After dealing with the stupid piece of shit that was Marty, I needed to do something on this case that at least felt like constructive activity. The postmortem results had come in, and after reading them I wanted to talk them though. Fortunately for me I had a bit of history with the local pathologist. Not in a romantic kind of a way – more in a sisterly kind of a way, despite his best efforts to make it otherwise. Alistair, who liked to be called Alistair and never Al, was in the same class as my brothers at Southland Boys’ High School. We had the pleasure of his company on the farm over many a school holiday, as his over-achieving parents seemed to value their work more than their kid, so he was offloaded on our family more often than not. I liked to think that we had a positive influence on him, and that, courtesy of the love shown by the Shephards, he showed less of his latent psychopathic tendencies than he may have if under the loving care of his parents. Then again, it did mean he spent time around my mother, so it could have swung either way.
I picked up the phone and hit his cell number.
‘Sam,’ came the familiar drawl. ‘What can I do you for – I’m assuming you want something. It’s the only time you call. You know a man could get a complex about things like that.’
He had me pegged.
‘You know me too well, what can I say?’
‘Yes to a date would always be nice.’ Bless him, he still tried.
‘Sorry, but I think the ship has well and truly sailed on that one.’
‘Yes, let me extend my congratulations to you both yet again. When are you due to pop?’
‘Theoretically, around three weeks, but the way I’m feeling at the moment I hoping earlier, because if this thing keeps growing it’s going to explode out of my chest like an alien.’
‘Ooh, if it does that can I be the one to do the autopsy? That would be fascinating.’
The thought of Alistair trawling around in my deceased innards was a bit off-putting, no matter how fascinating he’d find it.
‘You’re a sick puppy, you know that?’
‘Yes, thank you very much. I can attribute that to you and your family’s fine influence.’
‘Touché.’ He had a point.
‘Ah, those were the days. How is the old battle-axe by the way?’
‘Mum’s mum.’
‘Enough said.’ I could hear the smile in his voice. ‘I assume you’re calling about our unfortunate recent arrival.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. Even after a few days of getting used to the case I still had a visceral reaction whenever I thought of what she must have gone through. I had to breathe away the shudders.
‘Was there anything specific you wanted to know?’
‘Not really. I was just wanting a general run-through and…’ How did I phrase this carefully? ‘…anything you thought was amiss, besides the obvious.’ I knew Alistair well enough to know he actively sought out the unusual – the outlier things. Sure, it was part of his job to be systematic and thorough, pay attention to detail, but he was very good at looking that step beyond, at solving the puzzle, which was one of the reasons I respected him so much as a pathologist. Maybe it started on the farm when he seemed to get too much enjoyment poking around the insides of smelly dead things. It wasn’t just a job to him, it was a calling.
‘Cause of death was acute blood loss and shock from being cut open. The cuts themselves were clean; there was no dragging, so performed with a very sharp implement – a knife or perhaps even a scalpel – but they weren’t what I would call proficient, and they were large.’
‘They?’ I asked. ‘There was more than one?’
‘Yes. In a normal caesarean section there will be an abdominal cut first, to get through the muscles etc, and then when the uterus is exposed, the cut through the uterus. Normally these would be just enough to fit a baby’s head and body through. In this case the cuts were much, much larger, twice the size a surgeon would make, and, like I said, messy. Also, the uterine cuts were more hesitant, like they were trying to make sure they didn’t cut through and wound the foetus.’
‘So we can pretty much rule out an obstetrician as the perpetrator.’
‘Unless they were a rubbish one and a bit of a butcher.’
The thought of all this was making me fervently hope Bubs here decided to exit my womb courtesy of the opening nature provided. My hand had automatically started to rub my belly. The kid responded with an obliging kick.
‘Along those lines, they had also managed to nick the bladder, so yes, very confident it wasn’t done by a surgeon.’
Not even a back-alley surgeon. Whoever did this performed under extraordinarily crude circumstances, without the luxury of a sterile environment, operating table and lighting, with an anaesthetist on hand. It begged my next question.
‘No one would sit still or silent for that kind of treatment if awake. Surely she would have had to have been unconscious at the time?’
‘She had a blunt-force trauma wound to the back of her head, which externally looks quite severe, and resulted in a fractured skull and internal bleeding. Looking at the shape of it, to me it looks consistent with an impact from, for example, the edge of kerbing or a ledge of some kind, rather than a weapon, and would likely have rendered her unconscious. We’ve taken bloods for a toxicology screening in case she was given some sort of sedative or anaesthesia to ensure she stayed unconscious throughout, or was under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. I wouldn’t expect the results back for a couple of weeks.’ Knowing full well the list of no-nos a pregnant woman constantly had rammed down her throat by health professionals, family, friends, and even the occasional stranger, who seemed to think they had a right to put in their two-cents’ worth, I doubted there would be alcohol or illicit drugs in her system. But, hey, you never knew. The most illicit thing from the no-nos list I’d indulged in was a cold chicken sandwich, and my mother had even told me off for that.
‘And she didn’t have any signs of defensive wounds, or evidence she’d tried to fight someone off?’ I asked.
‘No, nothing like that. Nothing under her fingernails, and apart from the major trauma to the back of her head, and of course the make-shift caesarean section, she had no other sign of injury.’
‘So you think she was pushed, or tripped over something and fell backward.’ I was going to have to look at the site reports and see if there was blood and tissue evidence on any of the angular edges around where she was found.
‘Well, I can’t speculate on the circumstances, but certainly she struck her head, going backward with enough force to do some serious damage.’
I thought about what he said about toxicology reports.
‘You didn’t find a site of injection?’
‘She had evidence of recent needle puncture to her median cubital vein, but that could have been due to a routine blood test. We will follow up with her medical records to see if any had been taken in the previous few days.’
I remembered his earlier comment about the person being cautious not to cut the baby.
‘Is there any way to know if, when they were cutting through the uterus, they did accidentally cut the baby?’
‘No way to tell. We took blood samples from a number of sites in case there was evidence left by the perpetrator, but to be honest, given the immense amount of blood lost by the victim, that is needle-in-haystack territory. Also, at this point we don’t know the blood type of the baby. Again, we will check the victim’s records for any ante-natal investigations. If she had amniocentesis or any other tests, that could help us there. Oh, and in addition to the baby, they took the placenta.’
‘Pardon?’ I asked.
‘Yup, they took the whole kit and caboodle.’
‘Why the hell would someone do that?’
‘Good question. Maybe they were in a hurry.’
Maybe indeed. I guess if you’d just sliced open a woman in a back alley in the middle of the night to snatch her probably crying baby, you wouldn’t be sticking around to tidy up the mess.