Karin Slaughter - Blindsighted

Jeffrey nodded for her to continue.

"If we're lucky, we'll get some kind of impression from the blade. If not that, then maybe something from the cross guard bruising. I can remove and fix the skin after Lena sees her."

She pointed to the puncture wound at the center of the cross. "This was a hard stab, so I would imagine the killer did it from a superior position. See the way the wound is angled at about a forty-five?" She studied the incision, trying to make sense of it. "I would almost say that the belly stab is different from the chest wound. It doesn't make sense."

"Why is that?"

"The punctures have a different pattern."

"Like how?"

"I can't tell," she answered truthfully. She let this drop for the moment, concentrating on the stab wound at the center of the cross. "So he's probably standing in front of her, legs bent at the knee, and he takes the knife back to his side"-she demonstrated, pulling her hand back-"then rams it into her chest."

"He uses two knives to do this?"

"I can't tell," Sara admitted, going back to the belly wound. Something wasn't adding up.

Jeffrey scratched his chin, looking at the chest wound. He asked, "Why not stab her in the heart?"

"Well, for one, the heart isn't at the center of the chest, which is where you would have to stab in order to hit the center of the cross. So, there's an aesthetic quality to his choice. For another, there's rib and cartilage surrounding the heart. He would have to stab her repeatedly to break through. That would mess up the appearance of the cross, right?" Sara paused. "There would be a great amount of blood if the heart was punctured. It would come out at a considerable velocity. Maybe he wanted to avoid that." She shrugged, looking up at Jeffrey. "I suppose he could have gone under the rib cage and up if he wanted to get to the heart, but that would have been a crapshoot at best."

"You're saying the attacker had some kind of medical knowledge?"

Sara asked, "Do you know where the heart is?"

He put his hand over the left side of his chest.

"Right. You also know your ribs don't meet all the way in the center."

He tapped his hand against the center of his chest. "What's this?"

"Sternum," she answered. "The cut's lower, though. It's in the xiphoid process. I can't say if that's blind luck or calculated."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, if you're hell-bent on carving a cross on somebody's abdomen and putting a knife through the center, this is the best place to stab somebody if you want the knife to go through. There are three parts to the sternum," she said, using her own chest to illustrate. "The manubrium, which is the upper part, the body, which is the main part, then the xiphoid process. Of those three, the xiphoid is the softest. Especially in someone this age. She's what, early thirties?"

"Thirty-three."

"Tessa's age," Sara mumbled, and for a second she flashed on her sister. She shook this from her mind, focusing back on the body. "The xiphoid process calcifies as you age. The cartilage gets harder. So, if I was going to stab someone in the chest, this is where I'd make my X."

"Maybe he didn't want to cut her breasts?"

Sara considered this. "This seems more personal than that." She tried to find the words. "I don't know, I would think that he would want to cut her breasts. Know what I mean?"

"Especially if it's sexually motivated," he offered. "I mean, rape is generally about power, right? It's about being angry at women, wanting to control them. Why would he cut her there instead of in a place that makes her a woman?"

"Rape is also about penetration," Sara countered. "This certainly qualifies. It's a strong cut, nearly clean through. I don't think-" She stopped, staring at the wound, a new idea forming in her mind. "Jesus," she mumbled.

"What is it?" Jeffrey asked.

She could not speak for a few seconds. Her throat felt as if it was closing in on her.

"Sara?"

A beeping filled the morgue. Jeffrey checked his pager. "That can't be Lena," he said. "Mind if I use the phone?"

"Sure." Sara crossed her arms, feeling the need to protect herself from her own thoughts. She waited until Jeffrey was sitting behind her desk before she continued the examination.

Sara reached above her head, turning the light so that she could get a better look at the pelvic area. Adjusting the metal speculum, she mumbled a prayer to herself, to God, to anybody who would listen, to no avail. By the time Jeffrey returned, she was sure.

"Well?" he asked.

Sara's hands shook as she peeled off her gloves. "She was sexually assaulted early on in the attack." She paused, dropping the soiled gloves on the table, imagining in her mind Sibyl Adams sitting on the toilet, putting her hands to the open wound in her abdomen, then bracing herself against the bars on either side of the stall, completely blind to what was happening to her.

He waited a few beats before prompting, "And?"

Sara put her hands on the edges of the table. "There was fecal matter in her vagina."

Jeffrey did not seem to follow. "She was sodomized first?"

"There's no sign of anal penetration."

"But you found fecal matter," he said, still not getting it.

"Deep in her vagina," Sara said, not wanting to spell it out, knowing she would have to. She heard an uncharacteristic waver in her voice when she said, "The incision in her belly was deep on purpose, Jeffrey." She stopped, searching for words to describe the horror she had found.

"He raped her," Jeffrey said, not a question. "There was vaginal penetration."

"Yes," Sara answered, still searching for a way to clarify. Finally she said, "There was vaginal penetration after he raped the wound."

NIGHT had come quickly, the temperature dropping along with the sun. Jeffrey was crossing the street just as Lena pulled into the parking lot of the station house. She was out of her car before he reached her.

"What's going on?" she demanded, but he could tell she already knew something was wrong. "Is it my uncle?" she asked, rubbing her arms to fight the chill. She was wearing a thin T-shirt and jeans, not her usual work attire, but the trip to Macon was a casual one.

Jeffrey took off his jacket, giving it to her. The weight of what Sara had told him sat on his chest like a heavy stone. If Jeffrey had anything to do with it, Lena would never know exactly what had happened to Sibyl Adams. She would never know what that animal had done to her sister.

"Let's go inside," he said, putting his hand under her elbow.

"I don't want to go inside," she answered, jerking her arm away. His coat fell between them.

Jeffrey leaned down, retrieving his jacket. When he looked up, Lena had her hands on her hips. As long as he had known her, Lena Adams had sported a chip on her shoulder the size of Everest. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jeffrey had been thinking she would need a shoulder to cry on or words of comfort. He could not accept that there wasn't a soft side to Lena, maybe because she was a woman. Maybe because just a few minutes earlier he had seen her sister lying ripped apart in the morgue. He should have remembered that Lena Adams was harder than that. He should have anticipated the anger.

Jeffrey slipped his jacket back on. "I don't want to do this outside."

"What are you going to say?" she demanded. "You're going to say he was driving, right? And that he swerved off the road, right?" She ticked off the progression on her fingertips, giving him nearly verbatim the police handbook procedure for informing someone that a family member had died. Build up to it, the manual said. Don't spring it on them suddenly. Let the family member/loved one get used to the idea.

Lena counted it off, her voice getting louder with each sentence. "Was he hit by another car? Huh? And they took him to the hospital? And they tried to save him, but they couldn't. They did everything they could, huh?"