Karin Slaughter - Broken

The desk was empty but for the autopsy forms and an ink pen. Brock had put together two packets for the procedures. He’d stuck Post-it notes on each with the name, date of birth, and last known address for each victim.

Georgia law required a medical autopsy to be performed only under certain circumstances. Violent death, death in the workplace, suspicious death, sudden death, unattended death, and surgical death all required further investigation. For the most part, the information gathered was always the same: legal name, aliases, age, height, weight, cause of death. X rays were taken. The stomach contents would be examined. Organs were weighed. Arteries, valves, and veins were explored. Contusions were noted. Traumas. Bite marks. Stretch marks. Lacerations. Scars. Tattoos. Birthmarks. Every detail, remarkable or not, that was found on or in the body had to be noted on the corresponding form.

Sara had hooked her reading glasses on her shirt before getting out of the car. She slipped them on and started on the forms. Most of the paperwork would have to be filled out after the procedures, but every label attached to a specimen or sample had to have her name, the location, and the proper date and time. In addition to that, every form had to have the same information at the bottom along with her signature and license number. She was halfway through the second packet when she heard someone knocking at the metal door.

“Hello?” Will’s voice echoed through the basement.

Sara rubbed her eyes, feeling as if she’d just woken from a nap. “I’ll be right there.” She pushed herself back from the desk and walked toward the stairs. Will was standing on the other side of the security door.

She pushed open the latch. “I guess my notes worked.”

He gave her a careful look, almost like a warning.

Sara waved him back to the autopsy suite.

“Quite a spread,” Will told her, taking in the room. His hands were in his pockets. She saw that his jeans were wet and muddy at the hem.

She asked, “How did it go this morning?”

“The good news is that I found out where Allison was killed.” He told her about his walk in the forest. “We were lucky the rain didn’t wash it all out.”

“Blood is five times more dense than water. It would take weeks for the soil to filter it out, and I’d bet that water oak will hold on to it for years.” Sara explained, “The plasma would break down, but the proteins and globulin would remain in an indefinite colloidal stage.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

She smiled. “What’s the bad news?”

He leaned his hand on the gurney, then thought better of it. “I executed a search warrant on the wrong property and tainted some evidence.”

Sara didn’t speak, but her expression must have conveyed her surprise.

“Tommy lived in the garage, not Allison. The search warrant Faith got listed the garage address. Anything I found is tainted. I doubt a judge would let it through in court.”

She suppressed a rueful laugh. At least he was seeing firsthand how Lena managed to screw up everything and everyone around her. “What did you find?”

“Not a lot of blood, if that’s what you mean. Frank Wallace was cut while he was standing at the front of the garage. The stain on the floor by the bed was probably from Tommy’s dog, Pippy, trying to hork up a sock.”

Sara winced. “Do you still think Tommy did this? His confession doesn’t line up with the facts.”

“Lena’s been working on the theory that Tommy took Allison out to the woods on his scooter and murdered her there. I suppose he was sitting on the cinder blocks the way you’d put a kid on some phone books at the kitchen table.”

“That sounds completely believable.”

“Doesn’t it just?” He scratched his jaw. “Have you examined Allison’s body yet?”

“I took a preliminary look at the wound. The attacker was behind her. Most knife injuries to the throat are from behind, but usually the blade is drawn across the front of the throat, oftentimes resulting in a partial decapitation. Allison was stabbed from behind with the blade going into the neck from the rear, the trajectory going toward the front of the throat. It was one thrust, very calculated, almost like an execution, then the killer twisted the blade just to make sure.”

“So, she died from the stab wound?”

“I can’t say for sure until I have her on the table.”

“But you have an idea.”

Sara had never liked giving her opinion unless she had strong medical fact to support it. “I don’t want to make assumptions.”

“It’s just us down here. I promise I won’t tell anybody.”

She was only vaguely aware that she was relenting much more easily than she should have. “The angle of the wound was designed to deliver a quick death. I haven’t cut her open yet, so I’m not sure—”

“But?”

“It looks like the carotid sheath was cut, so we’re talking an instant interruption of the common carotid and more than likely the internal jugular. They’re branched together like this.” She lined up the index fingers of both her hands. “The carotid’s job is to carry oxygenated blood at a rapid speed from the heart into the head and neck. The jugular is a vein. It’s gravity fed. It collects the deoxygenated blood from the head and neck and sends it back to the heart via the superior vena cava, where it’s oxygenated again and the whole process starts all over. You follow?”

Will nodded. “Arteries are the water supply, veins are the drain. It’s a closed system.”

“Right,” she agreed, giving him points for the plumbing analogy. “All arteries have a little muscle spiraling around them that relaxes and contracts to control blood flow. If you cut an artery in two, sever it, the muscle contracts, curling up like a broken rubber band. That helps stanch the blood flow. But, if you slice open the artery without cutting it in two, the victim dies from exsanguination, usually very quickly. We’re talking seconds, not minutes. The blood shoots out, they panic, their heart beats faster, blood shoots out faster, and they’re dead.”

“Where is the carotid?”

She put her fingers alongside her trachea. “You’ve got one carotid on each side, mirror images. I’ll have to excise the wound, but it appears that the knife followed this route, entering near the sixth cervical vertebra and traveling along the angle of the jaw.”

He stared at her neck. “How hard is that to hit from behind?”

“Allison is very small framed. Her neck is the width of my palm. There’s so much going on in the back of the neck—muscles, blood vessels, vertebrae. You would have to pause, to take a second, to aim so that you hit the exact spot. You couldn’t go straight in from the back. You’d have to go from the back toward the side. With the right knife, at the right angle, the odds are pretty good that you’ll end up opening both the carotid and the jugular.”

“The right knife?”

“I’m guessing it had a three-and-a-half- to four-inch blade.”

“So, we’re talking about a kitchen knife?”

He obviously wasn’t good with measurements. She showed him the distance using her finger and thumb. “Three and a half inches. Think about the size of her neck. Or my neck, for that matter.” Sara kept the measurement between her fingers and held her hand to her neck. “If the blade had been any longer, it would’ve exited the front of the neck.”

He crossed his arms. She couldn’t tell if he was pleased or annoyed with the visual aids. He asked, “How wide do you think the blade was?”

She narrowed the space between her thumb and finger. “Five-eighths? Three-quarters? The skin is elastic. She must have struggled. The incision is wider at the bottom, so the killer jammed in the knife to the hilt, then twisted the blade to make sure he was doing maximum damage. I’m sure it wasn’t over an inch wide.”