Page 23 of Midnight Secrets

Two tables over, a white sheet hid the outline of a woman’s body.

Stopping beside a rolling table, she picked up some protective eyewear and slid the clear glasses onto her face. Next, she put on two sets of purple gloves.

“I completed my external exam before you arrived.” She drew back the sheet, exposing Mrs. Hammond’s naked corpse. “There are four stab wounds to the chest.” She pointed to each one in turn. “This one appears to be closest to the heart.” She gestured to one that went through the inside of the left breast. “We’ll know more once I open her chest.”

She moved to the woman’s hands. “She has some minor defensive wounds to the ulnar aspect of the hands.” Turning Mrs. Hammond’s hand, she indicated some discoloration and scrapes to the side of one hand below the base of the pinkie.

“Did she fight back?” I asked.

“They don’t look like marks I would expect to see if she hit someone. I think it was more that she put her hands up to ward off the attack.” Setting Mrs. Hammond’s arm down, Dr. Campos raised her own, pinkie side out, and guarded her face and upper chest.

I nodded, understanding.

“There’s no sign of sexual assault. The rest of her external exam was unremarkable. No bruising except what I noted.”

“Not even to her face?” I tipped my head, studying Marie’s appearance. I’d always found it hard to tell what discoloration on a body was from lividity and what was from faint bruising. They were too similar for my untrained eye.

“No. Whoever stabbed her didn’t hit her first.” Dr. Campos reached for a scalpel. “Are you ready?”

I steeled myself for what was to come. “Yep.”

She didn’t wait. As soon as the word left my mouth, she put knife to skin and cut.

A thin pinkish line appeared on Mrs. Hammond’s chest, only the faintest beading of blood welling from the incision as Dr. Campos pressed down and pushed it from the tissues.

Narrating into a recording device as she went, the doctor finished her Y-incision, then picked up a set of bolt cutters.

I closed my eyes and looked away, trying my best to tune out the sound of ribs snapping like tree branches. That sound, and the whirring buzz of the bone saw cutting through the skull were the two worst sounds in an autopsy. Since there wasn’t any blunt force trauma to the head, I hoped to escape the latter today, but wouldn’t hold my breath.

Glancing back over, I saw Dr. Campos set the cutters down and lift off the section of ribcage and sternum she’d cut out. It went onto a table behind her.

“There is a large amount of coagulated blood in the thoracic cavity.” She flipped on a suction device and used it to clear the chest. The clot squeezed through the clear, half-inch tube to collect in an attached reservoir.

“There are coordinating stab wounds to the lungs and heart.” She glanced up, piercing me with her dark gaze. “Your victim’s death was swift. Her heart stopped likely within moments of the injury, and she exsanguinated within minutes.”

I stepped closer to see the internal wounds. “Did the knife penetrate the sternum?” If it did, it could tell me something about the blade. A basic pocketknife likely couldn’t pierce the thick bone.

“No. It was intact. Judging by the wound in the heart muscle, the knife came in at an angle.” Using one finger, she mimed the way the knife entered the chest. “Your attacker was right-handed. Or at least held the knife in their right hand.”

“Can you tell me approximately how long the knife was?”

Dr. Campos poked at the hole in the heart, then turned, picking up the piece of the chest wall she’d removed and setting it back in place. Easing the skin flap down, she slid a thin metal rod into the wound. Grasping it at the skin level, she pulled it out and held it up. “At least that long.” She reached out and picked up a metal ruler, laying it against the rod. “Six and a quarter inches.” She lifted her head and met my gaze. Setting the rod down, she measured the width of the stab wound. “The blade was an inch-and-a-half wide.”

“Okay.” I chewed on the corner of my mouth under the mask. Knives that long weren’t uncommon around here. Fishermen and hunters used boning knives that size and larger. The question was, did the Hammonds own a knife that size? And if they didn’t and Warren didn’t kill his wife, who owned a knife like that and had motive? Who had motive at all besides the husband?

Dr. Campos removed the section of ribcage again. She held it up, inspecting the bone. “No knicks. Whoever it was either knew what they were doing or got lucky and slipped right between the ribs.” She set the bone down on the table, then picked up a magnifying glass and leaned closer to the body, inspecting the fatal wound. “It’s a clean cut. No jagged edges.” Straightening, she set the magnifier down. “You’re looking for a smooth blade, no serrations, and sharp on just one side.”

I’d bet my badge it was a boning knife. “Noted.”

With the chest wide open again, she set to work removing the heart. Once dissected, we were able to see that the knife went through the left ventricle and the septum and just pierced the inner wall of the right atrium. The hole through the septum wasn’t as wide as the hole through the skin and outer wall of the heart, lending to my theory it was a boning knife.

The rest of the autopsy was uneventful. I learned Marie had an IUD in place and remnants of a turkey sandwich and grapes in her stomach. Her last meal coupled with lividity and body temperature put the time of death at Friday afternoon. Claire Holmes found the body Monday morning.

Her killer had nearly a week’s head start.

CHAPTER 8

Claire

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