She was grateful for the way the gynecologist had not hesitated to take the vaginal swabs while examining Sophie, who remained unaware of the bodily trauma thanks to the anesthetic. Anya had managed to collect important samples while the vascular team tried to repair the massive neck wound. She included clippings and scraping from fingernails along with a short dark strand of hair from Sophie’s sparsely blonde pubic region. Each item was meticulously labeled.
Anya did not want to make any mistake with these specimens.
Unusually, none of the surgeons present objected to a forensic physician’s presence in the theater. Egos appeared to have been temporarily shelved. Each member of the team wanted Sophie to live, but the mood made it clear that everyone present also wanted the perpetrator to be caught.
Silence fell over the group when the gynecologist announced she would have to perform a hysterectomy to stem the hemorrhaging. The knife used to stab her had penetrated Sophie’s young womb. Removal was the only option. If she lived, she would be unable to have children and would have to face a gamut of medical complications related to premature menopause.
Armed with the bags and vials of forensic evidence, Anya headed downstairs. Outside emergency, she dialed Liz who had been with Sophie’s father in a private room.
Within moments of hanging up, Liz appeared from inside, black sunglasses masking her eyes.
“Guess you want a lift to the lab with that lot.”
“Considering you had me chauffeured here this morning…” Anya clutched the bags, relieved that her job was over for the moment.
“Sure, but we need to make a detour first. I want to check out the scene. It might be helpful for you too.”
Anya took an extra breath; visiting the scene would be draining for both of them.
Liz unlocked the unmarked Commodore and Anya placed the bags on the floor in the back before getting into the passenger seat. She buckled her seatbelt as the car left the parking bay and waited until they were in traffic to speak.
“How’s the father?”
“As you’d expect. He’s just lost one kid and the other’s not expected to make it. So what do we do? Treat him like a suspect and interview him as he stares at the doors of ICU for anyone with news of his daughter.” She checked the rearview mirror. “Not the most satisfying part of the job.”
Liz Gould was unusual in Homicide. A new mother and back full-time within weeks of the birth, she had to be under considerable stress. Her usual warmth was understandably lacking today. She seemed shut-down. Sitting with the father would have taken its emotional toll.
“Should he be a suspect?”
Liz stared at the road ahead. “Gut feeling tells me no but the stats aren’t in his favor. His grief seems pretty genuine to me, but that doesn’t always mean much.”
Anya knew the police would need to exclude the father and close family members before they even considered any other suspects. Experience taught them to look at those closest to the victims, then work outward. Unfortunately, that caused even more distress for those already suffering the worst imaginable loss.
“Is the girls’ mother around?”
“Divorced years ago. She died last year from breast cancer and the girls decided to stay on in her house. There’s something I don’t understand. If the slash to the neck was so dangerous, how did Sophie manage to crawl without killing herself?”
“No one knows. The ambulance officers did a hell of a job just transferring her safely.”
Liz Gould’s phone rang a number of times. On speakerphone, a male voice proudly announced that their little boy had just sat up for the first time. He was about to send a photo.
“Honey, that’s great but I’m with someone and can’t talk.”
Liz’s husband sounded deflated when she said she would be home late.
The female detective let out a sigh and glanced over at Anya.
“Sorry about that. He thinks his child came out a genius.”
Anya remembered what those early few months were like. As she was struggling with exhaustion after a marathon labor and delivery, Martin would brag to anyone who would listen about how great their child was, how well behaved and what a perfect sleeper. Her recollections of Ben as a newborn were very different from her former husband’s. Instead of time mellowing those images, they had been permanently etched onto her memory.
“What is your son-six months?”
“Four and a half. He probably pulled himself up and waited a second before tipping over. To his father, that counts.”
It triggered memories of Anya’s experience. Just when she thought she could not cope any longer with sleep deprivation and motherhood, Ben looked at her with huge blue eyes and beamed a smile. One relaxation of a few facial muscles and she thought her heart would burst. From that moment on, she was tied to motherhood and adored her only child.
Liz paused at the lights. “How old is your little one?”
“Ben just turned five and started school.”
With one hand, the new mother fiddled with her bra strap beneath the collar of her shirt. “Please tell me it gets better.”
Anya grinned. “Every day. Once the overnight feeds stop, everything becomes easier. Can I make a suggestion?”
The lights turned green and the car accelerated forward.
“Sure.”
“Check out YouTube. Search for laughing baby. There’s a clip on there of a baby laughing at some noise. Just hearing it makes you want to keep going.”
“I’ll do that.”
The car pulled up at a bend along Rosemount Place, a quiet suburban street. The crime scene had been cordoned off with tape. Up a long, sloped driveway was the house. A uniformed constable stood guard to direct any traffic around the scene. The detective removed a nail file from the middle console and slipped off both shoes.
“New leather soles,” she said, scraping the bottoms of her shoes with the file into a backward “G.” “Now if I stick my hoof in the wrong place, everyone will know it’s my print, no one else’s.”
Anya preferred the disposable shoe covers pathologists wore in the morgue and at scenes.
The pair climbed out and the car beeped when the doors locked. The evidence bags would be safe with a policeman standing guard nearby.
Liz pointed to an area of dirt at the bottom of the drive.
“This is where she was found.”
Anya surveyed the ground. Numerous footprints and the wheel tracks of what had to be the ambulance gurney made impressions in the soil.
“Has your photographer been through?”
Liz nodded and the pair squatted to look more closely at a blackened area on the sloped driveway.
“Sophie must have laid here for a while. Allowing for absorption, it’s a significant amount of blood loss. If she crawled along, her head was pointing downhill the whole time, which might have just saved her life.”
“The trail goes back up to the house.”
The women slowly stepped along the drive, careful not to disturb the bloodstains soaked into the white gravel.
“She must have been on her stomach for most of the way.”
Anya thought of the blackened fingernails and the samples she had taken from beneath the fingernails.
“I’d say she stopped at least three times for a rest, judging by the pools concentrated at various intervals.”
The neck and abdominal wounds would have oozed and been further traumatized by the driveway. “What was the temperature overnight?”
Liz Gould pulled out her notebook. “Your colleague asked the same thing, apparently. Got down to four degrees Celsius. Sophie’s lucky she didn’t die of exposure.”
“Or the cold slowed the blood loss and her metabolic rate long enough for her to be found alive.”
“Barely-she’s not out of the woods yet.”
