Page 36 of Liar's Point

Silence. Then, “Hold on.”

She heard shuffling. Then Jess’s voice was back, low and urgent. “Where are you? Is everything all right?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. “I think I have a problem.”

CHAPTER

SEVEN

The ME’s office was small and stuffy. Emmet sat in the hard plastic chair festering with resentment as he scrolled through his phone. He glanced around the room, noting the framed diplomas, the Phi Beta Kappa certificate, the pile of marathon medals sitting on the bookcase crammed with medical journals.

Emmet checked his phone again, and finally the guy walked in.

“Sorry. Had to take a call.” David Bauhaus pulled the door shut and walked around the desk. He had on blue scrubs and worn running shoes that probably had a thousand miles on them. The doctor flipped through a stack of manila folders by his computer and then dropped one in the center of his desk.

“So. Audrey Lambert.” He opened the folder. “You’re with Lost Beach PD then, I take it?”

“Detective Emmet Davis.” He gritted his teeth. “And it’s Aubrey.”

“What? Oh. Yeah.” He scooted his chair in. “Aubrey.” He slid on a pair of reading glasses, and Emmet felt a twinge of satisfaction as the guy peered down at the paperwork. He glanced up. “Your chief wanted the report expedited. I sent it over last night, so I assume—”

“I read it, yeah.”

The pathologist looked at him over the tops of his glasses.

“I had a few questions,” Emmet said. “The livor mortis, for one.”

He flipped through the report. “What about it?”

“You included photos.”

“Yes.” He turned to his computer and used the mouse to click open a file. “Let me see. We can enlarge these....”

Emmet winced as a row of autopsy photographs appeared on the screen. Aubrey Lambert’s body whisked by in a blur of pale flesh.

“Here we go.” He landed on a picture of the victim’s back. She was positioned face down on the stainless steel table, and the photo showed the tops of her buttocks. The doctor zoomed in on the reddish patch of skin, evidently reading Emmet’s mind.

“You’re wondering about the whitish pattern here.” He turned to Emmet.

“That’s right. It looks like some kind of impression?”

“Maybe a hammer, a wrench, something of that nature that was underneath her when the blood pooled. Someone with the state lab might be able to help you. They have a tool marks examiner.”

Emmet nodded. “And a time estimate? How long was she lying flat on her back?”

“Well, she wasn’t. Not exactly. Based on the other livor marks, I believe she may have been on her back with her knees near her chest”—he pivoted in the chair and brought his knees up in a modified fetal position—“like so for several hours. It’s hard to pin down the amount of time, precisely.”

Emmet nodded. “And you did a rape kit.”

“Yes.” He flipped through the report on his desk again. “It’s at the lab. No results yet. I can tell you I didn’t find any defensive wounds.”

“Any chance she was roofied?”

“The tox report just came back. Did you see it?”

“Not yet.”

He turned to his computer again and closed out of the autopsy photos.

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