Last Girls Alive (Detective Katie Scott #4) - Jennifer Chase Page 0,50
her sore muscles. She had slept better than she had in months. He was still sleeping next to Cisco when she left the house. Not having the heart to wake him, she left him a note.
Pushing through the main doors of the medical examiner’s office, she hurried to find Dr. Dean. It didn’t take long to locate him with his brightly colored Hawaiian shirt with large orange and pink flowers. She wondered if he ever wore anything else.
McGaven was waiting for her, but didn’t look in Katie’s direction right away.
“Hi, Dr. Dean. I hope I’m not late,” she said entering the room.
The doctor looked up from his files, his reading glasses sloped toward the end of his nose, “Not at all, Detective. It’s nice to see you.”
She turned to McGaven, giving a quick smile and nod in greeting. He returned the silent hello with a casual nod. It was unclear if he was still upset with her—but she would tread lightly with him until he completely let their disagreement go.
“Well,” the doctor said. “It’s always interesting working your cases, Detective and Deputy.”
“Do we have an official ID?”
Looking at the file, he said, “Yes, from fingerprints compared from an arrest report. She has been identified as Mary Rodriguez.”
“Did she suffer injuries similar to Carol Harlan?” she asked.
“Yes… and no.”
Here we go again…
Dr. Dean began, “Manner of death was strangulation caused by what appears to be a ligature. A thin rope or twine like what had been left on her wrist. There’s no doubt it was murder, but what bothers me is that the message carved into her back was done before death, unlike in the Harlan case.” He moved closer to the exam table where the body was covered with a sheet. Pulling the sheet back, Mary Rodriguez was a shocking sight to behold. The autopsy had already begun so the chest cavity was cut open and the organs had been removed. Katie tried not to look at the gaping hollow where the ribs were exposed and spread wide. She waited until Dean moved the body by rolling it onto its side. Glancing at McGaven, his expression of horror mimicked what Katie felt. She moved next to the examiner to partially obscure her partner’s view of the body.
“These cuts were done when the victim was alive—there’s no purple coloring as the blood would have settled there after death. In fact, this lettering is days, if not weeks old.”
“Can you ascertain what type of knife or cutting tool was used? Was it similar to what was used in the Harlan case?” she asked.
“It was something thin and flat with rounded sides.”
“Could it be some type of writing instrument?”
“It’s possible—more like a tool of some sort with sharp and dull areas to make jagged and smooth cuts.” He pointed to the lettering in “raccoglitore” and how jagged it was, especially when a curve was made on the cs and os. “There are hesitations, too.”
Katie thought for a moment about the cutting letters and the use of strangulation with twine.
“Could the twine or thin rope have been from someone in a trade, like a contractor or builder? Or even subcontractors like electricians or plumbers?” she asked.
“Good point. It could’ve been from something that an electrician might have in their toolbox. You’ll have to check with John about all the possibilities. I’m sure he’ll be able to sort that out for you, if he hasn’t already.” The doctor glanced at McGaven who was quiet and pale. He picked up a wrapped cough drop and tossed it to McGaven. “The menthol will help with nausea and the unpleasant smell of cadavers.”
“Thank you,” he said, and immediately unwrapped the lozenge and popped it into his mouth.
Katie kept her focus on the victim’s injuries. “Was there anything in her system? Drugs? It must’ve been painful to have words carved on her back while she was still alive.”
“Detective, you never disappoint. There were no street drugs in her system, except the heavy painkiller similar to morphine called oxycodone, and it was in light and consistent doses.” He pulled up the body’s right arm and there was a darker blue-purple spot on the back of her bicep. “She had some type of patch inserted here where small amounts of drugs absorbed into her system throughout the day.”
“Can you tell if it was self-inflicted, or done by a doctor?”
“No way of knowing unless you were able to contact her physician to find out what treatments she was having—if any.”