Secrets in Death (In Death 45)

Larinda, her chest spread open, lay naked on the stainless-steel slab.

If the dead had concerns about modesty, those who stood for them couldn’t accommodate it.

“I wasn’t able to finish with her last night.” Morris studied a readout on his lab comp. “I had a suicide pact—neither of them old enough for a legal brew. Baxter and Trueheart caught it,” he said, glancing back toward his wall of drawers. “All evidence supports they considered themselves—with the influence of illegals—a Romeo and Juliet who would only find happiness in death. It’s sad they failed to understand what they based their decision on wasn’t a romance, but a tragedy.”

“I never got it. A couple of kids take a look at each other and decide they’re crazy in love while their families are like the Coys and McHats.”

“Hatfields and McCoys,” Morris corrected, the sorrow in his dark, exotic eyes fading to amusement. “Or in this case the Montagues and Capulets.”

“Whatever. Stupid. So they both end up dead—self-terminations in the old ‘can’t be with you, I’ll die instead.’”

She stuck her hands in her pockets, scanned the drawers. “I figure people who haven’t dealt with death up close don’t get it ends life and any and all potential therein. And even when life sucks wide, it can get better. Anyway, this one didn’t self-terminate.”

“No, indeed. A single cut to the brachial artery with a sharp, smooth blade. A scalpel. There are no other wounds, offensive or defensive.”

“The angle. Face-to-face?”

“That’s my conclusion. It would take only a second.” He lifted a scalpel off his tray, flicked his wrist. “And done.”

“The medicals on scene speculated about the time frame for her to bleed out without intervention. What’s your take?”

“I discussed that with Garnet last night.”

“You … okay.”

He set the scalpel down. “She contacted me. As you surely understand, she felt both frustration and guilt that she’d been right there, and could do nothing to save the victim, even with the assistance of another doctor, and you.”

“Mars didn’t last ten seconds after she went down.” But Eve did get it, absolutely.

“And you wouldn’t have changed that, as I explained to Garnet, if you’d reached her sooner. Both Garnet and the doctor who tried to help assumed, certainly hoped for, a slower leak.”

“They didn’t see the bathroom, the spatter. She lost a pint—more—before she got out the door.”

“The initial gush and spray.” Morris nodded. “She might have died then and there, within a minute or two, but— Conversely, we’ll say, you sever your arm, through an attack or due to an accident.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Who could blame you,” Morris said easily. “However, with this amputation, your brachial artery gushes with your heartbeat. Pulse and gush. Why don’t you die? Many who sever limbs are saved—most, in fact—and the severed limb can be reattached with excellent results.”

“Still rather keep all mine where they are.”

“That’s the hope. With the insult of a severed limb, the blood vessels compress, slowing the blood loss long enough for treatment—if treatment comes. In this case, there was some compression. Enough it allowed her to walk as far as she did, to try to get help.”

“How much time?”

“I’d estimate she lived for about four minutes, perhaps five. But she passed the point of saving within about ninety seconds. The blood loss was too severe, confirmed by your on-scene record. Without immediate intervention from that point, she was the walking dead.”

And Morris smiled. “A marvelous,

classic screen series.”

“What?”

“The Walking Dead. Have you seen it?”

“No.”

“Zombie apocalypse, fascinating. You’d like it. But to Larinda here, a severed hand would have given her a better chance to survive than what would appear to be a smaller injury.”