Page 33 of The Wedding Party

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The medical examiner is a gray-haired, soft-spoken man named Carl who is already inspecting the body when I arrive.

“Special Agent Andrea Castle,” I greet him, indicating my badge. “What do you have for me?”

He straightens from his inspection of the body and inspects me. “I have to say, despite two decades at the busy Fort Collins Medical Examiner’s Office, somehow this is my first time working with the FBI.”

“That’s a good thing, not a bad thing,” I say. “Talk to me. What do we have?”

“I just arrived, but on first inspection, a fit of rage,” he says, pressing his dark-rimmed glasses up his nose. “In excess of fifty stab wounds, but many of those wounds are superficial.” He indicates the stomach. “This is the wound I suspect, on limited inspection, of course, killed him. It hit a vital artery. From a humane standpoint, one can hope it came early and he didn’t feel the rest.”

“Do we have a murder weapon?”

“We don’t, but I believe it’s some sort of hunting knife.”

Somehow, I have a hard time seeing Oliver as a hunter, and his sister confirmed he wasn’t, but sometimes people surprise not just me but those in their inner circle. “What else?” I ask, a firm believer in all information coming to me as organically as possible, at least initially.

“I believe the attacker was female, as the depth of the wounds are shallow, indicating a lack of strength to penetrate the tissue. I’ll solidify that conclusion with further examination, and, of course, the forensics team will do their thing, but I’ve been doing this a long time. I’m not wrong.”

Meaning forensics will test, and re-create the crime scene and, yes, the force at which the stab wounds were delivered. A strong, confident, experienced ME, backed by the same quality on the forensics side, can equal a conviction. But the defense will press the prosecution and try to disprove their data.

Which is why I can’t ask too many questions. “Couldn’t it simply be a smaller or weaker man and that the person was riding emotional adrenaline that wore off, weakening the impact?”

“Based on what I see here, that’s a stretch. Again, I need to get back to the lab to confirm any initial thoughts. Right now, I’m offering a hypothesis I will test.”

“Hmm,” I say, in a noncommittal reply by intent. Everyone I’ve met at this event is highly intelligent; a number of them have medical training. Do I lean toward a female killer? Yes. Can I rule out someone educated enough to manipulate the stab wounds to appear female? No. But in the heat of the moment, it’s also highly unlikely. And this was a heat of the moment killing. Although . . . if the killer was smart enough to fake one thing, they could fake another.

“Don’t assume the cause of death,” I say. “Make sure he wasn’t already dead before the stabbing.”

His spine straightens. “I’m thorough. That’s why I said nothing is certain until I get in the lab.”

I eye the blood all over the white comforter. “Was the attacker on top of him when they stabbed him, straddling him, perhaps?”

“He wasn’t in the bed for the entire attack,” he replies, indicating Oliver’s legs hanging off the mattress. He walks to the end of the bed, where there is a large amount of blood on the skirt of the comforter. “I believe he was standing with his back to the bed when he was stabbed in the stomach. There’s blood on his hands in excess, which indicates he most likely covered the wound and fell back on the mattress, thus the blood on the skirt. He was all but dead at that point, but the attacker didn’t stop there.”

“That’s when someone would have climbed on top of him,” I say, “pushed him backwards, and kept stabbing.”

“Yes,” he agrees simply.

“If that person was naked, where would the blood be located to support such a theory? Inner thighs?”

“Oh yes, and frankly,” he adds, “the crotch. The attacker would have sat on his belly, which was the location of his mortal wound.”

I’m mentally replaying the moment I allowed Carrie into the room and she flung herself on top of Oliver. She’d ensured she’d be wearing his blood, but she hadn’t straddled him, not in the aftermath of the crime. If her inner thighs are stained, then there will be no escaping guilt, I think. “Helpful information,” I say. “I’ll let you work while I look around.”

I pull my phone from my purse and call the hospital, chatting with a doctor to ensure proper photos and documentation are done. Not that I don’t trust the staff at the hospital to do their jobs, but this is a small town, and they won’t have an excess of experience to guide their efforts.

After I disconnect, I grab latex gloves from my bag. “Any sign of a phone?”

“I haven’t looked.”

He checks Oliver’s left pocket. I check the right. We both survey the bed and blankets. “I’ll keep looking,” I say when we both come up dry.

Carl nods and I leave him to his work.

I walk to the opposite side of the bed, looking for the weapon, a cellphone, and the clothes Carrie might have been wearing during the attack, but there is no luck on any of these items. I check all drawers, under the bed, between the mattresses, behind the curtains, and inside a desk but come up empty.

Inside the bathroom, I hit the jackpot. Carrie’s clothes are on the floor. She clearly undressed in this room. Perhaps she did so before she joined Oliver in the bedroom. Logically, it would seem she grabbed the knife from inside the bathroom and perhaps appeared naked in front of him to seduce him. He expected sex and instead came the blade. It’s a picture easily painted, and yet it feels off. Why run away to nowhere but the attic? And why in the world do so naked?