Дэвид Балдаччи - Walk the Wire

“No, nobody told me.”

She said, “Well we’re here and we’ve been assigned to investigate this murder. We’ve read your post report. Now we need to see the body.”

“Now hold on. I can’t let you folks do that without checking with the detective on the case.”

Decker said, “Then call him. Now.”

“He might not be in.”

“You won’t know till you try.”

Southern moved off to a corner of the room, took out his cell phone, and made a call. He spoke with someone and then rejoined Decker and Jamison, not looking thrilled.

“Okay, I guess you Feds always get your way.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Decker.

“Well, let’s get to it. I’ve still got a body to prepare for a viewing tomorrow, and the family was real particular on her clothing and makeup.”

“Do you bury people here during the winter?” asked Decker.

“We prefer not to. Have to dig through the snow, and then the ground is iron hard. Hassle even with a backhoe. And who wants to stand outside saying good-bye to a dearly departed when it’s sixty below? Funny how quickly tears dry and people beat a retreat when their fingers, toes, and ears are getting frostbite. But most people these days opt for the quick-fried route anyway over a plot of dirt.”

“ ‘Quick-fried’?” asked Jamison.

“Cremation.” He chuckled. “I mean, doesn’t that mean they’re opting for Hell in a way?”

“Can we see the body?” said Decker with a frown.

Southern led them down a short hall, and they passed through into a small utilitarian room smelling strongly of antiseptic, form-aldehyde, and decomposing flesh.

In the middle of the room was a metal gurney. The bulge under the sheet was what they had come for. Hopefully, the body would tell them a story about who had killed its owner.

Jamison glanced at Decker, who was already seeing the room in electric blue. It was a testament to how many dead bodies he saw that this no longer bothered him. Well, almost.

“This is the first time I’ve done a postmortem on a victim who’d already been autopsied,” noted Southern.

“You’ve been trained to do this, I assume?” asked Decker bluntly.

“I’m properly credentialed,” replied Southern, who seemed to take no offense at the question. “Just because it’s not my main business doesn’t mean I don’t take pride in it.”

“That’s good to know,” said Decker curtly.

Southern lifted the sheet off the corpse, and they all three stared down at what was left of Irene Cramer.

“Cause, manner, and time of death?” asked Jamison.

“The cause and manner are pretty straightforward.” He pointed to a wound in the middle of the chest, appearing a few inches above the bottom intersection of the Y-incision. “Long, sharp, serrated knife penetrated here and bisected the heart. The manner was homicide, of course.”

“Killer was pretty accurate with the knife strike,” noted Jamison as she leaned in for a closer look. “Clean and efficient. Only one stab did the deal.”

“My thinking, too.”

“So, unemotional. No savagery or lack of control,” opined Decker. “Killer might not have known the victim. Or at least had no personal relationship with her.”

“Maybe not,” said Southern.

“And the time of death?” asked Decker.

“Okay, there we get into the speculation zone,” conceded Southern. “Based on what I found out, she’s been dead maybe about a week to ten days.”

Decker did not look pleased by this. “That’s a pretty big range. You can’t narrow it down more than that?”

“Afraid not,” said Southern, looking unhappy. “If this comes down to whether an alibi gets someone off or not, well, my report’s not going to be a bit of help on that. I’m sorry.”

“Insect infestation?” asked Jamison.

“A lot. That allowed me to gauge the week or so. After that, it gets dicey. At least for me. Again, I know what I’m doing, but this isn’t exactly the FBI lab here.”

“Had she been lying out there long, then?” asked Jamison.

“That’s both a hard and simple question.”

“Come again?” said Jamison.

“If she’d been out there too long, the animals clearly would have gotten to her. They hadn’t.”

“That’s the simple part, so what’s the hard?” asked Decker. “The insect infestation doesn’t reconcile with that?”

“Bingo. Lots of bugs, but no animal bite marks. And another thing, the lividity was fixed. Shows that after death she was in a prone position.”

“The report I read says she was found supine ,” noted Decker.

“Right, but you can see that the lividity discoloration does not jibe with that. Blood won’t collect around parts of the body that are in contact with the ground. But once lividity is fixed, meaning when the heart stops beating and the large red blood cells sink via gravity into the interstitial tissues, the cells don’t move again. The discoloration stays where it was.”

“So she was obviously killed and laid on her face. But then the body was at some point turned on its back because that’s how she was found,” said Jamison.

“Right. After lividity was fixed.”

“Bleed-out would have been minimal, since the heart would have stopped shortly after the knife strike,” said Decker. “But there would have been some, and none was found at the crime scene. That means she was killed elsewhere and placed there, which would also explain the lividity discrepancy.”

Southern nodded. “But with such major insect infestation you would expect animal intrusion as well. I mean, if she’d been lying outside all this time, the critters we have around here would have gnawed her to bone in far less than a week, which is the bare minimum I put her TOD at.” He paused and added matter-of-factly, “Other than that she was in excellent condition. Very healthy. Heart, lungs, other organs, shipshape.”

“Yeah, the woman’s in great shape, except she’s dead,” said Decker grimly.

“How much skill are we talking about with the killer doing his own postmortem?” asked Jamison.

“The incisions were first-rate. I’d say the person had some medical training. And he, if it was a he, knew the forensic protocols. What was the source of that knowledge and training, I couldn’t venture to say.”

Decker pointed to the Y-incision. “How about the tools he used? Regular knife or medical grade?”

“I’d say he had some hospital scalpels and a Stryker saw or something like it to cut open the skull. And the thread he used to suture the Y-incision is surgical grade.”

Decker looked the body over and had the coroner help him turn the woman.

“No tats or distinguishing marks,” noted Decker.

“No liver spots or sun damage. She was too young for age spots, but her skin was not tanned, either. She wasn’t out in the sun much.”

They turned her back over and Decker ran his gaze over her once more.

How many bodies had he stared at in precisely these circumstances? The answer was easy. Too damn many. But if he didn’t want to look at bodies, he’d have to change careers.

“Anything of interest in her system?” asked Jamison.

“Almost nothing in her stomach, so she hadn’t eaten recently. No obvious signs of drug use. No needle marks, that sort of thing. Tox reports haven’t come back yet.”

“Anything else out of the ordinary?” asked Decker.

“I think her having a postmortem done on her before she got to me is enough out of the ordinary for any case.” Southern tacked on a grin.

“So your answer is no?” persisted Decker.

The smile fell away. “Right, my answer is no.”

“Is she from around here? Who made the ID?”