Page 35 of The Wedding Party

“I can’t give you a solid answer. Her rapid toxicology test shows no illicit drugs or anything worth noting, but as I’m sure you know, there’s an excess of synthetic drugs now that don’t show up on toxicology tests.”

I reach in my bag and hand him the baggie with the pill bottle. “These are the drugs I found in her bag. There are numerous different pills in there.”

Dr. Mendez opens the bottle and pours the pills in his hand, glancing at the number etched on the side of one of them. “This is an antianxiety medication. It would potentially mix very badly with any illicit drug she took willingly or unwillingly.”

“Could it create violent behavior?”

“I can’t say for sure. I don’t know what combination of drugs, if any, we’re dealing with, but hallucinations could be possible with the wrong cocktail of drugs. Certainly, when Ms. Reynolds is able to communicate her medications to me, I can offer more.”

I swing back to my prior question in a slightly different way. “And to you, the hallucinations make her capable of violence?”

“Hypothetically, if you believe you’re being attacked, you would certainly protect yourself. If you believe you’re in danger, you’d certainly try to end the source of danger.”

Interesting, I think. It’s almost as if he knows she’s guilty and he’s launched her defense for her.

“What about injuries?” I ask. “Was any of the blood hers or was it all the victim’s?”

“She has a large cut across her belly that would have bled quite a lot, but the excess of blood is not hers.”

I’m surprised by the news of a wound on her belly, but I guess I shouldn’t be. Her skin was a blanket of blood. “Is the injury self-inflicted?”

“Hard to say,” he comments yet again, noncommittal on every point, it seems. “I’m not an expert in such things. I just sew them up.”

“What about any defensive marks on her arms?” I ask.

“None,” he says, and again defending her, he adds, “but that means nothing. I spent some time working in a high-end Aspen drug rehab facility years back. When a person is on drugs, that person isn’t living in reality. Therefore, the reactions aren’t what we’d expect. Believe me, I’ve seen things. The person could see Prince Charming in the same person one minute and some sort of demon the next.”

“But we don’t actually know she was on drugs, correct?” I ask, going by his own assessment in this very conversation.

“Based on her physical and medical condition, we can make the reasonable assumption she was.”

“Can that be faked?”

“Not easily,” he replies, “but I have to go on record here and say that Ms. Reynolds’s head injury complicates her evaluation. She has a concussion. Is the dilation of her eyes created by that injury or drugs? Or both? That is yet to be established.”

“Let’s talk about the blood all over her body. I assume the photos I requested were taken before she was cleaned up?”

“They were. They’re being logged into our system and then they’ll be available for your review.”

“Did you examine her prior to her cleanup?”

“I did,” he confirms.

“Was there blood on her inner thighs that might suggest she straddled the victim?”

“There was not.”

It’s not the answer I expect, and it’s not an answer that clears Carrie of guilt, but it certainly doesn’t work against her, either. “Can I talk to her?”

“As I mentioned, she’s headed in for a CAT scan. I won’t allow her to talk to you until I’ve had a chance to evaluate it and her more completely for purely safety reasons.”

“How long do you think that will be?”

“A few hours.”

A frustrating answer that I’m forced to accept. “I’ll be nearby,” I say, handing Mendez my card. “Call me if anything changes, or if you need me for any reason at all. I do need to point out that no matter what the circumstances, a man is dead—violently murdered, in fact—and she’s our top suspect in our custody. Handle her with caution.”

“She’s cuffed to the bed,” he says dryly and rather shortly. “I did assume as much.” His lips press together. “I should get back to the medical portion of this equation.”