“I am not a medium, Detective,” Cooper said sweetly. “Adrenaline can have fascinating effects on the human body, and there is evidence that the victim was in fact in a state of considerable emotion. The presence of cadaveric spasm-in this case, the hands contracting into fists at the moment of death and remaining clenched through rigor mortis-is generally associated with extreme emotional stress. If she was sufficiently motivated, which under the circumstances I would imagine she was, a mile or so would not be out of the question. Alternatively, of course, she could have collapsed within yards.”
“OK,” Sam said. He found a highlighter pen on someone’s desk and drew a wide circle around the cottage on the map, taking in the village and Whitethorn House and acres of empty hillside. “So our primary crime scene could be anywhere in here.”
“Wouldn’t she have been in too much pain to get far?” I asked. I felt Frank’s eyes flick to me. We don’t ask whether victims suffered. Unless they were actually tortured, we don’t need to know: getting emotionally involved does nothing except wreck your objectivity and give you nightmares, and we’re going to tell the family it was painless anyway.
“Restrain your imagination, Detective Maddox,” Cooper told me. “A tension pneumothorax is often relatively painless. She would have been aware of mounting shortness of breath and an increased heart rate; as shock set in, her skin would have become cold and clammy and she would have felt light-headed, but there is no reason to suppose that she was in excruciating agony.”
“How much force went into the stabbing?” Sam asked. “Could anyone have done it, or would it take a big strong fella?”
Cooper sighed. We always ask: could a scrawny guy have done it? What about a woman? A kid? How big a kid? “The shape of the wound on cross section, ” he said, “combined with the lack of splitting in the skin at the entry point, implies a blade with a fairly sharp tip. It did not encounter bone or cartilage at any point. Assuming a fairly swift lunge, I would say that this injury could have been inflicted by a large man, a small man, a large woman, a small woman, or a strong pubescent child. Does that answer your question?”
Sam shut up. “Time of death?” O’Kelly demanded.
“Between eleven and one o’clock,” said Cooper, examining a cuticle. “As I believe my preliminary report stated.”
“We can narrow it down a bit,” Sam said. He found a marker and started a new timeline under Frank’s. “Rainfall in that area started about ten past midnight, and the Bureau’s guessing she was out in it for fifteen or twenty minutes max, from the degree of dampness, so she was moved into shelter by around half past twelve. And she was dead by then. Going by what Dr. Cooper says, that puts the actual stabbing no later than midnight, probably earlier-I’d say she was well on the way to unconscious before the rain started in, or she’d have gone into shelter. If the housemates are telling the truth about her leaving the house unharmed at half past eleven, then that gives us a half-hour window for the stabbing. If they’re lying or mistaken, it could’ve been anywhere between ten and twelve.”
“And that,” Frank said, swinging a leg over his chair, “is all we’ve got. No footprints and no blood trail-the rain got rid of all that. No fingerprints: someone went through her pockets and then wiped down all her stuff. Nothing good under her fingernails, according to the Bureau; looks like she didn’t get a go at the killer. They’re going through the trace, but on preliminary there’s nothing that stands out. All the hairs and fibers look like matching either her, her housemates or various stuff from the house, which means they don’t cut either way. We’re still searching the area, but so far we’ve got no sign of the murder weapon and no sign of an ambush site or a struggle. Basically, what we have is one dead girl and that’s it.”
“Wonderful,” O’Kelly said heavily. “One of those. What do you do, Maddox, carry a crap-case magnet in your bra?”
“This one isn’t mine, sir,” I reminded him.
“And yet here you are. Lines of investigation?”
Sam put the marker back and held up his thumb. “One: a random attack.” In Murder you get into the habit of numbering things; it makes O’Kelly happy. “She was out walking and someone jumped her-for money, as part of a sexual assault, or just looking for trouble.”
“If there had been any sign of sexual assault,” Cooper said wearily, to his fingernails, “I would, I think, have mentioned it by this point. In fact, I found nothing to indicate recent sexual contact of any kind.”
Sam nodded. “No sign of robbery, either-she still had her wallet, with cash in it, she didn’t own a credit card and she’d left her mobile at home. But that doesn’t prove it wasn’t the motive. Maybe she fights, he stabs her, she runs, he goes after her and then panics when he realizes what he’s done…” He shot me a quick, inquiring look.
O’Kelly has definite opinions on psychology, and he likes to pretend he doesn’t know about the profiling thing. I needed to do this delicately. “You think?” I said. “I don’t know, I sort of figured… I mean, she was moved after she died, right? If it took her half an hour to die, then either this guy spent all that time looking for her-and why would a mugger or a rapist do that?-or someone else found her later, moved her, and didn’t bother ringing us. They’re both possible, I guess, but I don’t think either one’s likely.”
"Fortunately, Maddox,” O’Kelly said nastily, “your opinion is no longer our problem. As you pointed out, you’re not on this case.”
“Yet,” Frank said, to the air.
“There’s other problems with the stranger scenario, too,” said Sam. “That area’s pretty well deserted during the daytime, never mind at night. If someone was looking for trouble, why would he hang around a laneway in the middle of nowhere, just on the off chance that a victim might wander past? Why not head into Wicklow town, or Rathowen, or at least Glenskehy village?”
"Any similars in the area?” O’Kelly asked.
“No knifepoint muggings or stranger sexual assaults,” Sam said. “Glenskehy’s a small village, sure; the two main crimes are drinking after hours and then driving home. The only stabbing in the last year was a group of lads getting drunk and stupid. Unless something similar turns up, I’d say we put the stranger on the back burner for now.”
“Suits me,” Frank said, grinning at me. A random attack would mean no info within the victim’s life, no evidence or motive waiting to be discovered, no reason to send me under. “Suits me down to the ground.”
"Might as well,” said O’Kelly. “If it’s random, we’re bolloxed anyway: it’s luck or nothing.”
“Grand, so. Two”-Sam ticked off a finger-“a recent enemy; I mean, someone who knew her as Lexie Madison. She moved in a pretty limited circle, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find out whether anyone had any problems with her. We’re starting with the housemates and working our way outwards-staff at Trinity, students-”
“With no luck so far,” Frank said, to no one in particular.
“It’s early days,” Sam said firmly. “We’re only at the preliminary interviews. And now we know she was pregnant, we’ve a whole other line of inquiry. We need to find the father.”
O’Kelly snorted. “Good luck with that. Girls these days, he’s probably some young fella she met at a disco and shagged down a laneway.”
I felt a sudden, confused spurt of fury: Lexie wasn’t like that. I reminded myself that my info was out of date, for all I knew this edition had been a five-star slapper. “Discos went out with the slide rule, sir,” I said sweetly.
“Even if he’s some fella from a nightclub,” Sam said, “he’ll have to be found and eliminated. It might take time, but we’ll get it done.” He was looking at Frank, who nodded gravely. “I’ll ask the lads from the house to give us DNA samples, to start with.”