AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sloan nodded. “Let’s get busy.”
But before they could begin digging, her phone rang. When she looked at the caller ID, she saw that it was Dr. Cutty. She held up a finger to Eric and answered.
“Hello?”
“Sloan? It’s Livia Cutty. I was able to look at those two autopsy reports you sent. Do you have time to review them?”
“Yes, thanks for getting back to me. Did you come across anything interesting?”
“Much more than interesting. In my humble opinion, both reports are terribly inaccurate.”
“How so?”
“Baker Jauncey didn’t die from a motor vehicle accident, and Sandy Stamos didn’t drown.”
CHAPTER 35
Cedar Creek, Nevada Wednesday, July 31, 2024
SLOAN SET DR. CUTTY UP ON A VIDEO CONFERENCE CALL AND SET THE phone at the head of the oak table so that she and Eric were in the frame. Introductions were made and Sloan and Eric explained why they needed Dr. Cutty’s expertise on the two autopsy files Sloan had sent her.
“I see,” Dr. Cutty said. “So it’s likely the coroner who performed these autopsies was politically compromised, or at least motivated to come up with exam findings that fit a specific narrative?”
“That’s entirely possible in this town, yes,” Eric said.
Dr. Cutty nodded. “Then that, and the fact that he is a coroner and not a trained pathologist, could explain the discrepancies.”
“What did you find?” Sloan asked.
“Let’s start with Baker Jauncey. It’s clear from the documented exam findings that this man was not killed by a motor vehicle, but rather from a blow to the head that caused a brain bleed.”
“But the official cause of death was listed as a brain bleed from trauma suffered during the hit-and-run incident,” Eric said.
“Yes. The official cause and manner of death were listed along with a brief summary of the exam findings. To a layperson, the truth would be difficult to find. It was only after I dug through the actual postmortem notes and reviewed the exam photos that I determined the cause of death was incorrect.”
“Couldn’t the head wound Baker Jauncey suffered have been caused by the car that hit him?” Eric asked.
“A head wound? Sure. This particular head wound? Not a chance. There are many factors that disprove the theory that a vehicle caused the head injury, but the biggest is that the wounds the vehicle produced to this man’s body were caused postmortem.”
Eric leaned his elbows onto the oak slab to get closer to Sloan’s phone. “He was dead before the car hit him?”
“That’s what the autopsy findings indicate, yes. Besides the wound to the head, all other injuries were caused after he was dead. And the head injury is inconsistent with a motor vehicle accident. From what I could see on the photos and in the coroner’s notes, it was impossible for a car to have caused the head wound.”
Dr. Cutty spent several minutes on the intricacies of person to vehicle encounters and the autopsy findings that are yielded in such circumstances.
“If Baker Jauncey wasn’t killed by the car that ran him over, how did he die?” Sloan asked.
“I closely examined the photos of the skull fracture, along with the measurements that were taken, and my best guess would be that a rounded, wooden object was used to strike Baker Jauncey in the back of the head. The blow caused a brain bleed that killed him.”
Sloan and Eric looked at each other. They didn’t need to speak what they both were thinking: Somehow, Sandy Stamos had learned that Annabelle Margolis was not responsible for Baker Jauncey’s death, which explained why Sandy had never arrested her. And if Sandy knew that someone had killed Baker by striking him in the head and then staging the hit-and-run, that knowledge had likely gotten him killed. Had the same person who killed Baker Jauncey also killed Annabelle Margolis?
“Thanks, Dr. Cutty,” Sloan said, forcing her mind back to the present. “Did you look at the other report?”
“I did,” Dr. Cutty said. “This was your father, Sheriff?”
“It was, yes.”
“And the official line was that your dad drowned when his car went into a body of water?”
