but Fred Bart had already left.
Sara looked back at the dead man lying on the table as if he might offer some wry comment about what had just happened. Of course he did not. Sara took off her gloves as she walked back over to her notes. She found the right page and recorded that Fred Bart had assisted with the removal of the knife. She also noted that the knife had easily slipped from the wound. Bart was right about one thing; usually the blades stuck, whether from dried blood or tissue that stiffened around the metal.
She pushed this to the back of her mind as she continued the external examination, photographing the healed scars that indicated needle use, making note of a few scratches on the front of the shin. Gibson's mouth was already open and the bridge spanning the gap where his front teeth should have been popped out easily. Though she didn't want to, Sara had to admit that Bart did good work. The gums were almost completely healed and there didn't seem to be any indication that the bridge had fit awkwardly.
Sara checked the time, wondering what was taking Jeffrey and Jake Valentine so long. They were supposed to bring Boyd Gibson's father in to identify the body but that had been a good two hours ago. Technically, Jake had already positively identified Boyd Gibson, but she knew from experience that the family generally needed to see the victim in order to get some closure.
She called Jeffrey's cell phone but he didn't pick up. She left a message for him, but after twenty minutes passed without him returning her call, she decided to go ahead with the internal examination. She could always cover the body when Gibson's father arrived to spare him the more graphic aspects of his son's death.
She regloved and returned to the table, where she picked up a scalpel and began the Y-incision. Because there was a Dictaphone over the autopsy table that she used back in Grant, Sara could not stop her mind from doing a running narration of every movement she made, so that when she opened the rib cage or examined the pleura, she heard a little voice in her head echoing the motions.
She followed the penetration path of the stab wound to the heart, finding just as she'd predicted. The blade had pierced the left posterior thoracic wall and exited the anterior, causing almost immediate death. She stopped here, making some more notes, taking photographs and measuring the blade's path, then doing her own drawing of exactly what she'd found.
Even without the stab wound, the heart was in bad shape. Enlarged from the extra weight on Gibson's frame, the major arteries were already showing signs of disease. Had the knife not killed him, his bad health habits would have ensured he didn't live into a comfortable old age.
Though she had obvious cause of death, Sara continued the autopsy in minute detail, carefully weighing and dissecting the organs, taking tissue samples. Boyd Gibson's last meal had been similar to the one Jeffrey and Sara had shared: pizza. He preferred pepperoni from the looks of it, but he'd chosen to eat a healthy salad to balance it out. Maybe he had smoked while he ate. Judging from the coloring and the enlarged air spaces in his lungs, Gibson had been a heavy smoker. Considering this, Sara thought it odd that he hadn't had cigarettes in his pockets.
She made a note of this, took more photographs and did so many drawings that her hand cramped. Unfortunately, her devotion to detail was only punishing herself. By the time the clock hands ticked past noon, her feet were killing her and her back felt as if it had been bent into a shepherd's hook.
And, honestly, Sara had never been an artist. Her drawings looked like the class project of a psychopathic kindergartener.
She covered the body and sat down, every vertebrae in her neck popping as she looked up at the ceiling in hopes of counteracting the fact that she had been looking straight down for the last two hours. She was just starting to let herself worry about Jeffrey when she heard a car pull up outside.
Jake Valentine opened the door, knocking at the same time. 'Sorry we're late,' he told her, a sloppy grin on his face. He had a piece of toilet tissue shoved up his nose. The bridge was swollen, the fingertips of a bruise spreading under his left eye.
Sara stood in alarm. 'Where's Jeffrey?'
Before she had finished the question, he came in behind Valentine, shutting the door.
'Slight altercation,' Jeffrey explained. He shared the same sloppy grin as the sheriff, as if they'd just had a great deal of fun together.
'What kind of altercation?' Sara felt like she was talking to two naughty children, and Jeffrey's burst of laughter did nothing to disabuse her of the notion.
Valentine laughed, too, though she could tell from the tears in his eyes that it hurt to do so. He told her, 'Grover wasn't exactly happy to see me.'
Jeffrey explained, 'He punched Jake in the face as soon as he opened the door.'
Sara noticed that he was using the sheriff's first name now. Only two cops could bond over one of them getting their face punched.
Valentine told Sara, 'Lucky thing you told me to bring him along this morning. You'd probably have me on that table right now if he hadn't been there.'
'Shit,' Jeffrey replied. 'Probably be both of us if you hadn't tripped the old fool.'
Sara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 'I take it Mr. Gibson is not coming in to do the formal identification?'
Valentine explained, 'He wasn't too broke up about losing his son. They weren't exactly close.' He shrugged, allowing a hint of seriousness to enter his voice. 'Maybe when he sobers up, it'll hit him.'
Jeffrey turned serious as well, telling Sara, 'He was out of control. We cuffed him, took him to the station, so he could sleep it off. Not the first time he's been there, from the looks of it.'
'No,' Valentine agreed. 'Probably won't be the last, either.'
'I took several photographs of his face,' Sara offered. 'You can show those to his father. It might make things easier.'
Jeffrey asked Sara, 'Did you find anything?'
'Not really.' She picked up the murder weapon and placed it on a sheet of brown paper so that she could photograph it. This was the first time Sara had really examined the full blade and handle. Looking at it now, she noticed two things about the knife: the blade was thin, maybe half an inch wide, and it was at least four inches long. Most important, unlike the majority of folding knives Sara had seen, there was no serration. The blade was smooth on one side and sharp on the other.
Valentine's cell phone rang, the opening bars of ' Dixie ' filling the room. He checked the caller ID, then told them, 'If y'all could excuse me for a minute?'
Sara waited until the door closed before picking up the camera and scrolling through the photographs.
Jeffrey asked, 'Did you call the hospitals to see if Lena or Hank have been admitted?'
'There are three within a fifty mile radius,' she told him, scanning through the photos. 'No sign at any of them.'
'I guess that's good,' he said, though she could tell he was disappointed. If Lena had been tucked up in a hospital last night, there was no way she could have been out killing Boyd Gibson.
Sara found the photo she wanted. 'This should make you feel better.'
'What's that?'
'Look at the wound,' she said, finding the series of close-ups she'd taken. 'It's jagged at the bottom and jagged at the top. I knew something wasn't right.'
