Lisa Black - Evidence of Murder

Jillian’s blue eyes had clouded. As before, her perfect nails showed no signs of a struggle; however, bluish circles had developed on the forearms, which had not been there before. It could have been decomposition artifact, but the color didn’t seem consistent with the other patches on the body.

She left the body in the hallway, with a piece of paper reading DON’T TOUCH on top of the body bag.

“Her again.” Christine stood up from the microscope, the movement releasing a light wave of perfume through the tiny office. “I’ll be happy to take a look if it will help you figure out what killed her.”

“That’s your job, missy,” Theresa told her as they pounded down the back staircase like unruly schoolgirls.

“I gave up.”

They reached the ground floor and Theresa held up Jillian’s left arm. “Is this a bruise?”

Christine examined the dead woman’s skin. Then she pushed the gurney into the autopsy room-crowded, but the most brightly lit room in the building. Three other doctors, three dieners, and three dead people paid no attention to them. Once more Christine examined the skin.

Theresa couldn’t wait. “Is it decomp?”

“No, I don’t think so. But there’s only one way to be sure.” The young pathologist donned latex gloves, unwrapped a fresh scalpel, and plunged the blade into Jillian Perry’s flesh.

“Eew!”

“You can’t say ‘eew.’ You work at a freakin’ morgue.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t say ‘eew’ when it’s warranted.” Nevertheless, Theresa leaned closer to the exposed muscle.

Christine pointed out the tiny blood clots, visible-with difficulty-against the darkened tissues. “There are some abrasions here. I’d say this is a bruise.”

“But it didn’t show up at autopsy?”

“Sometimes they do that.” She picked up Jillian’s other arm.

“What do you think it means?”

“By itself, probably nothing. It’s vague and nonacute…unlikely to have occurred in some life-and-death struggle. There’s a bit forming on this arm as well-see here? Almost sort of a streak, a pattern about an inch wide. See it?”

“No.”

“Along here.”

The strip of discolored flesh ran at a slight angle across the undersurface of Jillian’s right arm, the differences in color so difficult to distinguish that they could have been a trick of the light. Theresa would never have noticed it without the pathologist’s more discerning eye.

“Someone tied her arms. Left over right, the binding against the outer surface of the left arm and the undersurface of the right. Not very tight. Not very tight at all.”

Christine positioned the dead woman’s arms over her stomach, then abandoned them to slide back onto the steel gurney with gentle thuds. She unzipped the body bag the rest of the way and examined the feet.

“Now what are you doing?”

“When someone’s arms are tied, their legs usually are as well. Doesn’t make much sense to do one without the other.”

“We need to get a gurney in here,” a diener interrupted. One of the autopsies had been completed, and the finished corpse had to be removed from the steel table. Jillian’s gurney partially blocked the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” Christine muttered.

Theresa pushed the wheeled contraption. “Anything there? Do you have to-aw. Now I have to say ‘eew’ again, and I know how that annoys you.”

“I’m going to have to amend my report. Evidence of binding of both hands and feet. Here, just above the ankles. But why such light bruising? She didn’t struggle at all.”

“It could have been some sex thing,” Theresa brainstormed.

“It would have been difficult to have sex with her ankles crossed, and we found no sign of sexual activity, forcible or nonforcible. No state of undress, no bruising or tears, no semen. Yet someone tied her very gently.”

“Maybe she was unconscious? That’s why she didn’t struggle against the bonds.”

“Then why tie her?”

“In case she woke up?”

“Then why not tie her tighter?”

Every question made Jillian’s death seem more bizarre. “Because he knew she wasn’t going to wake up. Could she have been dead already?”

Christine said no, but without certainty. “These shouldn’t form after death. Bruises are weird, though. You can never be sure. Besides, if she was already dead, why tie her up?”

The room suddenly seemed too bright, and overcrowded with death. “He didn’t tie her limbs together to keep her from escaping. He tied them together to make her body easier to transport.”

The two women stared at each other over Jillian Perry’s body, ignoring the talk, movement, and slicing scalpels around them. “So she didn’t walk into those woods on her own.”

“It explains a lot,” Theresa said. “Why her shoes were clean-”

“Why no frostbite on the extremities, or rime around her mouth.”

“Why she showed no signs of depression…because she wasn’t depressed. Because she wanted to live.”

Another deskman entered the autopsy suite, glancing at the busy tables with distaste before asking Christine, “Are you two guys finished? The guy from the crematorium is here for her.”

“In a sec. Help me turn her over.”

The two women examined Jillian’s dorsal surface, but found no more bruising. They had to release the body. Theresa could only hope they hadn’t missed anything else. Surely all bruising would show by now. It had been over a week…

Christine began to zip up the bag. “Uh, Theresa? She has to go now.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’re holding her hand.”

With a start, Theresa released the cold fingers, and watched the dead woman disappear under a layer of clean white plastic.

“I need a search warrant,” Theresa told her cousin. She could hear other voices in the background, and the city sounds of cars and wind.

“What for?”

“For the carbon company grounds. All the buildings, not just the apartments.”

“What are you looking for? Just some mustard, thanks.”

“You’re not eating a hot dog out of an aluminum cart parked on the sidewalk, are you?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Mystery meat and botulism-it’s quite a combination.”

“This poor guy’s standing outside in subfreezing temperatures, trying to eke out a living, and you’re criticizing his wares? He’s giving the radio a dirty look right now, and so am I.”

“I had to get up in the middle of the night and bring you ginger ale the last time you had food poisoning.”

“Well, I couldn’t call my mother-you know she needs her sleep. What do you want a warrant for, and how do you know that whatever you’re searching for is there?”

She outlined the conclusions of the morning. “I need to find evidence that Evan transported Jillian’s body to the woods. He must have carried her in something, something that wouldn’t attract attention. Even wrapping her in a blanket would have looked completely suspicious.”

“I thought she disappeared during the day.”

“Supposedly.”

“You think he had someone else move the body from the apartment while he was at the meeting? It would have been a perfect alibi.”

“Maybe. But this guy is used to creating his own world. He’s a control freak. I can’t believe he would trust an accomplice. He doesn’t seem to have any close friends other than Jerry Graham, who was at the meeting with him.”

“So you think it was Drew?”

“Swallow before you talk. Why would I suspect Drew?”

“Because he wasn’t at this meeting on Monday. He had all day long to move Jillian around before Evan came home, and he might have liked the idea of Jillian in his woods. He could sit on his boat and know she was there.”