Just before dawn the radio came on in the bedroom and startled everyone.
‘‘That got the old heart pumping, didn’t it?’’ Jin laughed.
‘‘I think I wet my pants,’’ David said. ‘‘Must have been set by the victim. Time to get up.’’
‘‘Won’t be getting up this time,’’ Jin said.
Diane went to the kitchen to check on Neva. She found her in the pantry picking up and shaking cans of food. Neva looked up sheepishly.
‘‘I, uh, just... you know how some people keep their valuables in fake cans of soup? Whoever it was apparently checked out the kitchen drawers, and I just thought...’’
‘‘Good idea. I wouldn’t have thought of that. Find anything?’’
Neva looked relieved. Her whole body relaxed and she smiled. ‘‘Nothing in the groceries. Jin found plenty of prints, but they were in places you’d expect in a kitchen that’s used for cooking. He said they were probably from exemplars. I’ve collected some fibers from the doorjamb. That’s one good thing about these old houses: The door frames are apt to be splintered— good for grabbing at clothing.’’
‘‘It looks like the perp wore gloves,’’ said Diane. ‘‘I don’t think we’ll be getting any of his prints.’’ She looked out the kitchen window and down at her watch. ‘‘It’s getting to be daylight. When you finish, I want you and David to work the outside, around the house.’’
Diane and Jin worked the bathroom. It was this room that told a big chunk of the story of what hap pened to Chris Edwards.
She stood in the middle of the bedroom, her brow wrinkled, recreating in her mind scenarios of what might have happened. She was fairly certain it wasn’t anything sexual. He’d just showered—his hair had smelled of shampoo and the bathroom towels were damp—and put on his briefs before he was hit, appar ently with the hand weight. First in the nose—the blood spattered on the sink. He may have been hit again on the temple at that time. He fell, smearing blood on the floor.
He was half-pulled and he half-walked out of the bathroom—there was a bare bloody footprint on the floor. Blood was on the soles of his feet.
His hands were tied behind him and a rope was tied around his neck. It was possible they hadn’t meant to kill him straightaway because, as the morgue techni cian noticed, the rope wasn’t tight around his neck. He had to lean into it for it to choke him and cut off the blood supply to his brain.
One thing Diane did know: Whoever tied these knots wasn’t the same person who tied the ones on the hanging victims in the woods.
Chapter 11
When Diane walked into Lynn Webber’s autopsy room, Lynn was examining the surface of Chris Ed wards’ body with a scope on a rope. The scope trans mitted a magnified
making visible any
image onto a computer screen, puncture marks, fibers, or other
minutiae that marred or clung to his skin.
‘‘We’ll be finished in just a minute,’’ Lynn said. They were in the main autopsy room. The isolation
room was just a wall away. Diane could see the shiny metal tables through the large window.
Odd, she thought, she didn’t mind the closed-in feel ing of a cave. She rather liked it. But the isolation room was a different matter. Being confined with a decaying body wasn’t her favorite way to spend an afternoon.
Chris Edwards’ corpse looked as if he had just died. He lay on his side on the table, dressed the same way he had come into the world, with the exception of the yellow rope that now tied his hands behind his back. The rope that had been so tight around his neck, that had cut off not only his air passage but the blood supply to his brain, was now loose, the weight of his body no longer pressing against it.
Just two days ago, Diane had talked with him. He had thoughts, a personality . . . life. Now everything he had been was gone. Only the dead flesh and bones remained.
She tried thinking back to when they had spoken, if he had said anything or acted any way that would give a clue to what happened to him afterward. Both he and Steven Mayberry had been edgy, but that was understandable. They’d just found three dead bodies. Nothing from her memory of her brief interaction with him enlightened her.
‘‘You come to get the rope?’’ asked Raymond.
Diane almost sighed. ‘‘Yes. I’ve come to get the rope, and anything else you have for me.’’
‘‘I delivered Blue Doe to your lab this morning. I’ve got Red and Green Doe ready for you to take back.’’
‘‘That was quick work.’’
‘‘Raymond likes his work,’’ said Lynn. ‘‘He espe cially likes to skeletonize the bodies. He doesn’t get to do that too often.’’
‘‘They’re much prettier in their bones. Skin doesn’t wear well, especially hung out to dry like that.’’ He grinned.
‘‘You seem happy today,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Like Dr. Lynn says, I like my work.’’ Raymond didn’t take his eyes off the screen. ‘‘I got it,’’ he said. He used his tweezers to pluck something from the body and placed it in an evidence bag.
‘‘We have some fibers and a couple of hairs for you that we’ve collected from Mr. Edwards,’’ said Lynn. ‘‘The blood in his hair is interesting.’’
Diane walked over and looked where Lynn parted his hair to reveal the scalp.
‘‘The blood didn’t come from his head. I think it was on the perp’s hand—or his glove. See this irrita tion on his scalp? I think the perp held his hair to pull back his head. Like this.’’ Lynn illustrated by pull ing on the hair.
‘‘Releasing the pressure on his neck to let him breathe,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Might have been an interroga tion technique.’’
Lynn nodded. ‘‘That’s what it looks like to me. Okay, Raymond, let’s let Diane get her rope.’’
