Jane walked out of the cabin to the front porch where she pulled out her cell phone to call Frost. “You still at their house?” she asked. “How are they?”
“Pretty shaken up, but doing okay, considering,” he said. “Dr. Antrim’s home with them and Julianne’s gone upstairs to take a nap. Any surprises at the lake?”
“Maybe. The crime scene unit found a hammer in Creighton’s vehicle. State lab says it’s got trace blood on it. If it’s Sofia Suarez’s blood—”
“That would really wrap this all up.”
“Except for the question of why? We still don’t know his motive. Why did he kill Sofia? Why did he stalk Amy?”
“Why any of this? I know you hate me saying this but, well, it’s a mystery.”
“Yeah, I do hate when you say that.” She looked off toward the lake, where a couple paddled by in their red canoe. The afternoon was windless, the water as flat as glass. “It’s really beautiful here. Makes me want to buy a house on a lake.”
“This calls for a celebration, right? Alice has been wanting to try this new Italian restaurant out past Newton. Everyone in her office is raving about it. What do you think?”
“Maybe. Right now, I’ve got one more detail to check on.”
“What?”
“The autopsy.”
* * *
—
Although she was gowned and masked and her hair was hidden beneath a paper cap, the figure standing at the autopsy table was unmistakably Maura. Watching her through the morgue’s anteroom window, Jane wondered what made Maura so recognizable. Her regal bearing as she reached for a scalpel? Her relentless focus as she stared down at the body laid out on the table? Even as Jane pushed through the door and walked into the autopsy room, Maura did not look up from the cadaver as she completed her Y incision and began snapping through ribs.
“Do you have a time of death?” Jane asked, joining Maura at the table.
“My estimate doesn’t contradict what the witnesses said.” Maura lifted off the sternum, revealing a jewelry box of organs contained within the thorax. “Death was around ten to eleven p.m. I’ve already examined the stab wound in the back. It penetrated the intercostal space between T5 and T6 and it’s consistent with the dimensions of the chef’s knife they have in evidence.” Maura pointed to the neck where the wound, now washed clean of blood, gaped open like a second mouth, pink and smiling. “And as you can see, that second wound incised the left carotid artery. I spoke to the ME in Worcester. He was at the scene last night and described it as a bloody mess.”
“It was,” said Jane.
“They could have done this autopsy in Worcester. You didn’t need to transport the body to Boston.”
“But I know you won’t miss anything. And you’ve been on this investigation from the beginning. I thought you’d appreciate the follow-through.”
“Thank you.”
Was that sarcasm? With Maura it was sometimes hard to tell and Maura’s expression did not offer any clues as she resected heart and lungs and laid open the coronary arteries. No wasted motions, every slice efficient and precise.
“Coronaries are clean,” said Maura. She glanced at the gaunt face. “Even if nothing else about him looks healthy.”
“Yeah, death does that to a body.”
“I mean his cachexia. His clothes were several sizes too big, and see how wasted his temples are? He’s lost a great deal of weight.”
Jane thought about the empty bottles of coffee brandy in the car. “Alcoholic?”
“That could be part of it.” Maura moved aside loops of small bowel. “But I think this was the real reason.” She pointed to a bulging mass. “Pancreas. It’s already metastasized to the liver.”
“Cancer, then?”
“Advanced. He was dying.”
Jane looked down at James Creighton’s sunken eyes. “You think he knew?”
“All he had to do was look in a mirror.”
Jane shook her head. “This makes no sense. The man had cancer and he must have known he was dying. Why would he stalk a woman? Why follow her to the lake and attack her?”
Maura looked up. “Did you actually see the bruises on Amy’s neck?”
“Yeah.”
“Obvious ones?”
“You don’t believe the victim?”
“It’s just in my nature to question. You know that.”
“The bruises were faint,” said Jane. “But Amy did have them. And remember, his ex-wife was strangled too.”