the general theme of the town was fear, though it was difficult to decipher and read between the lines.
McGaven broke into her thoughts. “You thinking about the Toymaker?”
“Don’t call him that,” she said flatly.
“I forgot. Sorry,” he said.
She rolled her shoulders a couple of times and tried to shake off her unease from the morgue. She decided to explain further. “When the media gives a killer a clever name, it makes them seem important, when in fact it’s the victims we need to be talking about. Plain and simple.”
