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Death within seconds.
More blood on the carpet, leading to a four-poster bed. One of the four posts is shattered, so the jagged edges create a weapon, and in the center of the mattress, lying on her stomach in her own pool of red, is a woman who doesn’t need an M.E. to pronounce her dead; the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of knife wounds on her back are enough.
Her eyes are open, and tear tracks leave pale lines through the blood on her face. The bed covers, once white linen, are now dark crimson, and pillow feathers are scattered around the room, stuck to the vic’s body and tangled in her hair. Some lie on the carpet. Others lead into the adjoined bathroom.
“Jesus.” Lines of blood stain the wall, and when I lower into a crouch, I look under the bed and find blood pooled there, too.
It literally soaked through and kept going to the carpet.
“Is this what it’s like?” Fletch stands by the bathroom door, his eyes pointed and fiery as I glance across. “To kill a man with a knife?”
I spin back to check the hall, but it’s empty. Thankfully.
Bringing my gaze back around, I firm my lips and ignore his barb. This isn’t what happened with me, Minka, and Laramie Fentone—it’s not even remotely the same. So I won’t justify his jab with an answer. “Do we have an ID yet?”
He drops his hands in his pockets and lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “I only got here about thirty seconds before you.” He pauses for a beat. “Didyouget an ID?”
No. Asshole.
So I make a mental note to figure out who the fuck’s house we’re in, and by extension, who our dead woman is. But another woman steals my attention.
My ears are attuned to Minka. My instincts, always pointing toward her. So I hear her voice as she arrives and speaks to Officer Clay, then her footsteps on the stairs as she skips the house tour and follows her nose.
Fletch knows it’s her, too, and his eyes burn into mine.
“Chief Medical Examiner Minka Mayet, aided by Doctor Aubree Emeri. Entering the crime scene at one-three-one-four Mays Lane, Copeland City. Main bedroom, on the second floor of the property.” She looks to me, then to Fletch. But she’s on the record now, so no one says shit about the vigilante. “Detectives Charlie Fletcher and Archer Malone are primary and already present.”
Finally, she crosses the threshold and takes care not to step in something she shouldn’t. “Female vic. Approximately twenty-five to thirty years old. Light brown or dark blonde hair. Light brown eyes. Around a hundred and sixty-five pounds.”
She pulls on gloves when Aubree passes them, then continues past me to the bed. She touches, when Fletch and I don’t yet dare. “Victim appears to be a fit, healthy woman. Good muscle tone. No extra weight around her midsection.”
She stops at the side of the bed furthest from Fletch and studies the vic’s open eyes. “Stab wounds to her back,” she speaks for the record. “Multiple.” Then she looks to Aubree. “Document them, please. We’ll want to know precisely the number of entry wounds.”
“Yeah.” Aubree sets her bag down—theirmurder bag—and takes out a camera.
“Stab wounds to her lower back,” Minka continues. “Her buttocks. Arms, and another to her neck.” Pulling away, she studies the woman with pity in her eyes. “Undressed but for her underwear, red panties and a matching bra. Though, the lace of her bra strap was sliced during the attack. Her hair…” She picks up a lock and sighs. “Killer sliced through while she was already down.”
“Got her downstairs first,” Fletch mumbles. “Maybe that’s the defensive wound on her left hand and arm. He chases her up, and she runs to the bathroom first—because it’s a damn mess in there, too.”
Curious, Minka pushes up straight and circles the bed. Then she peers inside the adjoined bathroom for only a moment before turning back to her patient.
It’s not about the scene for her. Not really. It’s about the body. The moment of death. The reasons for the end.
“Chased her in,” she takes up the thread of speculation. “Maybe she tried to fight back. The shower curtain has been torn down. Sink is shattered. Towel bar has been pulled from the wall. Towels on the floor. Mirror is smashed.”
“Maybe they fought it out in there,” Aubree surmises. “Vic was attacked downstairs, runs up, realizes her mistake, and tries to lock herself in the bathroom.” Lowering her camera and moving to the bathroom door, she photographs the cracked timber—the sign our perp tried to get in, and that, for just a moment, our victim was able to hold the line. “He busts it down, then they’re wrestling hand to hand.”
“But our killer is stronger and brings her out,” Minka finishes. “Can’t say for sure if they were male, but we can reasonably assume that to be the case, considering the strength this damage would require.” She looks to me then. “You should have crime scene techs check all of this blood. Maybe he got tagged, too.”
Then she peers to her patient. Sad. Disappointed the woman lost her greatest battle. “He overpowers her. Gets her back in the room.” Lowering into a crouch by the bed, she turns the victim’s face to reveal a nasty bruise forming on her cheek. “Hits her, probably bare-knuckled. Incapacitates her. Then he just…”
“Slashes her to hell and back,” Fletch grumbles. “Apparently.”
“This was a crime of passion,” Minka decides. “Heat of the moment. Maybe they had an argument and things got out of hand, then one hit led to another. Maybe she even pulled the knife first, for protection. But he’s bigger and stronger, so he takes it from her, and then it’s all done.”
“He would’ve been soaked by the time he was through.” I watch on as Aubree takes a thermometer from the murder bag before Minka asks, then steps closer and hands it over for her boss to use.
The dead woman is on her stomach, but at an odd angle, because her leg props her up slightly. So Minka takes a scalpel and, after making a small incision on the victim’s torso, slides the thermometer in.
