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ROWAN
The victim is a young woman—I guess somewhere in her early thirties—with long blonde hair. She’s tan and noticeably fit. Tattoos cover both her arms. She’s wearing a white ribbed tank top stained with droplets of blood. The letter X has been carved across each of the woman’s eyes. The gaping incisions extend from above her eyebrow to her nose, in a precise crisscross. Rivers of dried blood run down her pale cheeks like crimson tears. She’s naked from the waist down.
The smell is atrocious.
I step deeper into the room, careful to stay out of the way of the crime-scene tech.
Darcy Banks, the overworked, underpaid medical examiner, glances at me as I approach. Her eyes are red and her face is pale. From being ripped away from the comfort of her bed, or from the brutality of the crime, I’m not sure. Darcy has been the county medical examiner since I can remember. Once a vibrant, auburn-haired country-girl who could drink any man under the table, now a fully-gray loner with a coldness behind her eyes that reflect decades of dissecting murder.
We stare at each other for a moment, a moment of awe between two women. Astonishment that we are both in the presence of such evil—once again.
I blink, turn to Kellan who is staring down at the body with his hands in his pockets. He, too, is a little pale.
I want to scold him for not giving me the proper heads up before walking in on something like this. But instead, I return my focus to Darcy.
“Any sign of vaginal or anal penetration?” I ask, a knot catching my throat.
“No, I don’t think she was raped, but I’ll know more when I get her into the lab. But there doesn’t appear to be any vaginal ripping or bruising to suggest it.”
It’s then that I notice the victim’s neck is mottled with purple bruises.
“Was she strangled?”
Darcy nods. “I think so, yes. The contusions suggest manual strangulation. Not a string or ligature, but I’ll verify that once in the lab.”
“Do you think that’s the cause of death?”
“My gut says yes, but I can’t be certain yet.”
“Understood. How long do you think she’s been dead?”
“Two days.”
That explains the smell.
Turning to Kellan I say, “That corroborates with the witness’s story that the lights have been on for two days. She must have been killed sometime before she went to bed, and therefore the lights were never turned off.”
“That would have been Monday evening,” Kellan confirms.
“Where is the husband?” I ask, my mind beginning to spin.
“According to the travel itinerary I found on the kitchen table, he’s in Japan for work,” Kellan says. “He works at a tech startup company. I saw his business cards in an office down the hall.”
“We need to verify that he’s out of the country.”
Kellan nods.
“It doesn’t seem there was much of a struggle,” I say, glancing around the room. Everything appears to be in place. Nothing tipped over, broken, or overturned. Nothing to suggest that there was a scuffle.
“Whoever did this could’ve overpowered her,” Kellan adds. “She’s pretty small.”
“Or she knew whoever it was, and that person took her by surprise. Have you checked the house for any signs of a break-in, or a point of entry?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll do that.” I shift my attention to the medical examiner. “How much longer do you need with her?”
“Give me about twenty minutes, then I’ll bag her up and take her to the lab.”
