by Liliana Hart
“I can see it though,” Nash said. “Guy’s got a job that can put strain on the body. Maybe he likes to come home and soak his muscles after a rough shift.”
“Could be,” I said, moving toward the body and looking down into the empty gaze of Nina Walsh.
“Who moved her?” I asked.
Nina was lying face up and she was marble pale, her skin almost translucent so the blue of her veins could be seen beneath the skin. But the reddish marks told their own story. When a person died, the blood settled to the parts of the body that were touching the ground, and her skin was a dark red at her breasts and left arm and hip. The palm of her right hand and the left side of her face was also red.
I frowned at the color of her lividity. Normally the blood settled and turned a dark purple, but for whatever reason, Nina’s was still red. But you couldn’t say that something always happened the same way with the same results. There were too many factors in science and the human body, and the mixture of any outside element, like lying in water, could alter the results.
“The husband moved her when he came home from shift,” Nash said. “Saw her in here and freaked out. Thought she’d just passed out or something. Said he turned her over and started administering CPR.”
“Anything in her medical history that would explain this? Fainting spells or heart issues?”
“He said she was healthy as a horse. Never been sick at all that he knows of. How long do you think she’s been like this?”
I put my bag on the stool in front of the vanity to keep it from getting wet. “She can’t weigh a hundred pounds.”
I focused on the body. The body always told its own story. I took a complete set of pictures of her front side and then dug into my bag to grab the thermometer to take her temperature. Though I had a pretty good inclination as to what I’d find.
“She’s room temperature,” I said. I’d been able to move her easily. “Like you said, all signs of rigor are gone from the body. I’m assuming the water was running hot and that there would have been quite a bit of steam and condensation. Full rigor occurs about eight hours after death, but her size could have sped up the process by an hour or two. It usually stays in the body at least eighteen hours, but same goes. With her size and weight factored in, the heat from the water, and the steam, I can give you a range for time of death sometime between twenty and thirty hours. What time did the husband leave for shift?”
“Six thirty,” he said, raising his brows. “But I’ve got to tell you, Doc. I’m just not feeling it. It’s hard for a guy to fake that level of grief. When I got here, he was still holding on to her and sobbing like a baby. It was heartbreaking to watch. She’s got no visible marks other than the bump on her head, and he’s got no defensive wounds.”
“Maybe his time is wrong,” I said. “Maybe he left earlier.”
Nash snorted. “I don’t mean to judge…”
“That’s just what Gladys Pip says right before she’s about to lay into someone,” I said.
“But the Walshes would make Mussolini’s train schedule look like it was drawn by a kindergartner with a crayon. It took Roy Walsh about twenty minutes to run down his schedule, with precise times for everything from when he eats his oatmeal to when he takes a dump.”
“Fascinating,” I said, fluttering my eyelashes. “You’re such a charmer.”
“Takes one to know one, sugar. You’re the one dragging your hair through entrails to up your sex appeal.”
I snorted out a laugh. The nervousness I had for working with someone besides Jack began to ease. Those who weren’t around death like we were wouldn’t understand, but inappropriate jokes and gallows humor were pretty much SOP at any fatality. We had to process too, and laughter was usually the best way to keep from crying.
“Run down the schedule for me,” I said. “Maybe I can make a tighter estimation after I get her on the table.”
Nash flipped open the little spiral notebook he had in his shirt pocket and flipped it open, but I knew he didn’t need to look at it. Nash was sharp. Sharper than he let on most of the time, which was why he was so good getting information out of criminals. He remembered everything, and people who remembered everything were great at catching people who were lying.
“The vic is forty-four and has been married to Roy for almost four years. Before their marriage she worked as a paralegal for the county, but Roy said her passion was being a homemaker, so he told her to do what made her happy and stay at home. He works his twenty-four and then he and a couple of his shift mates own a moving company to fill the rest of their time.
“He said she lived and breathed this house, and sometimes he had to make her get out for dinner and be around other people. I guess she’s something of a recluse.”
“Well, who’d want to make that drive to town all the time? It’s got to take a good half hour. I’d be a recluse too.”
“You live ten minutes from here,” Nash said. “And you were kind of a recluse before you and Jack got married.”
“That’s because I didn’t have much business and I could only afford to eat at home.”
“Fair enough,” he said, shrugging. “Anyway, apparently living and breathing this house meant she got up at four thirty every morning, seven days a week.”
“Yikes,” I said.
“She’d make sure Roy’s uniform was crisply pressed and starched, and then she’d start his breakfast. Roy gets up a half hour later, showers, and then he comes down for breakfast before he dresses for the day. He likes to have oatmeal and wheat toast by the way.”
“I’m sure he’s very regular.”
“Indeed.
“The victim’s breakfast consisted of half a grapefruit with sugar. They both drink their coffee black.”
My knees were killing me, so I sat on the vanity stool.
“After breakfast, they brush their teeth and then he gets dressed and she makes the bed. He leaves for the station like clockwork at six thirty. It’s a twenty-six-minute drive. He gives himself an extra fifteen minutes if the weather is bad. You still with me, Doc?”
“No, I think I fell asleep. Do you know the husband?”
“Roy?” he asked, putting his notebook back in his shirt pocket. “I’ve seen him around the station a time or two, but I don’t know him on a personal level. Didn’t even know his name until the call came in and I recognized his face.”
“Rumor has it he called his chief after he realized she was dead instead of 911.”
“Rumor would be correct,” Nash said. “Roy said he was in shock and it was just habit to call the station. It’s not really a big deal. He was on duty and able to send the EMTs out immediately, and then he notified police.
“Edwards told me he kept Roy on the line because he was afraid Roy might do something rash. Apparently, he was just screaming incoherently. Edwards said Nina was Roy’s whole world, and he treated her like a queen. Kept her picture in his locker at the station and clipped to the visor in the fire truck.”
“They didn’t text or talk on the phone during his shift?”
“He said it was a busy one, so there wasn’t time.”
“Yeah, I guess it would have been,” I said, remembering the fire trucks and personnel who’d worked for hours to clear the scene after Carver’s accident. “Even so, twenty-four hours is a long time. And if she was his whole world, you’d think she’d at least warrant a ‘Hey, how’s it going?’”
Nash frowned. “Do you always look for the bad in people?” he asked.
I was taken a little off guard by the question but said, “You’re a cop. How can you not? In my experience, the only people who tell the truth are the ones laid out on my table. Everyone’s got secrets. No one’s life is perfect, even if it looks like it. Besides, we work it as a homicide until we prove it’s not.”
“Pretty cynical, Doc. I think you need to have more fun in your life. When was the last time you went to a movie or did something that has nothing to do with work?”
“I went on my honeymoon last month.”
“Yes, and ended up solving an eighty-year-old murder. What do you do for fun?”
“My work is fun,” I said primly.
Nash chuckled. “Doc, I just found my new mission in life. We’re going to find you a hobby.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “That sounds like loads of fun. Maybe check with Emmy Lu to see if I have any openings in my calendar.”
I squatted back beside the victim and moved her head to the side, so the knot on her temple was visible, and then I took a quick photo.
“There’s nothing to indicate she was struck with anything. No debris in the wound. Just a tiny puncture mark with a little blood where she made impact.”
I looked closely at the faucet and then took a swab kit from my bag. The Q-tip was dipped in Phenolphthalein, and I swabbed the edges of the faucet. When I held the Q-tip up to the light there was the tiniest sliver of pink showing.
“That’s settles that,” I said, showing Nash the Q-tip. “For whatever reason, she lost consciousness and hit her head on the faucet when she fell. Livor mortis suggests she fell in a kind of crumpled position, and once she was down, she stayed down until she died.”
I tried to demonstrate by rolling onto my left side and pulling my left knee up slightly. I put my weight on my left side and made sure my chest was pressed down, and then placed my right hand palm down. All the points where lividity had set in.
“The discoloration on the left side of her face is consistent with the rest of her body,” I said, and then got back up to my knees. “Man, I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“You’re not going to use old age as an excuse. There are plenty of hobbies for women your age.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean women my age?”
“You’re only as old as you feel,” he said. “How old are you feeling?”
“Yesterday I was feeling my age,” I said. “Today, I feel about ninety.”
“Yeah, those bags under your eyes remind me of my grandma.”
“You know, Nash, I’ve got a whole lot more room in my freezer.”
He held up his hands in surrender, but he was grinning. Nash had the kind of charm that was impossible to get too irritated with.
“Okay, okay. Back to business,” he said, and squatted down next to me. “If she was lying on the left side of her face as lividity shows, do you think it’s possible she drowned? The water would have to come up at least a couple of inches to reach her mouth and nose.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “It doesn’t take much. She could’ve just as easily died from cardiac arrest or some other undiagnosed medical issue. I’ll be able to say for sure once I open her up to see if there’s water in the lungs.”
I looked down at the familiar scar on her abdomen and traced it with my finger. “They have children?”
“Roy said she has a daughter from a previous marriage. First husband died of cancer, so the daughter’s her only other kin. Name’s Hailey Hartford. She’s a third-year law student at the University of Richmond. But Roy said they haven’t spoken in several years. Said the girl was rebellious, liked to party and drink. He said she resented it when her mother remarried, and as far as he knew there’s been no contact between them. He said he’d contact her and let her know.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ve done everything I can do here. Let’s get her loaded up and back to my lab. I’ll have some answers for you by the end of the day.”
“No rush. I don’t plan on doing any paperwork until tomorrow. I’m supposed to be off today.”
“How’d you draw the short straw?”
“I heard about the problem with the stalker,” he said. “Seemed like a no-brainer. Besides, a little overtime never hurt anyone.”
I winced in sympathy. Malachi was stretching already stretched resources to the max. “Sorry about that,” I said.
“Not your fault,” he said, shrugging. “Like I always say, better to be safe than sorry. We’re all on rotation until the SOB can be caught. We’ll make it work. But I’m still not doing any paperwork until tomorrow. This seems like a case of bad luck all around to me.”
I called out to Riley and Walters in the bedroom. “Do you guys mind getting the gurney from the back of the Suburban?”
“You got it, Doc,” Riley said back.
I unfolded the body bag and unzipped it, and then Nash and I lifted Nina Walsh gently and placed her inside.
“Looks like I get to be your intern for the day,” Nash said.
“If you really wanted to be my intern you’d come help with the autopsy.”
“Been there, done that. Why don’t you put off the autopsy until tomorrow and we’ll go bowling? Maybe that can be your new hobby.”
“Jack and I each stole a pair of bowling shoes when we were teenagers. Mr. Hertz banned us for life.”
“You know I’m going to check out your story. I’m a detective.”
“It’s the truth, I swear,” I said, holding up two fingers. “I promise the autopsy will be fun. There’s nothing else to do today. I’ll let you make the Y-cut.”
“I’d rather do almost anything else.”
“Funny,” I said. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do more.”
Nash laughed. “That’s messed up, Doc.”
He had no idea.
CHAPTER FIVE
King George County only had a population of a little over twenty thousand, but what it lacked in people it made up for in square miles. It was a farming community—mostly tobacco, though there were fewer tobacco farms now than there had been ten years ago. Some say it’s progress, but I’d wager the people who lost their farms don’t agree.
Our slice of the country was tucked away on the northeast side of Virginia between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers. The scenery was beautiful if you stopped to look at it long enough, but I think most of us took it for granted. I know I did. Most of the residents were busy going about their jobs and lives, griping about the increase of taxes and the decrease of wages. Nothing much had changed in the last several decades.
I’d grown up in Bloody Mary, one of the four towns that made up King George County. There’d been numerous attempts and petitions over the years to change the name of the town to something more appealing and friendlier, but people around here were as excited for change as they were for higher taxes, so the name had stuck.
The three thousand residents—give or take a few—were set in their ways and ornery with it. They were people who worked hard for a living and liked the idea of the American dream. The buildings downtown were a snapshot of the fifties, with painted glass windows and mismatched awnings, and people still flew the American flag from their porches and pulled their cars to the side of the road during a funeral procession.
The citizens of Bloody Mary lived on gossip, but they didn’t have too much interest in what was happening in the rest of the world. They lived in their own insular bubbles, and they didn’t really care what their elected officials were doing across the river because they thought they were mostly a waste of everyone’s time and money anyway.
I’d been glad to get out of the Walsh house. I’d been even more glad to pass the entrance to my driveway and see Riley and Walters turn in to check on Jack. Nash was in his unit behind me, and it took almost twenty minutes before I turned onto Catherine of Aragon and the funeral home came into view.
Graves Funeral Home had been in my family for four generations. Since I’d found out I wasn’t a Graves by blood, I didn’t feel near the attachment to it that I once had. I’m not even sure that attachment was the right word. More like a noose around my neck. It had been an obligation that I’d resented and a choice that I hadn’t been given, but had been forced to take, after my parents had died and I’d resigned from the hospital. I was more at peace with it now, and serving the dead was my calling, just like serving the living was Jack’s.
I figured Nash would have turned off to head into the station,
but he was still behind me when I turned into the carport at the funeral home. Traffic was nonexistent on a Sunday, but there were a couple of cars parked in front of the laundromat in the strip mall across the street.
“I thought you were going home,” I said to Nash when I got out of the Suburban.
“Nah,” he said. “I figured I might as well wait and see what you find. Besides, I can watch baseball on the big screen you’ve got in the lounge while you’re doing your thing.”
It was then I realized Nash was doing double duty as my babysitter for the day.
“You know I’ll be fine,” I said. “I can lock myself in the lab, and I’ll turn all the cameras on so I can see if anyone is skulking about.”
“A fat lot of good being locked in the lab is going to do if he decides to set fire to the funeral home.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” I said.
“The sheriff said this guy was dangerous. He said he’s been inside your home and even whacked you over the back of the head. Why didn’t you report that? We could’ve been out combing the area for this guy.”
“I reported it to Jack,” I said, shrugging it off. This was the exact reason I hadn’t wanted to tell anyone. There were too many questions to ask, and just because Jack gave them some made-up version of what was really going on didn’t mean his men wouldn’t keep asking.
“Besides, everyone has enough to do, and things got a little busy with the murders last week. I thought we could handle it on our own.”
“That’s what we’re all trying to tell you. You’re one of our own, and we always take care of our own. It’s not hardship for me to sit on your couch and watch the game and order a pizza.”
“I’ve got beer in the fridge,” I told him as consolation.
“Don’t tell the guys, but I’m not much of a drinker,” he admitted. “But I’ll take coffee if you have it.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Of course I have it. I’d go without food and sex before I’d go without coffee. It makes the world go round. Or at least more tolerable.”