could be a gold mine, but it won’t be anything if I can’t stop the ink from smudging. “Grab me the hairdryer.”
“The what?”
“The. Hair. Dryer.” I speak my words super slow as if Harvey is hard of hearing. “It’s under the vanity sink.”
Harvey steps into the bathroom for a second before his big frame refills the doorway. That’s how small the bathroom is. “This?” he asks, holding up the hairdryer with two fingers as if it’s covered in cooties.
“Yes. Bring it to me.”
When I click at him as if he’s a dog, he pegs the hairdryer at my head before stalking to the door. “Come find me in my truck when you’ve finished fancying yourself up. If you’re not out in ten, I’ll leave you here.” I’m about to tell him I’m fine with that, but his next set of words stop me, “And I’ll pass your murder onto another agent.”
I slant my head, my heart rate rising. “Murder?”
His lowriding ponytail swishes along his back when he cranks his neck back to face me. “Yep. Murder. That boy’s feet were dangling above a shallow grave.”
“You found a second body?”
Harvey doesn’t answer me unless you count whistling as an agreeing sound.
“Is it a female?”
“Coroner is on her way, but I’d say so.” He nudges his head to a truck that looks like it belongs on the top of a wreckage heap. “You coming or not?”
“I’m coming.” After snapping a quick image of Hunter’s bank record on my phone and forwarding it to Phillipa, I snag my shoes from the foot of my drenched bed and my jacket from the desk, then follow Harvey out of my motel room, acting ignorant to the droplets of water dripping off my trousers.
“Caucasian female, early to mid-thirties. Multiple stab wounds to her chest. Several broken bones. Some have been fused over, though, so prolonged physical abuse is suspected.”
Dr. Maude, a mid-fifties coroner from Parkerville, raises her gentle eyes to mine when I ask, “Did she have any children?”
She nods as her eyes soften more. “Yes. Multiple times.”
I take a step back when she says ‘multiple.’ “More than once? Are you sure?”
“Uh-huh. She had both natural and caesarian births.” She lifts a plain white sheet to show us a C-section scar. “Caesarian scars are still identifiable even on badly decomposed bodies, although hers are a little jagged, and the suturing for each one was horrendous.”
“Indicating she most likely gave birth at home.” Harvey jumps in as his eyes stray to a woman we believe is Rhianna Shroud, Carlyle Shroud’s designer wife.
“It does look that way.” Dr. Maude drags her glove-covered index finger along skin that doesn’t really represent skin anymore. “Her sutures were an old military style. They were a running style instead of the favored continuous sutures most hospitals use. No staple marks were noted, either. Whoever stitched her up took no care. Her uterus is so poorly damaged, if she had survived her attack, she’d be infertile.”
“Do her C-section scars give any indication on how long ago her children were born?” The weariness of my words reveals my tiredness. Harvey and I have spent the last five hours sitting on hard plastic chairs outside a morgue that would be lucky to see one to two patients a year, much less two murder victims. Mercifully, the lack of victims around these parts means Dr. Maude could get straight to work.
“Her scars are aged. I’d say most of her children were born twenty to thirty years ago. I’ll have a more conclusive answer once I’ve finished my autopsy.”
Nodding, I join Dr. Maude at the sink so she can wash her hands. “Is there any indication the victim’s wounds could have been self-inflicted?” With Megan’s mental instability beyond proven by multiple psychiatric hospital admissions the past ten years, I can’t leave any stone unturned.
As Dr. Maude dries her hands, she purses her lips. “I had considered that at the start, multiple ligature marks and cuts were noted on her thighs and forearms, but the angle of the wounds indicate her attacker stood over her and thrust down.” She demonstrates what she means on me. Her ‘attack’ replicates a poorly-scripted knife killing scene all B-grade horror movies have. “If the injuries were self-inflicted, the wounds would be straight with little to no angle manipulation.” She demonstrates what she means by stabbing herself in the chest with an invisible knife. There’s no downward thrusting, meaning the entrance wounds of the knife are straight.
“So, she was murdered?” Harvey asks, catching