Page 23 of Little Bitter Truths
“You know,” he said, “I’m glad you stopped by.”
“That sounds promising.”
“It might be.I’ve got a lot to tell you.”
9
“Let’s start with the basics,” Silas said.
I pulled a notebook and pen out of my bag.“Mia discovered Wren the day after she was murdered, which means Wren had been dead for almost an entire day when she was found.”
Silas nodded.“Give or take.”
“Are you confident about the estimated time of death?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk.“I am, based on several factors.First, the condition of the body when I arrived at the house.Wren was well into the early stages of decomposition when Mia arrived back home.But the body wasn’t decomposed enough to suggest Wren had been dead for over twenty-four hours.”
“Meaning?”
“The temperature of her body had dropped to match the ambient temperature of the house.She was in algor mortis, which as you know is the cooling stage of the body after death.Body temperature drops at a predictable rate in controlled environments like the one she was in.Based on the temperature of the room and Wren’s internal temperature when I examined her, I estimate her death occurred between eight and ten the night before.”
I wrote the time down.
“You want to know something interesting I learned today?”I asked.
“Always.”
“I spoke to Cooper Mayfair, Wren’s estranged husband.He admitted to stopping by the house and speaking with her a couple of hours before she was murdered.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“That’s because he didn’t tell the police.”
“Why not?”
“He said he was in shock.”
“In shock, huh?Not sure I buy that story.”
“I didn’t either.It took some prodding, but he admitted he was too scared to offer that information at first.”
“It doesn’t make it right, but I get it.Back to Wren.By the time she was delivered here, and I got the chance to take another look at her, rigor mortis had set in.Her jaw and neck muscles were stiff, and her arms were beginning to follow.”
“Which supports your timeline.”
“It does.In Wren’s case, livor mortis had already spread along the back of her body.But here’s the interesting part.”
Silas stood and walked over to a metal file cabinet, pulling open a drawer and retrieving a folder.
“When the body was found,” he said, returning to the desk, “Wren was lying on her back.”
“That matches what I’ve been told.”
He opened the folder and flipped through a few photographs before sliding one across the desk toward me.Her body lay on the hardwood floor, her head angled to the side.Blood had pooled beneath her hair and spread across the floorboards.
As I looked over the photo, Silas tapped it with a finger.
“The lividity matches this position,” he said.“Which tells me she’d been lying there for most of the time between death and discovery.”
