Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [513]
Maggie didn’t let him see her impatience. Okay, so he had his own way of doing things.
Of all the incredible workings and mysteries of the human body, Maggie always thought the stomach to be one of the most whimsical of the organs. It resembled a small, saggy pink pouch. A simple and soft touch of a scalpel was usually all that was needed to slit it open, and Stolz, despite his bull-in-a-china-shop approach, handled this organ with a gentleness that surprised Maggie. He laid it on a small stainless steel tray of its own, slit it open slowly and carefully. Using just his fingertips, he spread back the walls. Then, reverting to his normal routine, he grabbed a stainless steel ladle and began scooping out the contents, pouring them into a small basin on the tray.
Maggie moved around the table for a closer look. Stolz didn’t seem to mind. Now he seemed excited and anxious to share.
“Still lots here,” he said, continuing to scoop and stir the contents, clanking the metal ladle against the metal side of the basin with each pour. “This might be our best estimate of time of death. Being in that barrel threw off too many of the other indicators.”
So that was why he was so interested. Finally, something to show off his expertise.
“Is that green pepper?” Maggie asked.
“Green pepper, onions, maybe pepperoni. Looks like she had pizza. Lots still here, which means she was most likely murdered shortly after her meal.”
“What do you think? Two hours?” Maggie knew that almost ninety-five-percent of food moved out of the stomach within two hours of being consumed. However, it wasn’t an exact science, either. There were things that sped up digestion, just as there were things that slowed it, stress being a major factor.
“Not much has made it into to the small intestine yet,” he said, his fingers back in the body cavity examining the coil of intestine. “I’d guess less than two hours. Closer to one.”
“So the next question, can you tell whether or not it was frozen or restaurant style?”
He looked up at her with raised eyebrows. “The pizza? Why in the world would that matter?”
“If it was restaurant style, chances are she ate out that night. Maybe even with someone. We might be able to track where she was—and with whom—right before she was murdered.”
“Well, that’s simply impossible to know,” he told her, shaking his head. “But—” he seemed to reconsider as he stirred the contents with what looked like an ordinary butter knife “—the colors, especially of the vegetables, seem brighter than normal, which from my experience could indicate that they were fresh and not frozen.”
Maggie brought out a pocket notebook and jotted down the contents. When she looked back up, Stolz was staring at her, his arms folded over his chest. The scowl had returned and was now directed at her, the only person left to try his patience.
“You can’t be serious?” he said. “You think the killer took her out for pizza first, then bashed in her head and sliced out her breast implants? That’s absurd.”
“Really? And why do you say that, Dr. Stolz?” It was her turn to grow impatient with his questioning of her expertise, his distrust that an outsider might have an answer.
“For one thing, that would suggest it could be someone local.”
“And you don’t think that’s possible?”
“This is the middle of Connecticut, Agent O’Dell. Maybe on the coast or closer to New York. This guy, whoever he may be, is using the quarry as a dumping ground for his sick game. My guess is that he lives miles away. Why would he risk dumping bodies in his own backyard?”
“Didn’t Richard Craft do that?”
“Who?”
“Richard Craft, the guy who killed his wife and then put her dismembered body through a wood chipper.” She watched Stolz’s expression go from arrogance to embarrassment. “In the middle of a snowstorm, if I’m not mistaken, and not far from his home in Newtown. Newtown, Connecticut—isn’t that