Daddy's Little Killer

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

 

I perched on the counter in Maya's autopsy room, heels clunking against the stainless steel cabinets like a clock in need of repair. She was running her fingers over my shiny new badge. She whistled soft and low between her teeth.

"How serious are they, Helen?"

"About me being a bonafide police detective?" I shrugged. "I suppose it's directly proportionate to my ability to figure out who killed Ms. Foster."

"Good luck with that one."

"No good news, huh?" I grinned. "And here all these years I thought you were the sharpest scalpel on the autopsy tray."

"Cute," she grinned at me. "I have some pictures if you'd like to see what I found when we did the complete exam."

"Give me the Cliffs Notes version."

"Gwen Foster was an out of shape but normal-weight, thirty-four year old white female who did not smoke. She did drink, a little on the heavy side if her gastric contents were any indicator of normal consumption."

"What did you find?"

"Lots of merlot. Her liver function tests were skewed toward signs of chronic and habitual consumption."

"Guess that isn't a great segue to ask if you'd like to have dinner with me, huh?"

"Don't interrupt," Maya grinned. "Where was I? Liver. Yeah, she had close to a liter in her stomach which is what, roughly a bottle?"

"Seven-hundred-fifty milliliters is the content of the average bottle." I wondered about my liver and put the thought aside. 

"There was no food in her stomach, only wine. Her BAL, had she been driving, would've put her over the legal limit. 

"As for sexual assault, there is no question that it happened close to the time of death. We've got plenty of DNA without her fingernails providing additional samples. I found black pubic hairs on the combing, and the swabs were full of-"

"I get the picture."

"As to the cause of death," she dropped a file on the counter beside me, "I'd really like your impression of some of the photos Billy took before the autopsy."

While I perused, she continued.

"We got her medical records which basically confirmed that she was a thirty-something woman in exceptional health. There was only one point of discord between that record and her body."

"Are these bruises?" I pointed at the strange discoloration along Foster's cervical spine.

"They would've been spectacular if she hadn't died shortly after the injury was inflicted."

"What would cause bruising like that? She's not that bony and petite," I said. "She was lying supine on plush carpeting. Is this normal livor mortis?"

"Nope. If it were normal, you'd see the pressure points all over her bony prominences, and as you so astutely observed, she's not that bony and petite."

"You have a theory."

Maya grinned again. "Did you completely gloss over the major incongruity between her medical record and what I learned during the autopsy?"

"Little bit. What was it?"

"Gwen Foster was a mother."

I looked up. "Are we looking at a child abduction, Maya?"