Ridley Pearson - Killer Weekend

Together, he and Walt lifted and rolled the cadaver just high enough to get a look at her buttocks.

“See that discoloring?” McClure asked. “The right gluteous?”

“Yes.”

“No proof. But it suggests early lividity.”

“So she rolled and landed partially down the hill, and what…a couple hours later a coyote pulled her over, and she rolled some more?”

“Could explain it.”

“What’s the timing?”

“Eight to twelve hours ahead of discovery. Perhaps coincidental with her death.”

“May I?” Walt asked, reaching for Ailia’s left arm.

“Of course.”

Walt lifted the arm. An obvious bruise, shaped like a mitten.

“This is antemortem?” Walt asked.

“Yes. Well ahead of the attack. Maybe as much as a day or more.”

“It was early yesterday morning,” Walt told him. “That’s consistent.”

McClure lifted the cadaver’s head. He pulled back a flap of skin, exposing tissue, pink muscle, and white vertebrae. “She has a fracture to cervical number seven, just above the facet for the first rib. Another to cervical three. The tissue at seven reveals edema consistent with an earlier trauma.”

“The cat broke her neck,” Walt said. “It’s what cats do.”

“Fractures her neck,” McClure said. “She’s alive but paralyzed. Toys with her for a while.”

“For how long?”

“This trauma to the neck occurred an hour or more before the cat mauled her.”

“Good God.”

“Most, if not all, of the lacerations inflicted by the cat were post- mortem.”

“Excuse me?”

McClure met eyes with Walt and just stared. “Cause of death is heart failure: She bled out. But the timing of all this is speculative.”

“My guys are out looking for the original crime scene-the location of the attack. All the blood.”

“You may not find it,” McClure said. He answered Walt’s puzzled expression by explaining, “We luminoled her.” He picked up a tube light from a workstation. “Get the lights,” he said.

Walt cut the lights. McClure waved a short black light over the body. Beneath the neck, the stainless steel showed a luminous green, indicating blood. The body itself showed very little green.

“You cleaned her?” Walt asked. “I hope you checked for prints first.”

“That’s just the thing,” McClure said. “I haven’t washed her. There’s very little blood and there’s a reason for that: The dead don’t bleed.”

Walt thought back to the shoe prints in the mud and Danny Cutter pinning Ailia to the couch.

“The cat still could have killed her and mauled her later.”

“I’ll measure her blood volume,” the doctor said. It meant nothing to Walt.

Walt paused. “She was moved.”

“One last point of interest,” McClure said, switching off the black light and returning the room to the overhead tube lighting. “She’s missing her left contact lens.”

“Missing?” Walt blurted out.

“Probably somewhere in the woods. She rolled a long way down that hill. You could try to find it, but we both know the odds of that. Still, it’s going into my report.”

“Would it show if we luminoled the area?” Walt asked.

“No, the luminol binds to the hemoglobin. If it’s out there, it’s going to take a hands-and-knees search.”

“Who goes running with only one contact?” Walt wondered, not realizing until it was too late that he’d spoken it aloud.

“It was a long fall,” McClure repeated.

But Walt barely heard him. He was stuck back on O’Brien’s shoes and the impressions that had vanished with the rain.

I t’s the fishing lady,” came the voice of the guard at Elizabeth Shaler’s front door. This was heard over Adam Dryer’s cell phone with its two-way walkie-talkie feature. Dryer looked over at Shaler, who was currently reading the Saturday edition of The New York Times and enjoying some morning sun in her backyard.

“Yes, of course,” Liz Shaler said, answering Dryer’s inquisitive expression.

He flipped through pages on a clipboard. “It’s not on today’s appointment list.”

“We were supposed to go fishing together, remember? That was all of a few hours ago.”

“But it wasn’t rescheduled.” To the walkie-talkie he said, “Give her the Mossad, and send her in.”

“Roger that.”

“The Mossad?” Shaler asked, tugging down her sunglasses for full effect. “Or don’t I want to know?”

“She’ll be thoroughly searched. That’s all.”

“He better not touch her improperly.”

“No, Your Honor.”

Several minutes passed before Fiona was led through by one of Shaler’s assistants. She handed a bouquet of stem flowers to Shaler, who drank in a whiff before passing them off to her assistant.

“You didn’t need to do that.”

Fiona took at seat at the patio table. “I was sorry to cancel.”

“Was it Ailia?” Liz Shaler asked. “Was it as awful as everyone’s saying?”

“I’m not permitted to say. Sorry about that.”

“No, don’t be. I respect you all the more for it.” She lowered her voice. “I wish some of the people around here were as discreet. I might actually have a life.” She grinned. There was a line of white sun cream showing beneath her nose where she’d missed it. Fiona was tempted to point it out, but didn’t.

Dryer stood away from them, but remained in the yard under the shade of a tree. He stared at them from there through his sunglasses.

“Is he just going to hang out there?” Fiona asked.

“Yes. Amazing, isn’t it? I would be so bored with a job like that. But what are you going to do?”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“I detest it. As AG, I don’t have protection in New York. The governor does. The mayor of the city. But not the attorney general. All this,” she said, indicating Dryer, “is thanks to Herb Millington, who made a big stink to the DNC when it was rumored I would run.”

“I shouldn’t stay long,” Fiona said anxiously, causing Liz Shaler to look over at her thoughtfully.

“What’s going on?”

“The flowers…Your Honor…were a pretext.”

“For?”

“To get me inside. Not that I’m not sorry about missing the session with you. I am. I absolutely am!”

Shaler pushed away the Times. “Okay,” she said, “you’ve got my attention.”

Fiona very carefully reached into her purse, slipped out an envelope, and passed it to Shaler surreptitiously. “I shouldn’t be doing this, I know. And I’ll probably get into a lot of trouble for it. I mean a lot. Depending on you, of course.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.” She squeezed the envelope. “Photos?”

Fiona nodded and smiled falsely because Dryer’s dark sunglasses remained fixed on her from the shade of the distant tree.

“Should I look at them now?”

“Your call,” Fiona said.

“Is he looking in this direction?” Liz asked.

“Yes. Wait…Okay: He’s checking around.”

Liz slipped the envelope open and gasped. “Oh, God…”

“ Salt Lake City,” Fiona said. “These are the shots Walt-the sheriff,” she corrected, “wanted you to see. Agent Dryer wouldn’t permit it.”

Liz flipped through the stack. Then she gathered them and returned them to the envelope. “God,” she repeated. “Did Walt-?”

“No, no!” Fiona said quickly. “Please don’t go there. This was entirely my initiative. There was nothing said, nothing implied. Please don’t think that of him.”

“You like him. Walt,” Liz said. “Or you wouldn’t have done this.” She pushed the envelope back across to Fiona. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“It isn’t like that,” Fiona said. “It’s just his work…it’s everything to him, you know?”