Lock In 2 - Head On by John Scalzi

Author:John Scalzi [Scalzi, John]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Published: 2018-04-10T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

I POPPED THE IMAGE up in my view. “Okay, I see an X-ray of Alex Kaufmann’s neck,” I said. “What am I supposed to be seeing here?”

“You’re looking at the C4 vertebra,” Vann said. She was driving us to Lena Fowler’s home in Arlington. It was now Tuesday morning, and we were betting we would have just enough time to talk to her before I had to go to Boston to interview Kim Silva. We were against traffic this time of day, so we had that going for us.

“Which one is that?”

“It’s the fourth one down, strangely enough.”

“You’re helpful,” I said. “I’ve located it. What am I looking for?”

“There’s damage to it.”

“Right,” I said. “From Kaufmann’s body weight and the belt.”

Vann shook her head. “It might be from that. But the medical examiner also said it was possible that it was damaged from something else, and then exacerbated by the hanging.”

“And do we have an idea what that something else is?” I asked.

“It could be blunt force. Like someone whacking him on the back of the neck.”

“But there wasn’t any sign of a struggle.”

“No,” Vann agreed. “Whoever did it would have had to knock Kaufmann out or at least daze him enough to get the belt around his neck.”

I flipped to a picture of Kaufmann on the morgue slab. “And they would have had to do it fast,” I said. “If there was any time between the first neck injury and the injuries caused by the belt, there would be evidence of it.”

“Yes,” Vann said. “Which is why I said the blow to his neck knocked him out rather than killed him. If it had killed him, there would be forensics evidence of two separate events by the way the body bruised and the blood pooled. There’s not.”

“So why do we think someone snapped him across the neck first?” I asked.

“The ME said the damage to the vertebra looked like it could be more extensive than might happen with just a hanging, especially one like Kaufmann suffered. It wasn’t a long fall with a sharp snap. He hung himself in the shower with no real drop. Kaufmann would basically have choked himself along with crushing his neck.”

“So slower but with less bone damage.”

“That’s what the ME said.”

“But he’s not sure.”

“No. He said the damage could have happened if Kaufmann put some force into it, as long as the hotel piping held. He also said that if Kaufmann had previous damage to his neck or bone disease affecting his neck or spine, it might be consistent with that. He’s going to look into those for us.”

“So in fact he probably was a suicide,” I said.

“Except for the fact that Fowler was in his bed just minutes before he killed himself,” Vann said.

“You think Fowler did it, then?”

“I think I want to hear how she denies it, at least.”

Fowler’s house was in the Arlington Views neighborhood, just off Columbia Pike, a comfortable but unimpressive brick suburban home surrounded by other comfortable but unimpressive suburban homes, across the street from an elementary school.

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