Code 61 - Donald Harstad [32]
As we placed Edie on the stretcher, we saw that the knife was stuck to her right thigh by the congealed blood. Congealed, but not yet clotted. We took photos, made another note, and then Hester carefully pulled it free. I got a paper bag out of my camera case, and we placed the knife in that.
“Your camera bag reminds me of my purse,” she said.
I snapped three shots of the interior of the tub. The blood under where her buttocks had been was very apparent. It even showed a slight wrinkle pattern from the flattened flesh.
Edie couldn't have weighed more than 125 pounds alive, and having lost all that blood volume, she was down to about a hundred or less. The blanched and flattened areas of her buttocks were very obvious, the result of her weight pressing her into the tub. Her mouth, which had been hanging open as she sat there, now looked as if she were about to cough. Interestingly, her eyes no longer had that “alive” appearance that had startled me before. Must have been the light, that first time. Whatever it was, it was a relief.
Now I was able to get a really good look at the wound in her neck. “Deep” hardly did it justice. But it was a cut, all right. Even, smooth edges.
I took several more photos before she was finally covered.
While Borman and the two attendants maneuvered the gurney to get Edie out of the room, Hester and I had one of those fast chats that, if you hadn't known we were talking about the blood in the wrong place, you'd never have guessed.
“You caught that, too?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Conclusive?”
“Possibly. Very possibly. But maybe not.”
“Really?” It looked pretty conclusive to me.
“Reflex lunge or hip thrust.”
“Ah.” Well, sure, she could have spasmodically arched her back, for example, and then sat back down in the blood she was leaving. Except … “No fountain, though.” I said that because there surely should have been secondary evidence that there had been a forceful gush or spurt, or something to deluge the tub area sufficiently for blood to flow under her when she might have moved. Something that very likely would have squirted past the perimeter of the tub, and onto the floor and maybe even the walls. Especially since the knife had been pulled free.
“True.” She grimaced. “Not enough data.”
“Think it could have slipped free? I'd say pulled out. You agree?” I was referring to the knife.
“Agree. I think it would tend to stay in.”
She finished her sentence as we emerged into the hall to help get Edie down the stairs.
We'd zipped up the white body bag, covered the lump that had been Edie with two blue blankets, and strapped her tightly to the stretcher with all three belts. We had to lift her and the stretcher to about shoulder level to clear the banister at the first landing, but from then on it was a piece of cake. We went by the parlor, and the three residents saw her. They followed us out to the hearse, and watched while we pushed the stretcher into the back.
“Remember,” cautioned Hester, “there will be an autopsy done there. Under no circumstance is she to be embalmed until we say so. There will be a forensic pathologist up shortly.” There had been an instance several years ago when a funeral home had embalmed a murder victim before the pathologist got there. Ever after that, the officer always made very certain that the funeral home understood the situation.
“Yes, ma'am,” said the elder of the attendants. He was lucky. Hester hates that term, and if it had been the younger who'd said it, he would likely have had to ride down the hill in