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"I'm sure the locals were very happy to step aside."
Faith laughed, thinking Sara's husband had probably been a good cop. Faith was a good cop, too, and she knew that it was one in the morning and Sara had said six hours ago that she was at the end of her shift. Faith studied the doctor. Sara had the unmistakable glow of an adrenaline junkie. The woman was here for information.
Sara offered, "I checked on Henry Coldfield, the driver." She hadn't eaten anything yet, but then she had come into the cafeteria to find Faith, not choke down a piece of chicken that had hatched just as Nixon was resigning. "The air bag bruised his chest, and the wife took a couple of stitches in her head, but they're both fine."
"That's actually what I'm waiting on." Faith checked the clock again. "They were supposed to meet me down here."
Sara looked confused. "They left at least half an hour ago with their son."
"What?"
"I saw them all talking to that detective with the greasy hair."
"Motherfucker." No wonder Max Galloway had looked so smug when he left the cafeteria. "Sorry," she told Sara. "One of the locals is smarter than I thought. He played me like a violin."
"Coldfield is an unusual name," Sara said. "I'm sure they're in the phone book."
Faith hoped so, because she didn't want to have to go crawling back to Max Galloway and give him the satisfaction of relaying the information.
Sara offered, "I could pull the address and phone number off the hospital intake form for you."
Faith was surprised by the offer, which usually required a subpoena. "That'd be great."
"It's not a problem."
"It's, uh—" Faith stopped, biting her tongue to keep from telling the other woman that she would be breaking the law. She changed the subject. "Will told me you worked on the victim when she came in."
"Anna," Sara supplied. "At least that's what I think she said."
Faith tested the waters. Will hadn't given her the gritty details. "What were your impressions?"
Sara sat back in her chair, arms folded. "She showed signs of severe malnutrition and dehydration. Her gums were white, her veins collapsed. Because of the nature of the healing and the way the blood was clotting, I would assume that the wounds were inflicted over a period of time. Her wrists and ankles showed signs of being bound. She was penetrated vaginally and anally; there were indications that a blunt object was used. I couldn't really do a rape kit before surgery, but I managed to examine her as best I could. I removed some splinters of wood from under her fingernails for your lab to look at—not pressure-treated from the look of it, but that will have to be confirmed by your guys."
She sounded like she was giving testimony in court. Every observation had supporting evidence, every educated guess was framed as an estimation. Faith asked, "How long do you think she was kept?"
"At least four days. Though gauging by how malnourished she was, it might be as much as a week to ten days."
Faith didn't want to think about the woman being tortured for ten days. "How are you so sure about the four days?"
"The cut on the breast here," Sara replied, indicating the side of her own breast. "It was deep, already septic, with signs of insect activity. You'd have to talk to an entomologist to pin down the pupation—the developmental stage of the insect—but considering she was still alive, that her body was relatively warm and there was a fresh blood supply to feed on, four days is a solid guess." She added, "I don't imagine they'll be able to save the tissue."
Faith kept her lips pressed tightly together, resisting the urge to put her hand over her own breast. How many pieces of yourself could you lose and still go on?
Sara kept talking, though Faith had not prompted her. "The eleventh rib, here," she touched her abdomen. "That was recent, probably earlier today or late yesterday, and done with precision."
"Surgical precision?"
"No." She shook her head. "Confidence. There were no hesitation marks, no test cuts. The person was confident in what they were doing."
Faith thought the doctor seemed pretty confident herself. "How do you think it was done?"
Sara took out her prescription pad and started drawing a bunch of curved lines that only made sense when she explained, "The ribs are numbered in pairs starting at the top and going down, twelve each side, left and right." She tapped the lines with her pen. "Number one is just under the clavicle and twelve is the last one here." She looked up to make sure Faith was following. "Now, eleven and twelve at the bottom are considered to be 'floating,' because they don't have an anterior connection. They only connect at the back, not the front." She drew a straight line to indicate the spine. "The top seven ribs connect at the back and then attach to the sternum—like a big crescent. The next three rows connect roughly to the ribs above. They're called false ribs. All of this is very elastic so that you can breathe, and it's also why it's hard to break a rib with a direct blow—they bend quite a bit."
Faith was leaning forward, hanging on her every word. "So, this was done by someone with medical knowledge?"
"Not necessarily. You can feel your own ribs with your fingers. You know where they are in your body."
"But, still—"
"Look." She sat up straight, raising her right arm and pressing the fingers of her left hand into her side. "You run your hand down the posterior axillary line until you feel the tip of the rib—eleven, with twelve a little farther back." She picked up the plastic knife. "You slice the knife into the skin and cut along the rib—the tip of the blade could even scrape along the bone as a guide. Push back the fat and muscle, disarticulate the rib from the vertebra, snap it off, whatever, then grab hold and yank it out."
Faith felt queasy at the thought.
Sara put down the knife. "A hunter could do it in under a minute, but anyone could figure it out. It's not precision surgery. I'm sure you could Google up a better drawing than the one I've made."
"Is it possible that the rib was never there? That she was born without it?"
"A small portion of the population is born with one pair fewer, but the majority of us have twenty-four."
"I thought men were missing a rib?"
"You mean like Adam and Eve?" A smile curved Sara's lips, and Faith got the distinct impression the woman was trying not to laugh at her. "I wouldn't believe everything they told you in Sunday School, Faith. We all have the same number of ribs."
"Well, don't I feel stupid." It wasn't a question. "But, you're sure about this, that the rib was taken out?"
"Ripped out. The cartilage and muscle were torn. This was a violent wrenching."
"You seem to have given this a lot of thought."
Sara shrugged, as if this was just the product of natural curiosity. She picked up the knife and fork again, cutting into the chicken. Faith watched her struggle with the desiccated meat for a few seconds before she put back down the utensils. She gave a strange smile, almost embarrassed. "I was a coroner in my previous life."
