corpse. The light over it was bright.
The corpse was Janice May Chapman. She had a tag on her toe with her name written on it in a spidery hand. She was naked. Pellegrino had called her as white as a sheet, but by that point she was pale blue and light purple, blotched and mottled with the characteristic marbling of the truly bloodless. She had been perhaps five feet seven inches tall, and she might once have weighed about a hundred and twenty pounds, neither fat nor excessively thin. She had dark hair bobbed short. It was thick and heavy, well cut, and still in good condition. Pellegrino had called her pretty, and it didn’t require much imagination to agree. The flesh on her face was collapsed and empty, but her bone structure was good. Her teeth were white and even.
Her throat was a mess. It was laid open from side to side and the wound had dried to a rubbery gape. Flesh and muscle had shrunk back, and tendons and ligaments had curled, and empty veins and arteries had retracted. White bone was visible, and I could see a single horizontal score mark on it.
The knife had been substantial, the blade had been sharp, and the killing stroke had been forceful, confident, and fast.
Deveraux said, “We need to examine her wrists and ankles.”
The doctor made a
Deveraux took Chapman’s left arm and I took her right. Her wrist bones were light and delicate. The skin lying over them had no abrasions. No rope burns. But there was faint residual marking. There was a two-inch-wide band that was slightly bluer than the rest. Very slightly bluer. Almost not there at all. But perceptible. And very slightly swollen, compared to the rest of her forearm. Definitely raised. The exact opposite of a compression.
I looked at Merriam and asked, “What do you make of this?”
“The cause of death was exsanguination through severed carotid arteries,” he said. “That was what I was paid to determine.”
“How much were you paid?”
“The fee structure was agreed between my predecessor and the county.”
“Was it more than fifty cents?”
“Why?”
“Because fifty cents is all that conclusion is worth. Cause of death is totally obvious. So now you can earn your corn by helping us out a little.”
Deveraux looked at me and I shrugged. Better that I had said it than her. She had to live with the guy afterward. I didn’t.
Merriam said, “I don’t like your attitude.”
I said, “And I don’t like twenty-seven-year-old women lying dead on a slab. You want to help or not?”
He said, “I’m not a pathologist.”
I said, “Neither am I.”
The guy stood still for a moment, and then he sighed and stepped forward. He took Janice May Chapman’s limp and lifeless arm from me. He looked at the wrist very closely, and then ran his fingers up and down, gently, from the back of her hand to the middle of her forearm, feeling the swelling. He asked, “Do you have a hypothesis?”
I said, “I think she was tied up tight. Wrists and ankles. The bindings started to bruise her, but she didn’t live long enough for the bruises to develop very much. But they definitely started. A little blood leaked into her tissues, and it stayed there when the rest of it drained out. Which is why we’re seeing compression injuries as raised welts.”
“Tied up with what?”
“Not ropes,” I said. “Maybe belts or straps. Something wide and flat. Maybe silk scarves. Something padded, perhaps. To disguise what had been done.”
Merriam said nothing. He moved past me to the end of the table and looked at Chapman’s ankles. He said, “She was wearing pantyhose when she was brought in. The nylon was undamaged. Not torn or laddered at all.”
“Because of the padding. Maybe it was foam rubber. Something like that. But she was tied up.”
Merriam was quiet for another moment.
Then he said, “Not impossible.”
I asked, “How plausible?”
“Postmortem examination has its limits, you know. You’d need an eyewitness to be certain.”
“How do you explain the complete exsanguination?”
“She could have been a hemophiliac.”
“Suppose she wasn’t?”
“Then gravity would be the only explanation. She was hung upside down.”
“By belts or straps, or ropes over some kind of padding?”
“Not impossible,” Merriam said again. “Turn her over,” I said.
“Why?”
“I want to see the gravel rash.”
“You’ll have to help me,” he said, so I did.
Chapter 19
The human body is a self-healing machine, and it doesn’t waste time. Skin is crushed or split or cut, and blood immediately rushes to the site, the red cells scabbing and knitting a fibrous matrix to bind the parted edges together, the white cells seeking out and destroying germs and pathogens below. The process is underway within minutes, and it lasts as many hours or days as are necessary to return the skin to its previous unbroken integrity. The process causes a bell curve of inflammation, peaking as the suffusion of blood peaks, and as the scab grows thickest, and as the fight against infection reaches its most intense state.
The small of Janice May Chapman’s back was peppered with tiny cuts, as was the whole of her butt, and as were her upper arms just above her elbows. The cuts were small, thinly scabbed incisions, all surrounded by small areas of crushing, which were colorless due to her bloodlessness. The cuts were all inflicted in random directions, as if by loose and rolling items of similar size and nature, small and hard and neither razor-sharp nor completely blunt.
Classic gravel rash.
I looked at Merriam and asked, “How old do you think these injuries are?”
He said, “I have no idea.”
“Come on, doctor,” I said. “You’ve treated cuts and grazes before. Or have you? What were you before? A psychiatrist?”
“I was a pediatrician,” he said. “I have no idea what I’m doing here. None at all. Not in this area of medicine.”
“Kids get cuts and grazes all the time. You must have seen hundreds.”
“This is a serious business. I can’t risk unsupported guesses.”
“Try educated guesses.”
“Four hours,” he said.
I nodded. I figured four hours was about right, judging by the scabs, which were more than nascent, but not yet fully mature. They had been developing steadily, and then their development had stopped abruptly when the throat was cut and the heart had stopped and the brain had died and all metabolism had ceased.
I asked, “Did you determine the time of death?”
Merriam said, “That’s very hard to know. Impossible, really. The exsanguination interferes with normal biological processes.”
“Best guess?”
“Some hours before she was brought to me.”
“How many hours?”
“More than four.”
“That’s obvious from the gravel rash. How many more than four?”
“I don’t know. Fewer than twenty-four. That’s the best I can do.”
