CHAPTER THREE
Jessie had to blink several times to fully process the scene.
Maria Cain was seated at the dining room table.
Her head and body were being held in place, attached to a high-backed chair by what looked like cords that had been cut from the curtains along the window.
There were multiple large gashes in her neck.
A big flap of skin hung loosely from one of the wounds.
Her top was drenched in blood, both from the neck wounds and ones to her chest, where the clothing had been repeatedly punctured.
Her eyes were closed tight, as if she’d clenched them to stave off the pain.
She could only imagine what the woman had gone through. Was Maria Cain still alive when she’d been dragged in here? Had she struggled against the cords now clinging to her? Had she even understood what was happening to her?
Jessie had to fight the urge to look away. She’d seen dozens of disturbing murder scenes since becoming a profiler, but something about how Cain had been posed was deeply unsettling.
Still, as awful as all that was, it wasn’t the only thing that drew Jessie’s attention.
On a plate that was likely placed in front of her by the killer was a card of some kind.
Jessie wanted to get a closer look at it but there were multiple crime scene people around the body, as was Cheryl Gallagher, an L.A.
County deputy medical examiner, who Jessie knew well.
Gallagher wore her standard lab coat. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, which matched her perpetually tight face. Jessie had worked with her on multiple occasions, and while the woman wasn’t the warmest person of all time, she was good at her job.
At the sight of Jessie and Sam, the CSU folks stepped aside. Gallagher, who had been facing the other way, looked over.
“Hi Cheryl,” Jessie said, not wasting much time on pleasantries, which she knew the M.E. hated. “What can you tell us?”
“Hunt, Goodwin,” Gallagher replied. “All the usual caveats apply, but here’s what we feel confident about putting in our preliminary report.
It’s too early to pinpoint a time of death, but based on skin lividity and blood coagulation, I feel comfortable saying that it was last night.
My initial window is sometime between 6 P.M and 2 A.M.”
“That’s a pretty big window,” Sam noted.
“I might be able to narrow it once we gauge body temp and rigor mortis,” Gallagher said.
“If Edward Cain is to believed, it was likely on the later side,” Sergeant Brasov volunteered.
“He said he and his wife hosted some kind of fundraiser here last night. It ended close to 10. He said that once everyone left, Maria told him that he should go upstairs and she’d finish the dishes. That was around 10:30.”
“If true, that helps,” Jessie said, then turned back to Gallagher. “Anything else? Maybe thoughts on the murder weapon? From what I’m seeing, it looks like it was a pretty big knife.”
“Actually, I don’t think it was a knife at all,” Gallagher said.
“What then?” Sam asked.
“These are just initial impressions,” the M.E. warned, “but based on the nature of the wounds, I think the killer used scissors.”
Jessie was about to comment on how odd scissors were as a stabbing weapon as opposed to a knife. But before she could say anything, Gallagher continued.
“That’s backed up by something else.”
She stepped over to the curtains and grabbed one of the leftover cords in her gloved hand, holding out the spot where it had been snipped.
Jessie saw what had drawn Gallagher’s attention.
There was a clear blood stain where the cord had been sliced.
If the woman was right, then the murderer had used the same scissors to kill Maria Cain and to cut the curtain cords.
Jessie walked slowly over to the table and looked down at the plate, squinting at the item left in the middle of it. It didn’t take long to identify what it was: a green card. Jessie looked up at Gallagher to see if she’d drawn the same conclusion. The woman nodded. Jessie turned to Brasov.
“You said she immigrated here from Colombia, correct?”
He nodded as well. Suddenly Jessie recalled what Captain Parker had told her.
Chief Decker said there was a complicating component to the case beyond the involvement of Edward Cain and that he wanted someone who could navigate the situation delicately.
If what she was looking at was what it seemed, then this murder was also a potential hate crime.
“We need to talk to Edward Cain,” she told Brasov. “Now.”