'Yeah, well, I didn't want to mention that.'
Gideon got up to wrench some ice from the freezer tray for his ginger ale. “Let's go back to basics for a minute,” he said.
And the most basic axiom of forensic pathology was that the processes of decay began at the instant of death and advanced through time in a reasonably regular and predictable progression until decomposition was finished. The second most basic axiom was that this progression could be altered by—
'When did you learn all this stuff about forensic pathology?” John said irritably. “Every time you get near a fresh corpse, all I hear is how it's not your field.'
'He's just making up that business about axioms,” Julie said matter-of-factly. “He thinks that's how professors are supposed to talk. Admit it, Gideon.'
'Okay,” Gideon said, smiling, “but what I was about to say is true anyway. Decomposition can be affected by a lot of things, with temperature being number one. The hotter it is, the faster it goes; the colder it is, the slower it goes.
Which is why refrigeration keeps things fresh, of course.'
It was this principle that Callie had applied. The blinds had been lowered not just to keep out prying eyes, but, more important, to keep out that blazing sun. She had lowered them as soon as she had killed him. No doubt, she had also turned the air conditioner on full-blast. Then she had hung out the do-not-disturb sign to keep unwanted visitors away. Then she'd left for Nevada.
'And when she got back on Thursday morning she went to his cottage, raised the blinds, and turned off the air conditioning. Then she went horseback riding.'
John rolled up a slice of baloney and bit off half of it, “So in came the heat, in came the sun, shining right on him. Tilton naturally went on the basis that it'd been like that all along, that the body'd been sitting there in that heat since the murder.'
'Right, we all were. But it was only that way for about ten hours. The rest of the time, another forty hours or so, it'd been under refrigeration, so to speak. All those changes Tilton talked about—bloating, discoloration, everything else—were slowed way down during that time.'
He leaned against the sink, sipping ginger ale, wrinkling his nose at the bubbles. “So naturally Tilton's estimate of the TOD was quite a bit more than ten hours, but a whole lot less than the fifty that it really was. Nineteen to twenty-four hours, remember? Between four and ten P.M. Wednesday.'
'During which time Callie was provably off doing her thing in Carson City,” Julie said pensively. She fingered her can of ginger ale. “But where does the plastic wrap come into it?'
'Oh, that was even trickier. You can slow the internal bodily changes way down by lowering the heat, but there isn't much you can do—not with just an air conditioner about the fly larvae. And there was no question the flies were going to find Harlow in a hurry.'
'In about five minutes, according to Tilton,” John said.
'That's right. And finding fly larvae at the two or three-day stage of their development, instead of the one-day egg stage, would have given it away. So she—'
'Do I really want to hear this?” Julie said nervously. She had stopped eating, but she stayed where she was.
'It's not that bad. She wrapped him—probably him and the chair both—in plastic before she left, to keep the flies off. When she came back to turn off the air conditioner two days later, she took off the wrap, and the flies got right to work. Result: eggs in their first-day level of development when we found him ten hours later.'
'Ugh!” Julie said emphatically.
'I knew there was something funny about that tear-off strip; I just couldn't figure out what,” John said regretfully. “She must have taken the box with her, but she forgot about the strip. It'd fallen into the crack between the table and the wall, remember? Easy to miss.'
He downed the rest of the rolled baloney slice and wiped his fingers. “Hey, what about the insecticide smell, what was that all about?'
'Well, I'm guessing she had to run over to the general store at Camp Sherman to buy the plastic wrap. That's a good twenty minutes, back and forth, and she knew the flies would probably start laying in that time. So she had to kill that first batch. She probably picked up the spray at the store, too, along with the plastic wrap.'
'Yeah, good point,” John said. “I can check over there, see if someone remembers her.'
'Wouldn't that mean it wasn't planned ahead of time?” Julie suggested. “If she knew she was going to use it, she'd have had it with her when she went to Harlow's cottage. And she wouldn't have needed the insecticide at all.'
'What, walk in with a box of plastic wrap all ready to seal him up in?” Gideon said. “Right in front of him?'
'Yes, why not? Normal people don't jump to the conclusion they're about to be murdered because somebody comes in carrying a box of plastic wrap.'
Gideon smiled. “You're right. Normal people don't.'
'Wild stuff,” John said. He drained his ginger ale and crumpled the can. “Well, I guess I ought to go fill Farrell in and see what kind of a case we can make.'
'Wait a minute, John.” Gideon came back to the table and sat down. “What kind of a case can you make? Look, we're assuming Callie killed Harlow to keep him from talking about Jasper's murder, right? But what evidence do we have to connect her to Jasper's murder? No credible motive or anything else. No more than anyone else had. For that matter, we don't have any proof it was Callie who actually killed Harlow. Any of the rest of them could have done it the same way.'
'She pulled a gun an hour ago,” Julie said. “That's not bad for starters. And the whole thing—the blinds, the plastic wrap, everything—revolved around juggling the time factor. Callie is the only person who benefits from that.'
