Endowed with Death, page 23
There was no answer. She wasn’t actually expecting one, she was just posing questions that came to her as she proceeded with the autopsy. She examined the ribs closely, figuring that if the sternum was broken, it wouldn’t be unexpected for one or two ribs to be as well. She found one more hairline fracture on a rib, which George marked on the x-ray for her.
“Nothing of concern on the skull or neck in the x-rays, so I am going to go to the torso next, see what kind of damage there may be around those fractures. Looking for bruising, which we can date, or any damage to the soft tissues or organs.”
She performed the Y-incision and opened up the chest and abdominal cavity. “There is some bruising, but it is minimal. Perimortem. Likely occurred very close to the time of death.”
“But not the cause of death,” Baker checked from the observation room.
“I haven’t yet established cause of death, so I can’t comment on whether it is related.”
She continued with a dissection of the heart and then removal of the lungs. She noted the weight of the lungs on her autopsy report with a sigh.
“Lungs are quite heavy.”
No one asked what that meant. Kenzie proceeded with a closer examination of the lungs, carefully dissecting them and noting anomalies. As she took sections for the microscopic examination, she looked toward the observation room.
“As with Michael Wade, the lungs are congested with fluid, slightly frothy. It is a clear sign of asphyxiation.”
“So, does that mean homicide?” Tuttle asked.
“Asphyxiation can be caused by many things. It doesn’t mean that the manner of death is homicide. But considering the fractured bones and the similarities between Michael’s autopsy and Sylvia’s, it is very suspicious. I’ll see what else shows up in the autopsy and will review my work and confirm my findings with Dr. Wiltshire, but I believe that both will be homicide, death due to asphyxiation.”
“Same cause of death for both,” Tuttle said. “Pretty likely the same person, then.”
“It seems unlikely that Sylvia’s death was a copy of Michael’s, since my findings have not yet been released. No one but the killer would know how he was killed.”
“Or a witness,” Baker added.
Kenzie nodded. “Yes, or a witness to Michael’s murder.”
“If the killer was Sylvia, someone could have exacted retribution on her, killing her in the same way.”
“I suppose they could,” Kenzie agreed.
“Is there anything you can tell us about the killer based on Mrs. Arnold’s autopsy?” Tuttle asked. “Size of hands, strength needed, exactly how she was asphyxiated? Are we talking about a plastic bag over her head? Or something else?”
“From the broken ribs—and in Michael’s case, previously broken and healed ribs—I believe that it was mechanical asphyxiation. They were prevented from being able to take a breath. In Michael’s case, that would be quite easy. Any of us here would have the strength to asphyxiate a child that small. Hold him tightly against you, arms wrapped around him in a hug, and squeeze until he is unable to breathe.”
Both of the detectives considered this, saying nothing at first. Kenzie could picture it herself. A bear hug. Squeezing the child until he stopped crying. Until he stopped breathing. Until, at last, it was too late to revive him.
“And doing the same to an older woman?” Baker asked. “I guess it would take considerably more strength to squeeze a tough old broad like Sylvia to death. She would have fought back. Hard. I don’t think the bear hug would work as well for her. You’d need to be able to control the limbs, or risk getting scratched up while she tries to get herself out.”
“With Sylvia, it was probably a little different. Either positional asphyxia, such as laying her prone while she was in handcuffs—” The way that Zachary had said that Annie had been killed in the children’s center he had been held in. “—or, more likely, in my opinion, by pressure on her chest while she was lying supine.”
“Lying on her back?” Baker clarified.
“Yes. Lying on her back with a weight on her chest. Someone sitting or kneeling on her.”
That would account for the broken sternum and rib. Minimal bruising at the time of death, since death had been pretty quick, shutting off the body’s circulatory system before the bruising could develop. No sign of a ligature or hands around the throat. No bruising around the mouth.
“So, how heavy would you have to be to do that?” Tuttle questioned.
“Not big. Just heavy enough to prevent her from breathing or throwing you off. She is a small, elderly woman; pretty much any adult could have done it.”
“Great. Nice of you to narrow it down for us,” he said sourly.
Kenzie smiled and shook her head. It wasn’t her job to do all of the work for them. She could only do so much to find the killer. They had to take it the rest of the way.
Kenzie sorted through the evidence that had come in with Sylvia’s body. The clothing she had been wearing. Some mashed receipts and change. They had not yet found her wallet. Kenzie looked at each of the receipts, but none were recent. Just slips of paper that Sylvia had left in her pockets. Incidental purchases when she had gone into town. A bottle of Tylenol from the pharmacy. A small bottle of milk. A package of candies.
Where had the killer disposed of her purse, with her wallet, phone, and other items that might help point in the direction of the killer? Where had he disposed of the suitcase? It was all together, Kenzie supposed, dumped in a river or ravine, buried under two feet of rich Vermont soil.
Cash’s granddaddy had once farmed on that property. That was obvious from the extra outbuildings and abandoned equipment Kenzie had seen in the unkept areas past the rolling velvet lawns and blemish-free fruit trees.
But Cash had been raised as a child of wealth. He hadn’t had to work the land like his grandfather and great-grandfather. Instead, he was inside, staring at computers, communicating with his business partners over the phone and email. Maybe not the type of work best suited to a man of his physical prowess and temperament.
He had taken his frustrations out on his wife and son. As the pressure had built, so had the abuse. Escalating until Sylvia had needed to step in and see that Michael, at least, got the care he needed. Had she treated Terri-Lyn as well? Bound up her wounds, given her Tylenol, and sponged her brow?
Kenzie suspected not. Terri-Lyn wasn’t exactly well-disposed toward Cash’s old nanny. She had not spoken warmly of how the woman had helped and cared for her. She had complained instead about how Sylvia had taken Michael when Terri-Lyn had been unable to care for him due to her postpartum and Michael’s colic. A perfect storm. A situation dangerous enough that Sylvia had stepped in to take charge of the infant to make sure that his needs were met and his mother had time to recover. Rocking the colicky baby long into the night.
Had Cash known how much danger his child had been in at that point, or had he been like so many men, blind to how his wife was struggling, succumbing to her depression, drowning in her own black emotions?
Maybe he had. Maybe he had been the one to tell Sylvia that she needed to take charge of Michael. The very thing that Sylvia had been hoping for when she had told Terri-Lyn to get pregnant to heal the marriage.
That, as it turned out, had been a mistake.
45
The police detectives had observed the autopsy, and Kenzie, in turn, sat in on the police interviews with Terri-Lyn and Cash, separate of course. Kenzie observed from a monitoring room, watching the action on the cameras. Never face-to-face with the interviewees. It might be unusual for a medical examiner to sit in on a police interview, but she was the one who could tell the police whether what the witnesses said was believable from a medical standpoint. And she had once been friends with Terri-Lyn Wade. She probably couldn’t tell the police anything about Terri-Lyn now that they couldn’t deduce themselves, but it was always possible that something Terri-Lyn said could trigger a memory that would somehow be relevant or helpful.
This was no casual interview asking the witnesses if they had seen or heard anything that the police might be interested in. It was not a careful, gentle consultation with grieving parents who also happened to be politically connected to everyone at the top of crime enforcement in Vermont. Terri-Lyn was brought into the small interview room and looked around in dismay at the small table and chairs fashioned from metal tubing with a plastic seat and back screwed on, the disgusting green walls, and the bright lighting that washed out her complexion. It probably smelled as bad as it looked, and the plastic cup of water placed on the table before her had not come from a bottle and didn’t sparkle. If she were expecting to be pampered in a lavish boardroom, with her whims being met by a cop playing the role of dedicated servant, she was sadly disappointed.
Terri-Lyn looked at Tuttle in disbelief, as if waiting for him to figure out that he had brought her to the wrong room. He gestured to one of the chairs. “Have a seat.”
Terri-Lyn’s nose wrinkled as she looked at it. Maybe she was wondering whether it had been disinfected lately. But lacking any authority here, she eventually sat down gingerly. It wasn’t like she was going to catch anything from sitting in the chair used by other criminals. There were several layers of cloth between any bacteria that remained there and her pampered skin.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Terri-Lyn offered, without waiting for the questions to begin. “I don’t know what happened to Sylvia.”
“That’s fine, ma’am,” Tuttle agreed. He picked up a cup of coffee that had been left on the table, took a sip, swished it around his mouth, and swallowed. “We just want to go over where you were for the twenty-four hours preceding the discovery of Mrs. Arnold’s body and the circumstances surrounding your son’s death one more time.”
“I’ve already said everything I plan to on that.”
“Yes, ma’am. Can you tell me your activities from Thursday afternoon through Friday morning?”
“I already told you that on Friday. I was at home. I didn’t go out. I am in mourning for my son, you know. I don’t need to be seen in public with all of the… well-wishers. People who want to console me. I really don’t want that right now. I just want to be at home, protected, where I can… mourn the loss of my child.”
“What part of the house were you in?”
“All day?”
“I don’t imagine you go into every room of the house daily. Especially those areas that are set aside for the staff. You were not near Mrs. Arnold’s room, for example?”
“Certainly not. Why would I be?”
“So, if someone said they saw you there?”
“They would be lying,” Terri-Lyn said icily. “I wouldn’t have any reason to be near Sylvia’s room. If I needed her—and I didn’t—I would just call her and she would come to me.”
“Of course,” Tuttle agreed. He looked at Baker, then back at Terri-Lyn again. “So, which rooms did you say you were in?”
“I don’t know. My bedroom suite. The dining room. The gym. The pool. The morning room.” She shook her head. “I can’t be expected to remember exactly what I did every minute of the day.”
“Of course not, ma’am. But everything that you can remember is extremely helpful. We can start to build a picture of what was happening in the house at various times. Do you remember the last time you saw Mrs. Arnold?”
“The last time? No, of course not. I don’t have anything to do with her. She was Cash—Michael’s nanny, not mine. That was her job and, since Michael wasn’t there anymore, I had no reason to have anything to do with her.”
“But you didn’t fire her? Let her go since her services were no longer needed?”
“No. She could still perform other functions around the house. Cash said it would be cruel to let her go, an old woman, when she wouldn’t be able to get a job anywhere else. We could pay her a pension, or continue to employ her to do work around the house. I would rather have someone actually doing work. Not just sitting around, getting paid for being alive.”
“That was very thoughtful of your husband.”
“He has known her for a long time. He cared about her deeply.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Bother me? Why would it?”
“Because she was taking your place in his universe. She was looking after his son. He knew and loved her long before you ever became a part of his world. Some women would resent that.”
“She didn’t take my place.” Terri-Lyn’s nose wrinkled. “What a thought. That old woman? She was good at what she did, but Cash didn’t see her as some… love interest.”
“But she was a mother figure to him.”
Terri-Lyn looked for a way to argue, then shook her head and said nothing.
Tuttle let the silence draw out for an uncomfortable length of time.
“So you don’t know the last time you saw Mrs. Arnold alive?” Baker asked.
“No. I have no idea. I doubt if I saw her at all on Thursday.”
“What was she doing?”
“How would I know? Sitting in her room. Reading a book. Writing letters. Whatever old women do when they have nothing else to do.”
“Did she like to read?”
“I don’t know.”
“Like to write? Keep a journal?” Baker prodded.
“How would I know? I don’t socialize with her. I have no idea what she does in her spare time.”
“You know she writes letters, so you must have seen her do that. Maybe seen her sitting at her writing desk composing letters to her friends.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I saw her once.”
46
Tuttle leaned forward. “Did you and Mrs. Arnold get along?”
“We got along just fine. She was the employee and usually Cash dealt with her. I spoke to her when I needed to.” She shrugged. “That wasn’t very often.”
“You didn’t confide in her?”
Terri-Lyn snorted. “Of course not.”
“You didn’t tell her about the difficulties in your marriage? She didn’t suggest things would improve if you bore Cash a son?”
Terri-Lyn’s jaw clenched. “She might have said something to that effect once. If she did, it was unsolicited.”
“Was it. And did having a son improve your marital relationship?”
“No.” Terri-Lyn’s tone was bitter. “It was a ridiculous suggestion. Children put a strain on marriage. They don’t help it.”
Tuttle and Baker both nodded sympathetically. “Having kids is hard work,” Baker empathized. “Men have no idea what it’s like to go through pregnancy and then to try to raise a screaming, flailing baby. They think it’s easy, that everything just falls into place. But there was no place for a baby in your marriage, was there?”
“Michael was a difficult child right from the time he was born. There were complications. He had colic. Then all of the teething and growing pains and whatever else. He was always crying or fussing over something and wouldn’t listen to a word I said.”
“It’s a difficult age,” Tuttle said. “They want to be able to do everything they see people around them doing, but they are not capable. It must be very frustrating for them.”
“For them? Try for me! Constantly demanding attention. Wouldn’t do what I said. Give Daddy a hug. Stay in your bed. He wouldn’t do anything I said and had the attention span of a gnat. There was something wrong with him. That was probably what killed him, if it really wasn’t the fall from the balcony. He probably had something wrong with him, but the doctors never found it. Maybe something was wrong in his brain.”
“But you must have had good times together, too,” Baker suggested. “Playing games. Sharing a popsicle together. And babies look like little angels when they are sleeping. Sweet cherubs.”
“Cherubs?” Terri-Lyn scoffed. “When they finally wind down at the end of the day, like a mechanical toy, it’s such a feeling of relief. I wished he would be quiet and sleep all of the time.”
“And now he will,” Tuttle said.
“You’re taking it the wrong way. You know that isn’t what I meant.”
“He was an inconvenience to you. Nothing more. You were glad when he died.”
“I was not. Ask your cops. I cried. I have been deep in mourning.”
Nothing seemed further from the truth. Terri-Lyn didn’t appear to have given her son a moment of thought in the last week. She had better things to do.
“Tell us again what you were doing when Michael died.” Baker said, “How you realized something had happened.”
“I was eating breakfast. I’d had a headache and slept in. Then Sylvia started screaming. I couldn’t believe she would do that when I had a headache. She knew how much the noise bothered it. I thought she was screaming at the gardener or something. It went on for a few minutes before I realized it was something to do with Michael. And then… when I went outside, no one would let me close. I was nearly hysterical.”
“That must have been very difficult for you,” the police detective murmured.
“It was. You can’t imagine what it is like to lose a child.”
For a moment, Kenzie thought Baker was going to make up a story about having lost a child herself, but then her expression changed slightly. “Cash was there ahead of you? So he saw what had happened?”
“He didn’t see it happen. But he was over there. Where Michael was. He saw him on the ground. For me, I never saw him after the fall. I need closure. I need to see him again to make myself understand that he’s really dead.”
“Didn’t you say in your earlier statement that you had been doing Pilates?” Tuttle asked.
“Yes.” She shrugged. “I had been. Before I sat down to eat breakfast.”
“You do Pilates with a migraine? I thought you had been in bed, asleep, because all of the noise and light bothered it.”
Terri-Lyn shook her head. “I know I just have to push through. I can’t neglect my training program. Even now… the body-mind connection is essential, you know. If you want to feel good, you need to feel good.”
