Page 18 of Thankless in Death

“What I’m getting is the son’s a fucking asshole who went psycho. Have you got anything cold in your box?”

“We keep everyone cold here.” He smiled a little. “But if you mean to drink, yes.” He gestured with his sealed, blood-smeared hands. “Help yourself.”

“Vending keeps breaking down on me,” she said as she crossed to his little Friggie. “I think it’s something chemical.”

“Do you?”

Grateful, she snagged a tube of Pepsi. She cracked the tube, took a gulp. “Anyway.”

“Anyway,” he repeated. “Ladies first, as you see. In her case in death as well as life. She’d consumed a slice of wheat bread, about six ounces of soy coffee with artificial sweetener, and a half cup of Greek yogurt with granola about five hours prior to TOD. Not a particularly lovely last meal. She was very slightly underweight, and in very good health. Or she was before she was stabbed fifty-three times.”

“Serious overkill.”

“The majority of the wounds were inflicted when she was prone—the angle. And several of the blows were forceful enough to nick bone, and in fact broke and lodged the tip in her tibia.” He held up a specimen jar. “My opinion is, all wounds were inflicted by one blade, which matches the one you found still in her. There are no defensive wounds.”

“She didn’t see it coming. Probably didn’t believe it when it did.”

“I agree. From my reconstruction, it’s my conclusion the first blow came here.” He held a finger over the body’s abdomen. “It did considerable damage, but she would have recovered from that with good and speedy medical treatment. The next, probably this, near the same area.”

“They’d be face-to-face.”

“Yes, probably very close. After that, they were more random, and more forceful.”

“Getting into it,” she murmured.

“On the back.” He ordered his screen to change views so Eve studied the victim’s back. “One or two of them, from the angle again, were probably delivered as she tried to get away, and as she fell. She was dead or at least unconscious before the majority of them. Small mercy. Some bruising where she fell, but she wouldn’t have felt it.”

“Very small mercy.”

“You know who. Do you know why?”

“He’s an asshole. A screwup, even according to his oldest friend. He couldn’t or wouldn’t keep a job, girlfriend gave him the boot. He’s back living with Mom and Dad and they’re going to give him the ‘grow up or get out’ routine. I think Mom gave him a heads-up on that.”

“Being a parent is full of pitfalls, I imagine. This shouldn’t be one of them.”

“No.” How many times had she stabbed her father? Eve wondered. Had anyone counted? But then, that had been a matter of life and death—her life and death.

“Can you tell me anything about the other vic?”

“Very preliminary.” Morris walked over to the second slab. “Your TOD on scene was accurate, and again, the bat you took into evidence matches the injuries. The first blow here? The face, and with considerable force—meat of the bat.”

“Swinging away.” Eve nodded. “There’s a little jog leading to the kitchen. He stood behind it, that’s what he did. Stood behind it, and the husband comes in, starts back. Sees the wife, the blood, the body, starts to run. He steps out, swings for the benches right into his father’s face.”

“Shattered his nose, left cheekbone, and eye socket. Subsequent blows broke several teeth, the jaw, fractured the skull in three places. Before he moved down to the body. My estimate, which I’ll refine, is approximately thirty blows. Some of them straight down—head of the bat into the body. In this case, I believe the first blow would have rendered the victim unconscious.”

“I guess he got off easier than his wife.”

“She’d have suffered more, yes.”

“Did you ever fight with your parents?”

He smiled easily. “I was a teenager once, after all. It was my duty to fight with and exasperate my parents.”

“Did you ever fantasize about giving them a couple good shots?”

“Not that I recall, no. I did imagine, regularly, proving them wrong, which I don’t believe I ever did. Or running off and becoming a famous blues musician.”

“You play a pretty mean sax.”