Page 92 of Cold, Cold Bones
“Inhaling air with a carbon monoxide level as low as point two percent can produce carboxyhemoglobin levels exceeding sixty percent in just thirty to forty-five minutes.”
“That’ll kill ya?”
“Very dead.”
Slidell pulled a small spiral from his overcoat pocket, jotted something, then gestured with the notebook. “And we got that here?”
“Engine running, door lowered, windows shut. Definitely.” Nguyen continued without looking up. “In as little as five to ten minutes.”
“So he died soon after turning the key.” I’d told Slidell what I’d seen in the car. And inside the townhouse.
“Assuming he turned the key,” Nguyen said.
“Assuming that.”
“And that he was breathing when he entered the car.”
“And that.”
“Which I suspect was the case. See this?” Nguyen lifted one of Charlie’s hands.
Slidell eyed it from where he was standing. “That blood-settling thing? Because the fingers are hanging down.”
“Yes. But I’m talking about the nail beds.”
Slidell bent for a closer look. “They look pink.”
“Yes again. Which suggests he was alive.”
“Carbon monoxide, which is colorless, odorless, and tasteless, is an agent in auto exhaust. Highly toxic, CO combines with hemoglobin to produce carboxyhemoglobin, which blocks the transport of oxygen in the body.”
“This carboxyhemoglobin kills you.”
“Yes. And in doing so it turns your blood and tissues bright red.”
I pictured the organs Nguyen would see when she cut Charlie open. The cherry red slivers of heart, kidney, liver, lung, spleen, and stomach she’d view under magnification.
“Remind me,” Slidell said. “When does the blood-settling thing start?”
“Livor. Within two hours of death. Peaks in six to eight. But it’s cold out here, which would retard the process.”
“The livor in the fingers, that says no one moved the body, right?”
“Correct.”
“And he ain’t in rigor.” Slidell pronounced itrigger.
“I see slight stiffening in the smaller muscles of the neck and face.”
“So when did the guy die?”
“Rigor also starts in two hours. But that’s variable. And the low temperature would slow that as well.” Nguyen straightened. “I’ll run a full tox screen.”
“Looking for what?” I asked, knowing Charlie’s abhorrence for drugs.
“Whatever he’s got in him. People often self-medicate before killing themselves.”
Slidell gestured to me that he was stepping outside.
