Page 52 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“Watching the movie?”
“No, the game.” Then he said, “I’ll be back” in a bad imitation for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Austrian accent.
“What time did you get back here?”
“Four, five.”
He could have easily killed his mother and then driven over and dumped her body at Three Friends well before the sun came up.
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“I didn’t kill my mother. If I was going to kill her, I’d have done it a long, long time ago.”
Then he shut the door in my face.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As I was leaving, I wondered what time Bobbie was killed. I got into the SUV and turned the heat up to high. Then I sat there doing math in my head. Don’t laugh, it’s possible.
Melanie was seen at Roberta’s around one in the morning. If she was the killer, she’d have to have carried the body to her car, and then driven to the winery and dumped it. If Hal were the killer, his alibi went until sometime between four and five. He could have killed her at five and then gotten the body over to Three Friends by five-thirty. My obsessive viewing ofCSIhad taught me that time of death was determined by body temperature. At some point after I left the crime scene, the medical examiner showed up and stuck a thermometer directly into Roberta’s liver (gross, I know), and took her internal temperature.
So if Roberta was killed around one in the morning and her temperature was taken at, say, ten o’clock, that was nine hours. But, if she was killed at five-thirty or six, that would be only two or two and a half hours.
Leaving a body out in the cold would drop its temperature quickly. Normal body temperature is 98.6, round that up to ahundred. If the body loses four degrees per hour, the body’s temperature would be around fifty-five degrees if Melanie was the killer. On the other hand, if Hal was the killer the body’s temperature would be closer to eighty-five.
Wait, was that right? I ran the numbers in my head again. Yup, that was right. So…did Detective Lehmann already have the autopsy report? Did he know Roberta’s time of death? Is that why he hadn’t already arrested Melanie? Was Roberta killed much later than Melanie’s visit?
I got out my flip phone and called Ham. When he answered it was obvious he was outside again. I couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you always outside? It’s winter?”
“I’ve got this workman’s comp case, and the guy keeps coming to the park. It’s kind of a cruising spot. I’ve watched him pick up a couple guys. Usually, he gets a blow job in his car.”
“Is this the same guy who was doing triple axels?”
“I have more than one case.”
“Are they always outside?”
Actually, when I thought about it, the case he’d given me had led to my being outside a lot more than I wanted to be.
Ignoring me, he said, “I need to catch him doing something strenuous. Getting a blow job doesn’t cut it.”
“Maybe he’s really injured.”
“Yeah, that happens. Not often, but it happens. What are you calling about?”
“When do you think we’ll get the autopsy for Roberta LaCross?”
“Possibly never. We’ll have to wait for Melanie to be arrested and arraigned. Discovery should happen shortly after that. It doesn’t always though, and a medical examiner can always hold the report pending review.”
“Is there a way to find out now?”
“We’d need a member of the family to request it.”
I thought about that. We’d have to pay Hal… and he was kind of a suspect. Maybe Buford would ask? Or another Campbell?
“Why are you so curious?” Ham asked.
I explained my theory about time of death. In the middle of my explanation I got another call, but I let it go to voicemail. When I was done, Ham said, “You’re probably right that the time of death excludes Melanie. Lehmann is probably looking for some kind of evidence that she came back later. Do you have any idea what direction their investigation is taking?”
