I sat back on the sofa and watched Maddie pour glasses of wine for the two of us. She was the county medical examiner, and we’d been close friends for two decades—even though I was an introvert, and she could win the award for the most extroverted woman of all time. Tonight, Maddie was dressed in a purple velour track suit, and her long, blond hair was braided on each side. She popped one last bubble and then walked to the wastebasket and disposed of the gum in her mouth. Then she plopped down next to me on the couch and said, “I have a lot to say about Rebecca Barlow. For starters, I don’t care what Coop thinks happened or didn’t happen to the woman. My opinion? That chick was murdered. Someone did her dirty and got away with it.”
“When you arrived on the scene the morning she was discovered, what did you learn about how she died?”
“She was found several feet beneath the surface in what we call the ‘drowning position.’”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“Head hung, facing the bottom of the lake.”
“Let’s say she was murdered. Is it possible she was killed somewhere else and then dumped into the lake?”
“The lake is the crime scene, Sloane. Rebecca drowned.”
“Are you sure?”
Maddie narrowed her eyes, shocked I’d questioned her judgment. “When a person drowns, the lungs become like a sponge and water is soaked into the body. Water adds weight, causing the body to sink. If Rebecca had been submerged for more than a couple of days postmortem, she would have floated to the surface. She hadn’t yet.”
I stared at my glass of merlot and thought about how its tint reminded me of blood. Blood reminded me of death. Death reminded me of Rebecca. I was no longer thirsty.
Maddie, on the other hand, dealt with actual blood all the time. She reached for her glass and swallowed back a few mouthfuls of wine. “You okay? Because you don’t seem okay. If you could see your expression right now, you’d understand why I’m asking.”
I took a baby sip to save face and then set the glass down on the coffee table. “I … yeah, I’m all right. What else can you tell me about Rebecca?”
“She was wearing a bra and panties when she was discovered. And neither divers nor investigators found evidence in the water or on land of things she may have been wearing when she died. No other clothes, no jewelry, no shoes, nada.”
Maybe she’d been skinny dipping.
But where were her clothes, then?
Maybe someone stole them while she was having a swim.
Or … maybe someone had taken the time to strip her down before killing her, just in case the clothing contained evidence, and then took the items.
Leaving a squeaky-clean crime scene.
Or was it?
“Why are you so sure someone killed her?” I asked.
“Two things. First, I found a bruise on her left shoulder during the autopsy. It was dark in color, which meant it wasn’t old. It looked like a big, fat thumbprint. I showed it to Coop.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it could have been anything. I disagreed, and we argued about it. I reminded him about an autopsy I’d done a few years back on a woman who’d been strangled to death after her boyfriend learned she’d cheated on him. His fingertips had left perfect impressions on both sides of the woman’s neck, making it easy to tell she’d been murdered.”
“Did you find any other bruises on Rebecca’s body?”
“Smaller, lighter ones. None as pronounced as the shoulder print. My guess is the assailant used one hand to force her head underwater and the other to hold her there until she died. It doesn’t take long to drown a person.”
“And the second thing?” I asked.
“Dried blood was found beneath a couple of the wood planks on the edge of the dock. Hard to tell whether it’s old or new or what. Does Coop know you’re looking into the woman’s death?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t even been hired by Rebecca’s family yet. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to talk to you first, see what you know about the case. That way, I’m up to speed if they decide to hire me.”
Maddie guzzled the rest of her wine and said, “I hope you hear from them. I’d love to see you wipe the smug look off Coop’s face when you tell him they hired you to look into his investigation.”