The Little Grave (Detective Amanda Steele)

“As I was about to show you…” Rideout pointed to some light discoloration at the base of Palmer’s throat. “I didn’t notice this at the scene. In fact, I didn’t see them in any pictures that were taken, but in cases where tissue is damaged closer to the time of death, contusions can surface afterward.”

Amanda angled her head, focusing on Palmer’s neck, trying to tell herself the entire time it was someone else’s body. “Someone strangled him?”

“Restrained him with force at least. Then there’s this.” Rideout lifted Palmer’s left hand and traced a bruise that circled his wrist. “Both wrists are like this, as are his ankles.”

“He was bound,” Trent said, barely above a whisper. “But with what?” Trent leaned in closer to the cadaver, showing he had no issue with being around the dead.

“Your guess would be as good as mine. The markings are not distinguishing enough to make a firm conclusion, but I’d hypothesize it was something narrow and rigid.”

“Zip-ties?” Trent suggested. “They’re easy to come by from any hardware store.”

“Kidnap/murder kit one-o-one,” Amanda said drily. She noted her internal conflict.

Rideout proceeded to turn Palmer onto his side. “As you can see, livor mortis is present in his shoulder blades, lower back, and it continues down to his buttocks.”

In layman’s terms, livor mortis was the process of blood settling in the lowest parts of the body upon death. It could tell a lot about the position in which a person had died and disclose whether they had been moved some time after death.

“He died in that bed, or lying down anyhow,” Trent said, impressing both her and the ME.

“Bravo. But look at this.” Rideout pointed to faint vertical bruises on Palmer’s back. “I had CSI Donnelly return to Denver’s and check the spacing between the spindles on the chairs in the room. Based on her measurements, I feel confident in saying that he was probably bound to one of them.”

A small dining table with two spindle-back chairs, both tucked in like they were never used…

Rideout added, “Everything in that room was staged—Palmer, the bottles, the open curtains, the TV being on—to make it look like he just accidently drank himself to death.”

Amanda shivered, suddenly colder than she ever remembered being in her life. “So alcohol overdose was the cause of death?”

“More precisely, aspiration caused by ethanol poisoning, as I said on scene. Only I think someone forced the alcohol on him. And that means you’re looking for a determined, yet controlled and patient killer.” He paused and leveled a meaningful eye on her. “It could be someone affected by his drinking to choose this method to kill too.”

The coffee she’d drunk before going there rushed up her throat, and she clamped a hand over her mouth and swallowed roughly. “I’ve gotta— I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait,” Rideout called out. “Aren’t you staying for the autopsy?”

She waved a hand over her head. “I’ve got all I need for now.”

“Amanda,” Trent called out behind her as his footsteps slapped the linoleum floor. “You all right?”

She kept hustling. She wasn’t all right by a long shot. Palmer’s death was starting to feel very personal.

Sixteen

Amanda’s body was dragging but her mind was still sharp. As a cop you either adapted to long hours without sleep or you found another career. She had to get her alibi in order, and she had to get it now. Palmer had destroyed her life five and a half years ago

and it seemed he was back to stomp out any embers. She waited by the passenger door of the department car for Trent to unlock the doors. He didn’t say anything to her as he got in and silence spanned between them for several minutes before Trent spoke.

“Guess we know it was murder now,” he said, likely believing that he was treading on neutral ground.

“Right, but you heard the murder method?” She turned on him, her entire body quaking. Somehow having the MO confirmed out loud by the medical examiner had stamped it further home.

“I did… Not sure—”

“Let me lay it out for you. After the accident, all I wanted was Palmer dead. I fantasized about taking him out.” She paused there and scanned Trent’s eyes for disgust, judgment, shock, but none of those emotions were present. She shot out, “I thought of doing exactly what happened to him.”

“You’re obviously not the only one,” Trent volleyed back.

Not the only one… His words jarred a memory loose. “When I was healing from the accident, my father and I dug up whatever dirt we could on Palmer. You know, to supply to the prosecution to establish his character and typical conduct. My dad tracked someone down whose son had been friends with Palmer as a teenager. They were both sixteen when the car his son was driving lost control and veered off the road. His son became a quadriplegic. Palmer walked away with barely a scratch. But the father of this boy told my dad he was quite certain that Palmer had been driving, despite evidence to the contrary. He said he never liked his son hanging around Palmer.”

“Maybe we should pay him a visit.”