Karin Slaughter - Fallen

There was an older woman leaning against the door to the walk-in freezer. She looked up from her BlackBerry as they walked into the room. Her hospital badge was tucked into her pants pocket. No white lab coat, just a well-tailored black pantsuit. She was clearly on the administration side of the hospital. She was older, more gray than black in her hair. She pushed away from the freezer and walked over. Her posture was ramrod straight, her sizable chest out in front of her like the prow of a ship.

She didn’t stop for introductions. She pulled a small spiral-bound notebook out of her jacket pocket and read, “The shooter’s name is Franklin Warren Heeney. APD found his wallet on him. Local boy, lives in Tucker with his parents. Dropped out of Perimeter College his sophomore year. No employment records. No adult arrest history, but at thirteen, he spent six months in juvie for breaking windows. He has one child, a daughter, six years old, who lives with an aunt out in Snellville. The baby mama is in county lockup for shoplifting and a Baggie of meth they found in her purse. That’s all I could get on him.” She indicated the other body. “Marcellus Benedict Estevez. As I said on the phone, his wallet was found in the trash by the Dumpster. I assume you’ve already looked into him?” Amanda nodded, and the woman closed her notebook. “That’s all I have for now. Nothing else has come down on the wire.”

Amanda nodded again. “Thank you.”

“I bought you an hour before the body boys come. Dr. Linton, the films you ordered for Estevez are in the transport packet. I’ve gathered together some tools that might be useful. I’m sorry it can’t be more.”

She had done plenty. Sara looked over the four Mayo trays laid out beside the bodies. Whoever the woman was, she had some medical knowledge and was high enough up the Grady food chain to raid the supply closet without setting off alarms. “Thank you.”

The woman nodded her goodbyes, then left the room.

Will’s tone was sharp when he asked Amanda, “Let me guess, one of your old gals?”

Amanda ignored him. “Dr. Linton, if we could get started?”

Sara had to force herself to move or she would’ve just stood rooted to the floor until the building fell down around her. There was a pack of sterile gloves hanging from a cleat on the wall. She took out a pair and forced them over her sweating hands. The powder rolled into tiny balls that stuck to her palm like dough.

Without preamble, she pulled back the sheet covering the first body, revealing Marcellus Estevez, the man she had found by the Dumpster. He had two closely spaced bullet holes in his forehead. Powder burns tattooed the skin. She smelled cordite, which was impossible considering the man had been shot hours ago.

Amanda said, “Two rounds to the center of the forehead, just like our drive-by at the warehouse.”

Will’s voice was low. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m fine.” Sara forced herself to get on with it, starting with the easy stuff. “He’s approximately twenty-five years of age,” she mumbled. “Five-eight or nine. Around one hundred eighty pounds.” She pressed open his eyes, feeling herself fall into the routine of examination. “Brown. Jaundiced. His wound was septic. Necropsy will probably show infiltration into the larger organs. He was in systemic shutdown when we found him.” She rolled down the sheet so she could look at the belly again, this time with an eye toward forensic evaluation rather than treatment.

The man was nude; his clothes had been cut off when they’d brought him into the ER. Sara could clearly see the penetrating stab wound in the lower left quadrant of his abdomen. She pressed on either side of the cut to see if she could discern the path of the blade. “The small intestines were pierced. It looks like the knife went in at an upward angle. Right-handed thrust from a supine position.”

Amanda asked, “He was on top of her?”

“I would assume. We’re talking about Evelyn here, right?” Will was still being stoic, but Amanda nodded. “The blade entered at an oblique angle to the abdominal Langer’s lines, or the natural direction of the skin. If I reorient the edges like this”—she twisted the skin into the position it had been in when the man was stabbed—“you can see the point of penetration suggests Evelyn was on her back, most likely on the floor, with her attacker on top of her. He was slightly bent at the waist. The knife went in like this.” Sara reached for a scalpel on the tray, but changed her mind and grabbed a pair of scissors instead. She illustrated the action, holding her hand down at her hip with the scissors angled upward. “It was more defensive than deliberate. Maybe they struggled and fell at the same time. The knife went in. The man rolled over while the blade was still lodged—you can see how the wound is incised significantly more at the lateral edge, indicating movement.”

“Kitchen knife?” Amanda asked.

“Statistically, it’s the most likely weapon, and the struggle took place in the kitchen, so it makes sense. They’ll have to do a comparison at the ME’s office to be sure. Did they find the weapon at the scene?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Are you sure about this? She was on her back?”

Sara could see that Amanda was not pleased with the evaluation. She wanted her friend to be a fighter, not someone who got lucky. “The majority of fatal stab wounds are in the left chest region. If you want to kill someone, you go for the heart, overhanded, straight into the chest. This was defensive.” She indicated the man’s sliced palm. “But Evelyn didn’t go easily. At some point, she must’ve come at him directly, because he grabbed the blade of the knife.”

Amanda seemed only slightly placated by this information. “Is there anything in his stomach?”

Sara reached under the gurney and pulled out the transportation packet destined for the Fulton County medical examiner. Krakauer had filled in most of the information while Sara was being interviewed by the police. The form was standard. The ME performing the autopsy needed to know drugs on board, procedures followed, which marks came from the hospital and which had more nefarious origins. Sara found a thermal reproduction of the X-rays on the last page.

She said, “The belly looks clear of any foreign objects. They’ll know for sure when they cut him open, but I’m assuming that the amount of heroin we’re talking about, something worth dying for, would be easy to spot.”

Will cleared his throat. He seemed reluctant as he asked, “Would Evelyn have a lot of blood on her from stabbing this guy?”

“It’s not likely. Most of the bleeding happened inside the belly, even after the knife was pulled out. There’s the defensive wound on his hand, but the ulnar and radial arteries are intact and none of the digital arteries were compromised. If the cut on his hand was deeper or if one of the fingers was sliced open or off, you could expect a significant amount of blood loss. But that’s not the case with Estevez, so I’m guessing Evelyn would’ve had a minimal amount of blood on her clothes.”

Will said, “There was a lot of blood on the floor. You could see footprints back and forth across the tiles.”

“How big was the space?”

“Kitchen sized,” he said. “Bigger than yours, but not by much, and enclosed. The house is older, ranch-style.”

Sara thought about it. “I’d have to see the crime scene photos, but I’m fairly certain that if there was enough blood on the floor to show a struggle, that blood didn’t come from Estevez’s hand or belly. At least not all of it.”

“Could Estevez just get up on his own and walk off after sustaining his injuries?”

“Not without help. Any type of damage to the abdominal wall makes it difficult to breathe, let alone move.” Sara put her hand to her stomach. “Think about how many muscles have to fire just to sit up.”