“Don't interrogate him, though. Not yet. No specific questions about what's happening here today. Just background data on Edie, and her,” I said, indicating Hanna, who was still on the bench in the hall. For the first time I became aware that she was in pajama pants and a sweatshirt, with incongruous six-eyed work boots on her feet, unlaced. She did get up in a hurry, I thought. And hasn't been inclined to go back to her room to dress. I noted that because it made what I'd heard quite believable.
“Okay,” he said.
“Be firm, but nice.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“Do we know for sure what his connection is here? He said he lived here. That true?”
Borman nodded. “He's one of the residents here, as far as I know. Long-term house-sitters, as far as I can tell. I found that out from the lady EMT who's talking to Hanna. There are about six of 'em, I guess.”
That was why the locals called it the Dropout Dorm. Not school dropouts. It was sort of a matter of pride in Nation County's four high schools that we'd had precisely two dropouts in the last ten years. The “Dropout” came from dropping out of the mainstream. Something I'd always thought to be a harmless idea.
“Six?” More than I'd expected. “So, where's everybody else?”
“Some of 'em have gone to work already. And there's one girl raking leaves in the backyard.”
Well, Jesus Christ. “Uh, you want to get her into the house? Keep an eye on her, too. The damned leaves can wait.”
“Okay,” he said. “Easy.”
“And get her to fill out the same forms Toby does. And find out who the others are, okay?”
He started to go by me, and I stopped him. “Hey,” I said, lowering my voice, “you happen to know who this Ms. Hunley is?”
“Owns the house,” he said. “Lives over north of Chicago, I think. That's what the lady EMT told me.”
“North of Chicago” covered a lot of territory. “See if you can get an address.”
As he left, I found myself wondering if I were standing in a hotel lobby. Six? Well, the Mansion was easily big enough to hold that many. I just hoped there weren't any more potential witnesses being overlooked because they were outside doing yard work.
SIX
Saturday, October 7, 2000
09:24
Dr. Henry Zimmer arrived at exactly the same time that the office called and told us that Special Agent Hester Gorse was en route from her residence, and had an ETA of about forty-five minutes. Things were beginning to move, finally.
Doc Zimmer was a large guy, and altogether an exceptional MD. Doctors just don't like being commandeered for medical examiner duty, because it either means that they have to leave their office, or to show up on their day off, or come out in the middle of the night. But Doc Zimmer never, ever complained. He was always cheerful, friendly, and very good at what he did.
We told him who it was, and where. He instantly expressed his condolences to Lamar.
“Lamar, I'm really sorry.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“It seems like just yesterday that I delivered her daughter.”
“Yeah,” said Lamar. He spoke to both of us. “Look, you don't really need me, so I better get over to my sister's for a while.”
“Before anybody else tells her?” I asked.
“Nope,” said Lamar. “She's the one who told me who it was, this morning. That's why I told the office to send you.”
That was a real compliment, coming from Lamar. He was very reluctant to discuss his sister's side of the family with anybody. I felt kind of flattered.
“How's she taking it?” I asked, just to be polite.
“Her? Hell, she's already talking about suing the lady who owns this place. She's just bein' herself.”
When he entered the bathroom, Doc Z. just said, “Oh, boy.” He snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and started to examine the body, moving very slowly and carefully, and not moving her about much at all. At one point he gently lifted her head, and studied the gaping wound.
“More a stab than a cut.” Then, “Seems to be some rigor present in the neck and jaw.”
Rigor mortis is a strange thing. It's the phenomenon that causes the muscles to stiffen after death. It starts when the body gets to about room temperature, half an hour to an hour or so after death. The smaller muscles stiffen completely first, the larger muscles lagging a bit behind. It lasts about twelve hours, and then subsides in another twelve or so. At that point, rigor in the neck told us that she'd likely been dead for more than a half hour. Given that I'd first observed her body about an hour before, it was hardly a revelation. But you have to start somewhere.
Doc Z. reached down and lifted Edie's left hand.
“Not pronounced in the left elbow… ”
Ah. Now we were getting someplace. The fact that she'd not gone rigid in her larger arm muscles suggested that it was probably not more than four or so hours since she'd died. Roughly, of course. “Suggested.” You hang around the courts long enough, you start to think like that. Anyway, call it 05:00, or so.
“Doc, what? About five A.M. or so, you think?”
“Make it four to six.” He didn't even look up. “The fingers are stiff, the legs seem flexible… Assuming she died in here, at about this temperature… ”
“Okay.” Four to six. Assuming a constant, or relatively constant ambient temperature. Close enough. Assume room temperature. We were in a room, after all. Assume we had no other way to estimate the time of death, yet. Just ballpark.
I helped him rock the body to either side, and then forward a little, so he could see all of her. Lividity was just barely apparent in her buttocks, her elbows, and on the backs of her legs. The gluteal muscles were important, because they're the largest in the body. They would be the last to go completely rigid.
“Shouldn't there be a little more lividity?” I asked. Lividity is the purplish mottling of the skin that occurs when blood settles to the lower parts of a dead body.
“Not if she'd experienced great blood loss,” said Doc Z. “And I'd say she has.”
“Right.” Well, there went my little theory that she'd just bled until her heart stopped.
Doc Z. stood up. “Do you feel certain about the suicide aspects of this?” he asked, sotto voce. “I have some suspicions about the bruises.”
I shrugged. “Me, too, but I don't see any real evidence to the contrary. Not unless the bruises were caused at about the same time she died.”
“Those are the sort of pronounced bruises I expect to find in the elderly,” he said.
“Abuse?”
“That might be consistent, but what I meant was, in the elderly who are being prescribed blood thinners to reduce the possibility of stroke.”
“Oh. Well, there's a pillbox out on the vanity. One of those weekly ones. You could check that.”
“Good. I suppose you've already noticed that much of the blood seems to be dried from evaporation, as opposed to being clotted.”
“Yeah.”
“Attaboy,” he said with a grin. “The neck cut bothers me, too.” Henry moved her head a bit to see the wound again. “No hesitation marks.”
“Right.”
“I'd feel a lot more comfortable if we had a good forensics specialist up on this one.”
“Okay… ”
