Chapter 9
“Let’s start with the basics,” Silas said.
I pulled a notebook and pen out of my bag. “Mia discovered Wren the day after she was murdered, which means Wren had been dead for almost an entire day when she was found.”
Silas nodded. “Give or take.”
“Are you confident about the estimated time of death?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk.
“I am, based on several factors. First, the condition of the body when I arrived at the house. Wren was well into the early stages of decomposition when Mia arrived back home. But the body wasn’t decomposed enough to suggest Wren had been dead for over twenty-four hours. ”
“Meaning?”
“The temperature of her body had dropped to match the ambient temperature of the house. She was in algor mortis, which as you know is the cooling stage of the body after death. Body temperature drops at a predictable rate in controlled environments like the one she was in. Based on the temperature of the room and Wren’s internal temperature when I examined her, I estimate her death occurred between eight and ten the night before. ”
I wrote the time down.
“You want to know something interesting I learned today?” I asked.
“Always.”
“I spoke to Cooper Mayfair, Wren’s estranged husband. He admitted to stopping by the house and speaking with her a couple of hours before she was murdered.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“That’s because he didn’t tell the police.”
“Why not?”
“He said he was in shock.”
“In shock, huh? Not sure I buy that story.”
“I didn’t either. It took some prodding, but he admitted he was too scared to offer that information at first.”
“It doesn’t make it right, but I get it. Back to Wren. By the time she was delivered here, and I got the chance to take another look at her, rigor mortis had set in. Her jaw and neck muscles were stiff, and her arms were beginning to follow.”
“Which supports your timeline.”
“It does. In Wren’s case, livor mortis had already spread along the back of her body. But here’s the interesting part.”
Silas stood and walked over to a metal file cabinet, pulling open a drawer and retrieving a folder.
“When the body was found,” he said, returning to the desk, “Wren was lying on her back.”
“That matches what I’ve been told.”
He opened the folder and flipped through a few photographs before sliding one across the desk toward me. Her body lay on the hardwood floor, her head angled to the side. Blood had pooled beneath her hair and spread across the floorboards.
As I looked over the photo, Silas tapped it with a finger.
“The lividity matches this position,” he said. “Which tells me she’d been lying there for most of the time between death and discovery.”
“But not all of it.”
He nodded.
“You’re catching on.” He flipped to another photo. “The cause of death was straightforward.”
I studied the image, and the small, dark wound just above Wren’s right temple.
“She died of a single gunshot wound to the head,” he continued, pointing at the photo. “The bullet entered here, passed through the brain, and lodged against the inside of the skull.”
“Do you know what kind of gun was used?”
“We recovered the bullet during autopsy,” he said. “It’s consistent with a semiautomatic weapon, but no shell casing was found at the scene.”
“It suggests the shooter was smart enough to know they needed to pick it up and take it with them.”
“Or it was ejected somewhere else. Either way, it hasn’t been found. So far, there hasn’t been a single report of anyone hearing anything that night. If the weapon had a suppressor attached, no one would have heard it.”
“Do you think that’s what happened?”
“It’s my best guess,” he said.
I thought back to what I knew about the neighborhood. Mia’s house was on a quiet street, and the houses were within close proximity to each other. Someone firing a gun without a suppressor should have been heard by someone.
“There’s one thing I haven’t mentioned yet,” Silas said.
“I’ve been running tests for weeks, but this morning, I came across something interesting, something I haven’t had the chance to speak to Foley or Whitlock about yet.
If I tell you, Foley needs to believe I told him first when I talk to him. Understood?”
My interest was piqued.
Silas slid another photograph across the desk.
This one was a close-up of the floor behind Wren’s right shoulder. There were some specks of blood that didn’t align with the pooled blood behind her head.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“I believe the killer lifted Wren up for a brief time. Like, just by her shoulders, not her whole body.”
“After shooting her?”
“It’s the only logical reason I can think of to explain the location of the droplets I found.”
I pictured it.
The killer standing over Wren’s body.
Bending down.
Lifting her.
Looking at her.
Then setting her back down in the same place where she had fallen.
A chill ran through me.
“Why would someone do that?” I asked.
Silas shrugged. “Maybe her death was personal, and they wanted to look at her one last time.”
My mind moved through the possibilities.
If Silas was right, and he almost always was, someone had stood over Wren’s body. Someone had touched her. But why?
“Is there anything else I should know?” I asked.
“There is one thing. Mia’s dog had blood on her paws.”
“She mentioned that to me.”
“The blood was matched to Wren, which makes sense, but I also removed blood and skin cells from beneath the dog’s nailbed.”
“And?”
“They were not a match to either Wren or Mia.”
“Are you suggesting the dog scratched Wren’s attacker?” I asked.
“I am.”
I closed my notebook, allowing a few theories to fill my mind.
Somewhere out there was a person walking around with a secret.
And sooner or later, that secret would lead me right to them.