Donald Harstad: Code 61

I took four shots from the door frame, just to establish the scene. Then I took a bunch of shots of the body, as I moved alongside the tub. Each from a slightly different angle, they'd give about as complete coverage as possible without moving the corpse. I made a very conscious effort to get as much of the bloodstain patterns as I could. About halfway along, I reached into the bag at my chest, and changed from the 50mm to a 70/210mm zoom. I was getting my first good look at the huge cut in the neck, and I wanted close-ups without having to lean over the body. I kept using both cameras, but the zoom on the digital just wasn't in the same league with the single lens reflex.

I've seen lots of cuts, and this was one of the meaner ones. Only about four inches long, but length, as they say, isn't everything. It appeared to be very, very deep, because there seemed to be a bulge of muscle protruding. Muscle will do that sometimes. Especially if there's a lot of tension on it at the time it's cut. But it has to go deep. It was more of a stab wound than I'd expected. Most suicides use a sawing motion. It was not, though, a tearing wound like the one on the Baumhagen boy. For whatever that was worth.

There was a very dark spot, visible through the bloodstain, on the upper portion of the right breast. My first thought was a contact gunshot wound, but as I leaned a little closer I could see it was some sort of tattoo. That was a relief. The neck cut was certainly enough. There was lots of evidence of blood, but it didn't seem like all that much, considering the wound. The spatter marks on the inside walls of the tub made it look like there'd been more blood than there actually had been. I thought about that for a second, and decided that, sitting upright, if she'd lost enough blood to stop all brain functions, maybe that would stop the heart. Right, Dr. Carl. That's why we have medical examiners.

It then occurred to me that the open drain in the tub could explain that, but it just didn't quite fit, somehow. Something wasn't right.

I knelt down, and got some lower level shots of the wound. To get as much of the cut in frame as possible, I took a pen from my pocket, reached out, and pushed some of her hair back out of the way. As I did so, I saw her face fairly clearly. And her eyes. Big, hazel eyes, wide open, and staring right directly at me.

“Holy shit!” I stood straight up, snagging her hair with the pen clip as I drew my hand back. I reached out to retrieve it, fumbled, and watched my pen drop into the tub. Great.

Those eyes had looked so vital; I'd thought she was still alive. That really startled me. I hadn't been expecting them to look so, I don't know, lifelike, I guess. I took a deep breath, and forced myself to squat back down. I took a shot of the pen in the tub, then gingerly fished it out of the little puddle of reddish muck near the drain. Naturally, it had rolled downhill. I took a second shot, depicting the little depression the pen had made in the drying blood.

Only then did I hold it out, push the hair back again, and take the shot. I didn't look at her eyes. I did, though, make a mental note. With her head lolling forward, her eyes must be in a rolled-up position. That might eventually mean nothing, but I sure as hell wasn't ever going to forget it.

I also got some good shots of the knife. It was a new-looking kitchen knife, with a strong, serrated blade. Black polycarbonate handle. Brass rivets. I shook my head. Brass rivets. Hell, even the knife went with the room.

I did a few shots from as nearly directly above her as I could get. I noticed that she seemed to have several colors of nail polish, both on her fingers and on her toes. Black thumb nails, it looked like, with red on the index finger, dark green on the middle finger, dark blue on the ring finger, and white on the little finger. The same sequence was repeated on her toes. I wondered if it meant anything.

I finished photographing the rest of the bathroom, having to reload the camera again. I started to talk to myself, and to her, about that time.

“Sorry, kiddo, but I gotta reload.” There was, of course, no answer. “A few more shots to go. I'll be done in a second, and then we can leave you to yourself until the doc gets here.”

You do that. Well, I do that. When I'm alone with a freshly dead person. Nerves, I guess. Spooked, or getting that way. That, and it always seems such an intrusion, especially when they're in such a vulnerable position. I always get self-conscious and kind of embarrassed. I have to look at parts of them they'd never let me see if they were alive. And I take photos, to boot. So I try to verbally reassure them.

“I don't know, but I think you maybe might have done this to yourself. No clothes to get into when you get out of the tub, you know? Nothing laid out in the bedroom. Like you had no intention of ever leaving that tub.” It was possible. There were absolutely no signs of a struggle, as they say. None but those bruises, and they might not be contemporaneous with her death. The plastic curtain didn't even seem to be much disturbed, hanging properly inside the rim of the tub. It was awfully difficult to imagine someone creeping up behind her, stabbing her in the neck, and having her bleed to death. I'd seen a couple of very determined suicides before, including one woman who'd stabbed herself eleven times in the abdomen with a hunting knife. That had to have taken a while. You could do a lot of damage to yourself if you were in the right frame of mind.

But it still looked… well, wrong. Especially the bruises. But maybe she'd had a fight with her boyfriend earlier in the day. That was possible.

I remembered that Edith had overdosed on pills, at least once for sure. Only once, as far as I knew, because I'd been a night-shift officer then, and had been assigned to that case. That had been a few years back. Not evidence in and of itself, but a prior attempt was at least an indication that she'd achieved a suicidal frame of mind on at least one occasion. But would that even bear on the fact that we had a knife used this time?

Hmm. I could almost hear the endless discussions generated by that, late at night in the dispatch center. That, and the discussion about the position of the knife. Would she have dropped it on that side? Wouldn't it have landed (insert choice) blade forward, rear, up, down, more to the left, more right?… I almost felt I owed it to the night shift to resolve this one quickly.

There was a voice behind me, out in the bedroom.

“Carl, you in there?”

Lamar.

“Yeah, Lamar. You might want to stay out there… ”

I was too late, because as I turned to go to the bedroom, Lamar came to the doorway of the bathroom. His limp was more pronounced than usual, like it got when he was really tired. Don't ever let somebody tell you that gunshot wounds go away, even after years have gone by.

He stopped, more from habit of not disturbing the scene than out of any kind of surprise or shock. We'd both been to these things before, many times. For me to try to intercept his gaze, or to usher him back into the bedroom, would have been an insult. So I just stepped aside and let him look. He took about a full minute, and then cleared his throat.

“Suicide, ya think?”

“Not sure yet, Lamar.”

“Probably, though?”

“Probably, yes. The ME hasn't gotten here yet. I have some questions about those bruises.”

He looked directly at me for the first time since I'd heard his voice. “I know we hear this all the time… but she just wasn't the type, Carl.”

“She did try it before.”

“That was before she had the kid,” he said. “That little girl of hers means too much to her. She'd never leave her this way.”

I didn't say anything.

“The kid's been with my sister most of the time,” said Lamar. “Edie, here, hates that, and hates her mom, too.” He paused, and corrected himself. “Hated. Anyway, she's been trying to get back on her feet, get the kid back. She'd never give up like this.”