Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [290]
He had allowed her to do the busywork; helping insert the body block, scraping behind the woman’s nails, taking the external mea-surements and then the samples of hair, saliva and body fluids. Maggie couldn’t stop thinking that Hannah had put up the fight of her life. Bruises covered her body, the one to her hip and thigh suggesting she had fallen down some stairs in the process.
Now, as Maggie watched Dr. Holmes, she found herself going through the woman’s brutal murder, step by step, from the telltale signs her body telegraphed. Hannah had scratched and clawed as Jessica had, only Hannah managed to get pieces of Stucky under her nails. Why had her death not been simple and swift? Why wasn’t he able to tie her up, rape her and slit her throat as he had with Jessica and Rita? Had Stucky not been prepared for this challenge?
Maggie wanted to shove her sleeves up. The plastic apron was making her sweat. God, it was hot. Why wasn’t there better ventilation?
The county morgue was larger than she had expected, with dingy gray walls and the overpowering scent of Lysol. The counters were a dull yellow Formica rather than stainless steel. The overhead fluorescent lighting unit hung low over the table, almost brushing the tops of their heads when they stood up straight. Dr. Holmes was not much taller than Maggie, but she noticed he had grown accustomed to the light fixture, ducking automatically each time he came underneath it.
Her forensic and premed background had allowed her to perform many autopsies on her own and assist in plenty of others. Maybe it was her exhaustion or perhaps it was simply the stress of this case, but for some reason she was having difficulty disconnecting from the body on the metal table in front of her. Her face felt hot from the hovering light. The windowless room was threatening to suffocate her, though a hidden fan circulated the stale air in the room. She resisted the urge to swipe at the strands of hair that stuck to her damp forehead. The tension in her neck had spread to her shoulders, and was now knotting its way down to take control of her lower back.
Ever since she had recognized the woman, Maggie couldn’t help feeling responsible for her death. Had she simply not asked for help in choosing a bottle of wine, the woman would still be alive. Maggie knew the thoughts were counterproductive. They were exactly what Stucky wanted her to be thinking, to be feeling. But she couldn’t shut them off. She couldn’t stop the growing hysteria that gnawed at her insides, the exploding anger that whispered promises of revenge. She couldn’t control the brewing desire of wanting to put a bullet between Albert Stucky’s eyes. This anger, this need for revenge was beginning to scare her more than anything Albert Stucky could do to her.
“She hasn’t been dead for very long,” Dr. Holmes said, his voice bringing her mind back to where it needed to be. “Internal temperature indicates less than twenty-four hours.”
Maggie knew this already, but also realized he was saying this for the tape recorder on the stand next to them, and not for her benefit.
“There appears to be no signs of livor mortis, so she was definitely murdered somewhere else and moved within the span of two or three hours.” Again, he said this in a matter-of-fact tone for the recorder.
Maggie appreciated his casual manner, his conversational style. She had worked with other M.E.’s whose hushed reverence or clinically cold methods acted as a constant reminder of the brutality and violence that had brought them to their task. Maggie preferred to view an autopsy only as a fact-finding mission, the soul or spirit long gone by the time the body lay on the cold metal table. The best thing for the victim at this stage was a search for evidence that could help catch whoever had committed such an act. Although this time, she knew there would be little Hannah could tell them that would bring them any closer to finding Albert Stucky.
“I heard you ended