Page 13 of Dirty Looks

“I hope she gouged his eyes out,” Lily said.

“He didn’t walk away unscathed,” I told her. “She’s got a good bit of flesh and dried blood under the nails of both hands.”

I took blood and urine samples and finished my examination, making notes and drawings in the chart, and then I got the camera and took magnified photos of the ligature marks around her neck under the bright light.

“It’s a weird pattern,” Lily noted. “The bruising, I mean.”

“Not a rope,” I said. “There’s no fibers embedded in the skin and no abrasions. It was something smooth. A scarf or tie maybe.” I tilted her head slightly so I could follow the thin line of bruising up behind her ear to the back of her skull.

“See how it makes an upside-downVat the back of the neck?” I asked. “The killer choked her from behind. And he’ssignificantly taller than she is so when he pulled the ligature it pulled everything upward.” I made the motion with my hands to demonstrate to Lily. “And you see the contusions here?” I pointed to the area in the fatty tissue just under the jaw.

“Yes,” Lily said, leaning down with the magnifier.

I turned the victim’s hands over and there was a thin line across both of them.

“She got her hands up in time to fight against whatever he used to strangle her,” she said, surprised. “A wire maybe?”

“A wire would have cut into the flesh with the amount of pressure he was using,” I said, placing her hands back on the table, my brow furrowed in thought. “And I’m not sure cloth would leave the kinds of marks and the depth of the bruising she sustained.”

“Do you think even with her hands up the strangulation was enough to incapacitate her?” Lily asked. “This could have been done pretty early on. He kidnaps her, strangles her, rapes her, and then somehow she escapes and ends up in the park.”

“Very plausible,” I said. “She’s got vaginal tearing and bruising. Go ahead and run the tox screen on the blood and urine samples and let’s see if anything comes back.”

There was a simmering anger burning inside of me as I put on a mask and eye protection and reached for my scalpel. I was adult enough to know it was probably an accumulation of a lot of things in my life. But having to perform this autopsy was the icing on the cake.

CHAPTER FOUR

A lot could happenin two hours.

I was surprised to see Martinez sitting on one of the barstools at the kitchen island when Lily and I resurfaced a couple of hours later. I was also surprised to see Jack, Cole, Sheldon, and Emmy Lu.

“Doesn’t anyone work around here?” I asked, closing the lab door behind me and tossing the file folder with my findings in front of Martinez.

Lily went over to Cole and he gave her a quick kiss on the top of the head. He was dressed for court in black dress Wranglers, a white button-down shirt and a black-and-silver paisley tie. He was without his usual Stetson, but his dark-blond hair had been freshly cut.

I wasn’t at the place yet where I could make eye contact with Jack, so I awkwardly made my way over to the coffeepot, looking him over out of my periphery. Jack was a couple of inches taller than Cole, and he commanded whatever room he was in. People were drawn to him, couldn’t help but look at him, and I was no different. It didn’t hurt that I knew exactly what his charcoal-gray suit was hiding underneath. But he looked as comfortable in a suit as he looked in uniform or jeans and a T-shirt.

I stared at the coffeepot for a few seconds, trying to remember why I’d come over, and then I remembered Sheldon hadn’t brought us the coffee or donuts he’d promised.

“Your coffee got cold,” Sheldon said, clearing his throat and pointing to the two cups in the middle of the island. “I got distracted so it took me longer to get back than I’d anticipated. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn my coveralls. Leena was really impressed by them.”

His face turned scarlet and I wondered what kind of horror story I was going to hear through the grapevine about Sheldon and the donut girl behind the counter.

“But here’s your twenty dollars back because everything was on the house,” he said, taking the crumpled money from his pocket.

I took the sweaty money and automatically handed it to Jack since I didn’t have any pockets anyway.

“What about the donuts?” I asked, eyeing the box on the table.

“Well,” Sheldon said, clearing his throat again. “Martinez got here before I made it back from the donut shop and then he ate all your donuts before I could bring them down to you. And then everyone else showed up and had donuts too. Did you know it’s actually Canadians who consume the most donuts per capita?”

There was a moment of awkward silence as we all stared at Sheldon. Except for me. I was still staring at the empty donut box.

“Wow,” Martinez said, giving Sheldon a look that promised retribution. “You mean to tell me that you gave us Doc’s and Lily’s donuts? That doesn’t seem right. How could you do that to them? They’re down there working their fingers to the bone and I’m up here eating their donuts and learning things about table saws and witchcraft I never asked about. That’s cold, man.”

“I, uh…” Sheldon stuttered.

“That must have been some encounter with the donut girl,” I said. “Table saws and witchcraft and you haven’t even gone on a first date yet.”

---