Chapter 11 Jo
Jo
Monday
This was just like old times, the three of them standing around a body on the autopsy table.
Since major crimes in Maine were investigated by the state police, Detective Robert Alfond was now in charge of Karen O’Brien’s homicide case.
Alfond was clearly not happy to be here, but this time his annoyance wasn’t directed at Jo, who was usually the focus of his irritation.
He was scowling at Karen O’Brien’s body, as if the victim herself had offended him, just by having the nerve to get murdered on a Friday night, thus ruining this beautiful October weekend.
“I have to say, I’ve never seen this before,” said Dr. Wass, the medical examiner. “Not many injuries bother me, but the eye?” He shuddered.
On that point, Jo could certainly agree.
Under the bright morgue lights, Karen O’Brien’s injury appeared even more grotesque, and Jo had to force herself to stay focused on the body.
She had seen stab wounds before, but a blade plunged into the eyeball?
Having a mere grain of sand or a fleck of ash trapped under her eyelid was painful enough.
“I’d say the cause of death is obvious,” said Detective Alfond.
“It would certainly seem so.” Dr. Wass turned to look at the victim’s skull x-ray, which was displayed on the computer monitor.
“There was penetration through the vitreous of the eyeball and the bony cavity of the orbit, all the way into the frontal lobe of the brain, resulting in a massive hemorrhage into the cerebrum. Except for some bruising around her neck, I see no other injuries.”
Jo pointed to the purplish discoloration on the hip. “And this? It looks like a bruise.”
“It’s just livor mortis. She was lying on her right side in the trunk, and that’s where the blood pooled.
Friday night it was mild, low of forty-two degrees.
And Saturday morning, it was sunny and sixty-five.
Inside the car trunk, it would have gotten even warmer, which sped up the stages of rigor mortis.
” Wass bent the corpse’s knee and flexed the leg. “Limbs are now flaccid.”
“Time of death?” asked Alfond.
“When I examined her at the scene, I thought it was consistent with when she left work Friday night.” Wass looked at Jo. “Around ten thirty p.m., you said?”
“That’s when she clocked out,” said Jo. “It would’ve been nice to have CCTV footage, but the hotel’s security system glitched out that evening, so we don’t know what happened after she walked out of the building.
We’re trying to track down everyone she had contact with that night.
Based on the restaurant receipts, we know which customers she waited on in the dining room.
We also know that at ten fifteen, she delivered a room service meal to a guest on the second floor.
And no, we don’t consider that guest a suspect. She was a seventy-two-year-old woman.”
“This is a bizarre choice for a weapon,” said Alfond.
“Ah yes, the weapon.” Wass regarded the handle protruding from Karen O’Brien’s eye. “Appears to be stainless steel, quite sleek. No markings except for this circle-and-dot design engraved on the handle. It looks like it was a single thrust, without any hesitation.”
“Not your usual knife,” said Alfond.
“It’s not a knife,” said Jo. “It’s a stiletto.”
Alfond snorted. “You’re an expert on this, are you?”
“Let’s remove it and find out,” said Wass.
He grasped the handle and pulled. The weapon slid free, emerging with a hiss of steel gliding against bone.
Beneath a smear of blood and brain matter, the blade gleamed, bright as silver.
Wass wiped it clean and laid it on an instrument tray.
“Jo’s correct,” he said. “This is indeed a stiletto, measuring . . .” He reached for a ruler.
“Thirty-six centimeters overall. Stainless steel guard, blade, and grip. No outstanding features except for this circle and dot on the handle. Very sleek and modern. I’d almost describe it as elegant. If that doesn’t sound too macabre.”
“I’m surprised he left it behind,” said Alfond. “Maybe he was in a rush.”
“He took the time to wipe off any fingerprints,” said Wass.
“Maybe he left it behind for a reason,” said Jo.
Alfond shot her a skeptical look. “What reason?”
“A calling card? A message?”
“And this message would be?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a thought.”
“The blade length is sixteen centimeters,” said Wass. “Blade thickness at the hilt is two centimeters, tapering to a fine point.”
“Designed to penetrate, not cut,” said Jo. “A thrusting weapon.”
Wass looked up at her in surprise. “Been doing your research, Jo?”
“It just happened to come up in conversation.”
“Interesting conversations you have,” said Wass.
Jo thought about Ingrid’s stunned expression when they’d discovered the body. At the time, Jo had assumed Ingrid was reacting to the gruesome nature of the wound. Now she wondered if it was the weapon itself that had so shocked Ingrid. Had she seen one before?
Dr. Wass reached for a knife and began to cut.
Jo had gutted and field-dressed deer with her brother Finn, had sliced them open and wrenched out their still-warm organs, so what she saw next should not have shaken her, yet it did.
Karen O’Brien was a stranger to her. Jo had never heard her voice, never seen the woman smile, but recorded on Karen’s skin were clues to a life: the pregnancy stretch marks on her abdomen.
The scar left by knee surgery. The wrinkles and age spots from too many years of baking under the sun.
The heart might be the symbol of one’s soul, but the skin was where the years left their mark.
“Anything else you can tell me about her?” said Wass as he snapped apart the ribs to free up the breastbone.
“We contacted her daughter in Vermont,” said Alfond. “Sounds like they weren’t on good terms. Barely speaking to each other.”
“That’s sad,” said Wass.
“Daughter says Mom went off the rails a few years ago, politically. The last time they got together, they had a big fight about the election, vaccinations, you name it. Daughter cut off communication.”
“Karen wasn’t on good terms with her two housemates either,” said Jo. “But I’m not aware of anyone who disliked her enough to kill her.” She looked at the weapon on the specimen tray. “And to do it that way?”
“Doesn’t look like your typical crime of passion,” said Wass as he lifted off the freed-up shield of breastbone and ribs to expose the heart and lungs. “No other signs of violence, no other wounds.” Wass looked across the table at Jo. “This kill was quick and efficient.”
“By someone who’s probably done it before,” Jo said softly.
“You have to consider that possibility.”
“But a waitress?” Alfond shook his head. “Why target her?”
“There’s something you haven’t found out, yet. Dig deeper,” said Wass as he himself reached into the chest cavity. Dig deeper. Out came the heart and lungs, which he weighed and sliced open. “Smoker,” he said, and looked at Jo.
She shrugged. “I don’t remember seeing any cigarettes in her purse.”
“Well, I can see the damage here, in her lungs. Maybe she quit.”
“If it was for her health,” said Alfond, “she shouldn’t have bothered.”
Wass continued to cut with swift efficiency, soon moving on to the abdomen, where his blade freed up liver and spleen, stomach and pancreas.
On her last day of life, as Karen O’Brien had brushed her teeth and hair, as she’d washed her face, she could not have imagined this was how her week would end.
That she’d be lying on a stainless steel table, her organs being sliced open, the most intimate parts of her body laid bare.
Jo noticed Alfond glance at his watch, heard his impatient sigh. Clearly, he had places he’d rather be.
So did Jo. Anywhere but here.
Wass moved on to the worst part of the autopsy, the part that always disturbed Jo the most. He sliced open the scalp and peeled it forward. The face that once wore lipstick and mascara, that once smiled and scowled, the face that was once Karen O’Brien’s alone, collapsed like a rubber mask.
Wass fired up the bone saw to open the cranium.
Now Jo did turn away, unable to watch this next insult to Karen O’Brien’s body.
As the saw whined, as bone dust flew, Jo focused on the weapon, which was lying on the steel specimen tray.
She thought of what Ingrid Slocum had told her as they’d stood together in the employee parking lot, looking down at the body in the car trunk, at the blade buried in Karen O’Brien’s eye.
It’s not for cutting or slashing. It’s for thrusting.
She’d said it without hesitation, simply stating what she just happened to know.
At the time, Ingrid’s ready familiarity with such a gruesome fact had struck Jo as chilling.
Now, it suddenly occurred to her why Ingrid was so familiar with stilettos.
She’s seen one before.