Page 107 of One of Us Is Guilty

Well, most of them.

She put the vest and the leather cloth item back in the Jeep and closed the trunk, made her way back to the house.

She texted him again.

Where are you now?

His reply came fast.

Waiting on Triple A. Car won’t start.

Bloch texted, Are you worried?

Yeah, but what else is new?

In the hallway, Corbett was pacing back and forth. He was pissed and panicking. After all, the damage had happened while he was supposed to be supervising the visit. But what was he supposed to do? Bloch knew the cops wouldn’t do anything, because the property itself legally belonged to the couple, and Raymond was engaged on behalf of Vanessa. Even if he wasn’t a realtor, he was there on official business for a client. The cops would say this was a civil matter, and leave it at that.

Still, Corbett was on edge. He could expect to eat a shit sandwich when he got back to the firm because this had happened on his watch.

Through the hallway, past the staircase, past the lounge and into the kitchen, Bloch saw Raymond scraping at the wall opposite the dining table with a knife.

‘You nearly done?’ she asked.

‘I need more samples, another two hours maybe.’

Bloch nodded, walked through the kitchen to the glass doors that looked out on the beach. The wind had picked up. Dark clouds had gathered over the steel-gray ocean, its surface becoming choppier.

‘A storm is coming,’ said Bloch.

44

Eddie

‘Dr. Morrow, what makes you believe the victim died of head trauma?’ asked Riley.

‘It’s a simple logical conclusion based on my medical examination of the body. Even though the victim’s head had been severed between C5 and C6, this was not the cause of the death. In my opinion, the removal of the head was carried out postmortem. Meaning, after her death.’

‘How do you know the decapitation occurred after she’d already died?’ asked Riley.

‘The marks left on the skin, and the marks left on C5, indicate a blade with a serrated edge was used to saw through the skin, tendon, muscle and bone. This was done in a single cut, level and quite square. If the victim had been alive, I would have expected to find several different cuts with the same blade as the victim struggled.’

‘Is it possible the victim was merely unconscious when this mutilation occurred?’

‘I suppose it is possible, but unlikely in my opinion. The vast majority of major limb amputations that I have seen have all evidently been carried out postmortem. After death, I mean.’

Riley paused to let the jury take in this point before expanding it.

‘Dr. Morrow, why then do you conclude that the cause of death was trauma to the head?’

‘Really it was a logical course of eliminating other potential fatal injuries. Having examined every inch of the victim’s body, there was no evidence of any natural cause of death. Heart, liver, kidneys, all major organs were in excellent health, there were no signs of disease and more importantly no signs of any other kind of trauma to any other part of the body which could possibly have been fatal. There was a cut on the sole of the foot, but that would not have been a potentially mortal wound. That led me to conclude that any fatal injury must have occurred to the skull and brain, which were of course missing.’

‘Dr. Morrow, you have had cause to examine a jewelry box, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does this box have the necessary weight and—’

‘Objection, Your Honor,’ I said. ‘The witness is now speculating.’