The Silent Wife (Will Trent #10) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,8
prior.”
Will silently translated: Vasquez, convicted for assault with a deadly weapon, served six years before he was paroled, then three months ago failed his drug test while on early release, so was sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his ten-year sentence.
Amanda asked, “Affiliation?”
Was he in a gang?
“Switzerland,” Faith said. Neutral. “His sheet’s full of shots for keistering phones.” He was caught multiple times hiding cell phones in his ass. “I gather the guy was a real spoon.” Always stirring up shit. “My guess is he got taken out because he kept running his mouth.”
“Problem solved.” Amanda knocked on the glass for attention. “Dr. Linton?”
Sara stopped to grab some supplies before opening the door. “We’re finished processing the murder scene. You don’t need suits, but there’s a lot of blood and fluids.”
She handed out shoe protectors and face masks. Her fingers squeezed Will’s when he took his share.
She said, “The body is out of rigor and entering decomp, so that, combined with the victim’s liver temp and the higher ambient temperature, gives us a physiological time of death that’s consistent with reports that Vasquez was attacked roughly forty-eight hours ago, which puts time of death toward the beginning of the riot.”
Amanda asked, “First minutes or first hours?”
“Ballpark is between noon and four on Saturday. If you want to narrow down an exact time, you’ll have to rely on witness statements.” Sara adjusted Will’s mask as she reminded Amanda, “Obviously, science alone cannot pinpoint precise time of death.”
“Obviously.” Amanda was not a fan of ballparks.
Sara rolled her eyes at Will. She was not a fan of Amanda’s tone. “There are three locations to the Vasquez crime scene—two in this main area, one in the kitchen. Vasquez put up a fight.”
Will reached behind Sara to hold open the door. The smell of shit and urine, the rioting inmates’ calling card, permeated every molecule inside the room.
“Good God,” Faith pressed the back of her hand against her face mask. She wasn’t good with crime scenes in general, but the odor was so sharp that even Will’s eyes were watering.
Sara told her assistant, “Gary, could you get the smaller channel locks from the van? We’ll need to unbolt the table before we can remove the body.”
Gary’s ponytail bobbed under his hairnet as he happily made his departure. He’d been with the GBI for less than six months. This wasn’t the worst crime scene he’d ever processed, but anything that happened inside of a prison was all the more soul-crushing.
The flash popped on Charlie’s camera. Will blinked away the light.
Sara told Amanda, “I managed to get a look at the security video. There’s nine seconds of footage that captures the beginning of the argument and goes right up to the tipping point into the riot. That’s when an unidentified person came up off-image, behind the camera, and cut the feed.”
Charlie provided, “No usable fingerprints on the wall, cable or camera.”
Sara continued, “The argument started at the front of the room by the service counter. Things turned heated very quickly. Six inmates from a rival gang jumped into the fight. Vasquez stayed seated at the corner table over there. The eleven other men at his table ran to the front of the room to get a better view of the fight. That’s when the feed cuts out.”
Will gauged the distances. The camera was at the rear of the room, so none of the eleven men could’ve slipped back without being seen.
“This way.” Sara led them to a table in the corner. Twelve lunch trays sat in front of twelve plastic seats. The food was moldy. Soured milk spilled across the surfaces. “Vasquez was attacked from behind. Blunt force trauma created a depressed skull fracture. The weapon was likely a small, weighted object swung at velocity. The force of the blow sent his head forward. There are bits of what appear to be Vasquez’s front teeth embedded in the tray.”
Will looked back at the camera. This felt like a two-man operation—one cut the feed, one neutralized the target.
Faith’s facemask was sucking in and out as she breathed through her mouth. “The first blow, was it meant to kill or to stun?”
Sara said, “I can’t speak to intent. The blow was significant. I didn’t visualize a laceration, but a depressed fracture is what it sounds like—the broken bone displaces inward, pressing on the brain.”
Amanda asked, “How long was he conscious?”
“We can infer from the evidence that he was conscious until the moment of death. I can’t