“How can you determine the knife size?” Ann asked.
“I can’t exactly,” Dr. Christopher said. “But I can say a larger hunting knife, say with a serrated edge, would have left a different mark.”
“How many times was she stabbed?” Ann asked.
Dr. Christopher switched screens to a photograph taken of the body. “I’d say five times. I’ll know better when I open her up, but I believe this cut,” he said, pointing to the largest on the left side, “was her last, and it finished her off. Even if she had been close to a hospital emergency room, she wouldn’t have survived.”
“How do you know it’s the last cut?” Ann asked.
Dr. Christopher swiped to another image. “You’ll notice a small triangle of metal on the underside of the breastbone. I’d say that’s the tip of your murder weapon. If he continued to stab with the damaged blade, the shape of the cuts would have varied.”
Ann leaned closer, studying the image with a keen curiosity. “I would think she would have had time to see the knife coming.”
“It’s easy to underestimate the speed of a knife blade,” Bryce said. “Cops are trained to follow the Twenty-One-Foot Rule when dealing with an offender armed with a knife.”
“Meaning?” she asked.
“In the time it takes the officer to identify the threat, draw his weapon, and fire, the offender can travel twenty-one feet and deliver a lethal thrust of a knife.”
“If the picture I found is the victim,” she said, “it suggests she was acquainted with her killer.”
“That’s an interesting point,” Dr. Christopher said. “All the wounds are angled upward. If the killer had been rushing directly at her, it’s likely the slashes would have been downward.” He raised and lowered his arm to illustrate.
“A well-placed knife jab isn’t easy,” Bryce said. “The target is often moving and fighting back. Does she have any defensive wounds?”
“No,” Dr. Christopher said.
“Over fifty percent of murdered women are killed by an acquaintance or an intimate partner,” Ann said.
Killing via knife was messy. Blood spatter often sprayed the attacker, surrounding walls, and ground. Blood also could embed into the knife handle’s crevices and remain despite a careful cleaning. That, combined with a broken tip, meant it would not be hard to link the weapon to the crimes if and when Bryce found it.
As the doctor motioned them toward the body, each donned masks and protective eye gear. A medical technician, Jessica Leonard, entered the room. In her late fifties, Jessica had salt-and-pepper hair and olive skin. She was a fourth-generation Montana native and a retired emergency room nurse.
“We’ve drawn blood and sent it off for drug testing,” she said.
“Results will take a few weeks,” Dr. Christopher said. “The July victim’s toxicology results came back late yesterday. No drugs in her system, but she had a high blood alcohol count.”
Jessica opened the instrument packet and then removed the sheet draped on the body. The remains were blackened, twisted, and the limbs had grown rigid from rigor mortis. What remained of the victim’s hands and feet had contracted inward, and the victim’s hair had been scorched off. The face was barely recognizable as human.
They all went silent, and Bryce was aware that Ann’s breathing had grown shallow. As tempted as he was to offer words of encouragement, there was little he could say to soften this blow. She would have to gut this one out, as all cops did during their first autopsy.
The doctor ran his gloved finger along the blackened and cracked skin of the right biceps. “If you look closely, you’ll see the remains of a sleeve tattoo. The technician took multiple pictures, so hopefully we’ll be able to digitally enhance it.”
“Smells like the killer doused her body pretty good with accelerant,” Bryce said.
“I can’t imagine carrying gallons of gasoline up to that spot,” Ann said. “Could the killer have transported the gas up earlier?”
“Very possible,” Bryce said. “Or maybe he had the victim carry them.”
“Did you find the accelerant containers?” Ann asked.
“No.” The only solid clue Bryce had now was the bent and twisted photo Ann had found. He would drop it off with the forensic department as soon as they left here. It was a long shot, but it could not be ignored.
The doctor walked around the body, taking time to conduct a visual inspection, which revealed no shadows of ligature marks or additional injuries.
Jessica set down her camera and worked the limbs until the rigor broke up and the muscles and sinew loosened, allowing mobility in the joints. She then placed her hands on the body’s curled shoulders, pressing gently until they lay flatter against the gurney.
With the body now more fully supine, the doctor made incisions on either side of the breastbone and then over the rib cage and the abdomen. The Y cut made, he peeled back the dark flesh to reveal the pink-gray underside.
Bryce homed in on Ann’s blank expression. He could read her no better than when she’d been wearing the mirrored sunglasses at the crime scene. However, her deliberate, slow in-and-out breaths suggested a struggle behind the cool, detached facade.
With the media on her tail most of last year, she could have remained sequestered on her parents’ ranch or left town for good. But not only had she stayed—she was here, facing what he guessed were some of her own demons.
The doctor reached for large bolt cutters and snapped each of the ribs. The rib cage, the body’s natural armor for vital organs, was finally freed, and he lifted the arching bones and cartilage as one unit and set it on a tray Jessica held out.
Bryce had stood at many autopsies and witnessed all manner of trauma—organs lacerated by a knife blade, a liver or gut chewed up by a hollow-point bullet, bones crushed by blunt-force trauma, or body cavities discolored and swimming in pools of poisoned blood. This was the second time he had seen internal organs cooked and shriveled.
The doctor pointed to a darkened mass. “This is the liver, and as you can see, it’s been sliced several times. The victim would have bled out in minutes.” He shifted his attention to the victim’s heart. “The knife blade nicked it slightly.”
“She was inches from her killer when he struck,” Ann said. “Jane Doe was comfortable with him.”
Dr. Christopher continued the examination, removing the heart and then the lungs, which showed no signs of smoke inhalation. That suggested the fire had been set postmortem. The doctor extracted contents from her stomach. “She had a hamburger and fries within ten to twelve hours of her death.”
“There are a couple of fast-food establishments in Anaconda that serve burgers,” Bryce said.
“Maybe someone will remember her, assuming the killer didn’t purchase the food,” Ann said.
Without comment, the doctor shifted his attention to the skull and traced his finger along the top of the forehead. “Note the scalpel marks along what would have been the hairline,” he said. “And also notice that the lines are neat and straighter than the last.”
“Practice makes perfect,” Ann said.
“This killer appears to be a quick study,” Dr. Christopher said. “His work was not as clean on the Helena victim.”