Erin sat opposite Charlie Baros, trying to ignore his insolent gaze as she outlined the results of Jessica Sherwood’s blood and tissue sample analysis. These tests often threw up curveballs and were part of the process of determining the cause of death of the people who passed through the facility. Erin stood by the initial findings of her post-mortem. Jessica had been strangled and the cause of death was asphyxiation. The problem was that her blood analysis identified the presence of potassium chloride, a favourite drug for suicides due to its rapid absorption in the body. Jessica hadn’t killed herself. The imprints of the fingers on her neck were of a larger hand, probably male. It was definitely a homicide. The blood results, however, revealed a more complex chain of events leading to the woman’s death. Her attacker hadn’t killed her at the first attempt and had injected the dying woman with a drug to hasten her end. The detectives were furious. It’s hard to sustain the theory of a burglary gone wrong when the killer is carrying a hypodermic syringe.
‘Perhaps he kept it on him for such a scenario,’ suggested Erin.
Detective Amy Perez shot her a sympathetic look. Unlike her partner, she wasn’t naturally combative, and she knew they needed to extract every last clue from the post-mortem. There was no obvious motive for the killing. Jessica’s house and modest savings were to be inherited by a sister in Ohio, who had been ruled out as a suspect. There had been no similar homicides, although there had been a slew of house break-ins because of the hot weather. Just as they were filing it as a burglary gone wrong, the blood results had come back.
‘The lieutenant wants us to go over everything again. See what we’ve missed.’ Baros slammed his cup down on the table, its contents slopping around on the dark wood. ‘What I’d like to know is what you missed. Because I don’t see any mention of a needle mark in your report.’
Erin cast her mind back to the autopsy conducted in the clammy heat. Jessica had been found lying on her side in a state of livor mortis. Without a beating heart, her blood had followed the laws of gravity and settled on the lowest portions of the body. The resulting purple marks on the skin would have made a puncture wound difficult to spot, but Erin had examined the skin to the best of her ability. The question she was asking herself, however, was whether she’d returned to examine the body the following day. By then lividity marks began to fade and the skin returned to its pale waxen hue. When she was still unsure of the cause of death, she’d often take another look at the cadaver to see what new marks could be identified. But she was pretty sure she’d not revisited the body of a woman she’d already identified as a homicide victim. It was a mistake, but surely not a career-ending one.
She swallowed, desperate for a drink to moisten her parched throat. ‘I’m going to look again at the autopsy photos, but I saw no sign of a puncture wound,’ she told the detectives.
Baros swore and Perez placed a restraining hand on his arm. Erin, tired after a long day, snapped. ‘If I recall, there was nothing actually stolen from the victim’s home. How does that agree with your burglary gone wrong theory? Don’t thieves usually steal something during break-ins?’
Baros didn’t react. Perhaps he was used to women standing up to him. His boss was the legendary Viv Kantz, and Perez didn’t come across as a walkover either. Instead, he folded the report and tucked it under his arm. ‘Let’s all of us see if we can restore our reputations.’
After they’d left, Erin looked at her watch. She should go home, get something to eat, watch a film. Anything to relax. Instead, she went to her office and pulled up Jessica Sherwood’s file on her computer. Image by image she began her examination of the photos taken by Jenny.