Page 5

Thirteen years ago

The day after Derrick Bell’s murder

The morning after the assemblyman’s murder, Special Agent Alice Patmore slipped on booties, a gown, a mask, and gloves before she entered the large autopsy suite at the county coroner’s office.

She paused just inside the door. A half dozen stainless steel tables were in use, a technician and a forensic pathologist examining a corpse at each one.

She blinked in the bright fluorescent lighting, hating that the lights reminded her of a grocery store.

The smell in the large room was unique. Putrid scents mixed with industrial-strength cleaners. Even the most expensive ventilation system couldn’t fully eliminate it. It slipped around the edges of her mask, and she knew she’d smell it for the rest of the day.

But she didn’t mind visiting the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office.

The science of what pathologists did fascinated her.

From the outside, the coroner’s building looked as if it belonged on a college campus, a large, stately but reserved building that an outsider might think housed professors’ offices and multiple lecture halls.

To her, the outside coordinated nicely with what was happening inside: important learning and seeking answers to questions.

But studying with bodies instead of college textbooks.

Alice had been told Derrick Bell was on table four. She scanned the room and recognized his examining forensic pathologist by his unusual height and poor posture.

Shit. I should have asked who was doing his autopsy.

Not that it would have changed anything.

She squared her shoulders and started toward the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the body on table two was very small. She refused to take a closer look.

“Dr. Carvey,” she said as she approached.

She’d found him to be efficient and thorough, but his sense of humor had twisted her stomach a number of times.

The pathologist glanced up and met her gaze through his thick glasses and protective face shield.

Lines suddenly formed at the corners of his eyes, indicating he was smiling behind his mask.

“Agent Patmore. Nice to see you again. Sorry it isn’t at a different table.”

Alice kept her face neutral, pretending to not catch his meaning.

The doctor had asked her to dinner a few times, but she’d always turned him down.

Under all the gear, he was a good-looking man.

She knew he was in his early fifties like her, and that he’d been divorced for more than a decade.

Alice didn’t mind dating; she’d been single for six years.

But she couldn’t get past the image of the pathologist with his hands in a body cavity.

Or the weird coincidence that his last name was tied closely to his profession.

“Good to see you, Bryce.” She moved her gaze to the body. “How’s it going?”

“Coming along, coming along,” said Dr. Carvey as he handed an unidentifiable organ to his assistant. The man set it on a scale and made a notation. Alice noticed the tech wore earbuds and lightly bounced his head to a beat only he could hear.

Derrick Bell’s rib cage had been cut through and laid open along with the tissues covering his torso.

Alice moved closer to study his face under the bright lights, spotting the small mole by his eye that had helped identify him the day before.

All the blood had been washed away, clearly exposing the damage to his face.

His nose was too short, bashed into his head.

His right cheekbone had collapsed, creating a lopsided look. One eyebrow ridge had sunk too deep.

His wife’s face hadn’t been touched.

Alice ran her gaze down his arms. Cuts. Contusions. One of his fingers was at an odd angle. Clearly broken.

I didn’t notice that yesterday.

With his torso open, she couldn’t tell if it had suffered injuries, but hints of purple low along his sides indicated that lividity had settled in his posterior tissues.

He’d died on his back, the position she’d seen him in yesterday.

He had marks on his thighs and knees, but his feet and lower legs looked fine. For a dead guy’s.

“He had a high level of meth in his system,” said Dr. Carvey. “And some antianxiety medications. Normal levels.”

“He was high on meth,” stated Alice, recalling that yesterday, Noelle’s doctor had said nothing unusual had been present in her blood.

The assemblyman was a meth user?

“Yep.”

She gestured at Derrick’s hands and arms. “Quite a few cuts,” she said.

“Lacerations,” corrected Dr. Carvey. “Cuts have clean edges created by something sharp. Lacerations are irregular and ragged from the skin bursting over a bony structure from impact. There was virtually no blood in them, indicating they were postmortem.”

“Any idea what was used?” Alice purposefully didn’t bring up the iron elephant that had been on the floor by the body. She wanted the doctor’s opinion.

The pathologist pointed at several lacerations that dotted the body’s nose and crushed cheekbone.

“I’m not sure what he was hit in the face with, but I have a good idea for some of the other injuries.

” He moved to Derrick’s thighs and ran his gloved finger along one of many arc-shaped lesions.

“The same marks were on his ribs.” He met her gaze. “What’s that look like to you?”

Alice stared at the marks for a long moment. Then it came to her. “The head of a crowbar.”

Satisfaction filled his eyes. “I thought so too.”

“A crowbar would definitely break a finger,” said Alice, looking at his hand again.

“Agreed. And both his temporal and parietal bones have fractures from impact with a blunt object. A crowbar fits the shapes left in his soft tissues.”

“No crowbar was left near the scene,” she said.

“I’ll ask the wife if they owned one.” She made a mental note to ask Detective Rodden to have his team check for a crowbar.

The home sat on several acres, and a thorough search of the grounds was to be done that day.

If the Bells didn’t own a crowbar, it’d indicate the attacker had come prepared to do damage.

“These bruises are a different shape.” The doctor pointed at an oblong lesion on Derrick’s hip. “There were several more on his stomach.”

“Toe of a shoe.” Alice had seen them before on a domestic abuse victim.

“Possibly,” said the doctor, but his tone said he agreed with her.

Someone kicked him when he was down.

She sighed. “But you’re positive his facial injuries were caused by something else?”

“Yes.”

Alice took off her gloves and opened her phone to the photo of the iron elephant that hadn’t been far from Derrick’s body. “Would this do it?” She enlarged the item and showed the doctor.

He glanced from the photo to Derrick’s face several times. “I can’t say it wouldn’t. Is that made of metal?”

“Yes, and it’s super heavy.”

“Can you get it to me?”

“I’ll try. It’ll have to be processed at forensics first.” She shot a text to Oscar with the request and then put her phone away.

“Have you ever had someone purposefully hit the back of their head hard enough to cause a fracture?” She struggled to get her gloves back on because her hands had started to sweat.

The doctor’s focus was back on Derrick’s open torso. He glanced at her and raised one eyebrow. “Usually my subjects can’t tell me they hit themselves on purpose.”

“You know what I mean.”

He stepped away from Derrick and picked up something that made Alice think of Thor’s hammer—but thinner—off his table of instruments.

The table didn’t hold a set of delicate-looking surgical instruments.

The items looked like they’d been found on a garage workbench.

Forensic pathologists didn’t worry about injuring their subjects.

He handed the hammer to Alice, who reluctantly accepted the shiny item. Its head was heavy. She looked at the doctor, uncertain.

“Hit your head,” he told her.

“No, thank you.” She hefted the tool, trying to imagine what would drive a person to injure themselves.

She’d read the radiologist’s report on Noelle’s skull X-rays and CT scans.

Among all the medical jargon, she’d learned that a single blow with a blunt object had caused Noelle’s fracture and bleeding.

No lighter practice blows. One solid impact.

She eyed the crowbar marks on Derrick, wondering if the same tool had been used on Noelle.

Alice positioned the heavy hammer as if to hit the back of her head. The angle was awkward. A crowbar would make the back of her head a little more accessible, but Alice doubted she would hit hard enough on the first blow. Or second.

If Noelle hit her head hard enough to knock herself out, how did the crowbar vanish?

Maybe she wasn’t unconscious.

“Difficult, isn’t it?” Dr. Carvey said, watching her with the hammer. “Both physically and mentally.”

“But not impossible.”

“Correct.”

Damn.

Nothing ruled out Noelle as a suspect. Yet.

“What killed him?” she asked, knowing full well it was too early to get a definite answer from the pathologist. She laid the hammer next to the long-handled branch cutters on the table, grateful she’d been too late to observe the doctor using them to cut through Derrick’s ribs.

The sound of snapping ribs during an autopsy was one she hadn’t forgotten.

“I’m not done.”

“I know.” She indicated the damage to Derrick’s face. “On its own, would that have been sufficient to kill?”

The doctor paused for a long moment. “I’ll confirm when I open the skull.”

Sounds like a yes to me.

“Have you seen any other injury that would have killed him?”

He met her gaze. “I have a lot to do.”

“Understood.” She took a step back and watched silently for the rest of the autopsy.

Only looking away when the doctor peeled Derrick’s scalp forward, covering the victim’s face to access the skull.

She let her mind wander, considering other suspects as she tuned out the sound of the Stryker saw on bone.

Derrick’s family. Noelle’s family. Employees. Disgruntled constituents.

She and Oscar had a lot of people to talk to.