Lynn Webber did know how to process a body. She looked for bruises, defensive injuries, and bloodspatter patterns, and she took numerous photographs.
‘‘With all that blood you couldn’t have stabbed anyone and not have cuts on your hands. The knife would have been too slippery to hold,’’ said Lynn.
She was right. Diane’s grip would have slipped on a knife and sliced her palm or her fingers, assuming the weapon was a knife. But the victim, whoever the victim was, could have been bludgeoned with something like a tire iron. It would also have made castoff spatters and a lot of blood. Diane wanted to see the spatter pattern up close. She hadn’t been in a position to do much from her dining room table. Now that she was thinking more clearly, she realized that the castoff was very high, too much of an arc across the ceiling to be from stabbings; more like a beating.
Lynn took a blood sample from Diane and had her collect a urine specimen.
‘‘We need to find out why you slept through a massacre in your home,’’ said Lynn.
‘‘I don’t know when I could have been drugged,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Well, obviously someone had access to your house. Did you eat or drink anything before you went to bed?’’
‘‘I drank a bottle of green tea,’’ said Diane.
She remembered grabbing it out of the refrigerator. She had to think about that. Could someone have spiked it? She remembered that the lid was on tight. Did she hear the little clicks of the perforated plastic breaking as she unscrewed the cap? She didn’t remember.
‘‘How would anyone know I would drink that bottle of tea?’’ said Diane. ‘‘For that matter, what’s the point of this—to use my tiny apartment for an ultimate fighting ring because they weren’t able to find anyplace else?’’
Lynn laughed. ‘‘I suppose we’ll have to wait until we find a body to answer that. But tell me, what all do you remember? Do you remember going to bed?’’
Diane nodded. ‘‘Yes, I remember changing clothes and climbing into bed. I remember everything leading up to that. I went to sleep thinking about the Egyptian artifacts. The next thing I remember is the police banging on the door.’’
‘‘When you got up to answer the door, did you feel any pain anywhere?’’ asked Lynn.
‘‘No. Just a drowsy feeling.’’
‘‘If we find anything in your blood,’’ Lynn said, ‘‘the lab can test everything you came in contact with until they discover how it got into you.’’
When Lynn was done it was clear that Diane had no bruises other than the one on her head. The blood patterns on her body and her clothing were consistent with a fall. All that was good. A member of the hospital nursing staff showed Diane to a shower, where she scrubbed the blood from her body and hair.
‘‘Okay,’’ said Lynn when Diane came out. ‘‘Let’s X-ray your head.’’
Diane thought Lynn was enjoying this far too much. After having her head examined, Diane was sitting on one of the examination tables waiting for the doctor and Lynn to come with the X-rays. She knew what they would show. Nothing. She had hit her head on a plaster wall on the way down. She had been dazed, but that was all.
As she sat holding the back of her hospital gown closed, she realized she didn’t have any clothes with her. Why did I let them talk me into going to the hospital? This was absurd. She didn’t even have her purse with her.
I can stay at the museum, she thought. Her office suite had a bathroom, a shower, and a comfortable couch. She had stayed there many times. She even had a change of clothes there. She would go look for a phone. That meant walking around with absolutely nothing on but an open-backed thin cotton gown. Diane slipped down from the table and looked around the white curtain for a nurse.
She was in a large room lined on two sides with a row of cubicles like the one she was in. Some were probably occupied. She padded across the room, holding the back of her gown closed with a hand behind her back. The floor was cold on her bare feet. Just down at the other end of the room was an empty nurses station. No nurse? What if there is an emergency in one of the cubicles? she thought.
She walked toward the station. She passed a stack of neatly folded gowns on a trolley. She swiped one and put it on backwards. At least now she didn’t have to hold the back closed. At the nurses’ station she looked for a bell to ring. There wasn’t one. She walked around the counter and reached for the phone. Her hand touched the receiver just as she was grabbed around the waist and mouth and pulled into one of the cubicles.
Chapter 18
Diane kicked at her assailant but her bare feet had little effect. She bit the gloved hand covering her mouth and tried to squirm out of his grasp. His fingers and palm were well protected with leather and padding thicker than necessary for the season of the year. She bit down hard.
‘‘Stop it, or I’ll break your neck.’’ His voice was a hoarse whisper.
This is isn’t going to happen, she thought. I won’t let it.
She bit harder and elbowed him in the ribs but felt the blow slide off. She reached over her head searching for eyes to poke or hair to grab. Her fingers found thick, taut material. A ski mask covering his face. She clawed at it and he jerked his head backward, sending them both against the vital signs monitor, tearing off feeds and cables as it fell to the floor. Her mouth now free, she screamed. In her peripheral vision, she saw a knife. This definitely is not going to happen.
She entangled her leg in his to trip him. It almost worked. He fell against the bed, pushing it against the curtain. Diane reached down and grabbed one of his ankles and pulled up hard while she pushed away from him with all the strength she had in her legs. He fell but dragged her with him, twisted her over, pushed her to the floor, and pressed a knee in the small of her back. With his powerful hand on the back of her head he pressed her face into the floor.
‘‘You’re a dirty dealer,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Everybody thinks you’re so good, but you’re dirty.’’
Diane reached and yanked a cable dangling from the monitor, hoping it would fall on him or distract him enough for her to free herself. She heard a voice several cubicles away calling for a nurse. She shouted for help as the monitor she was jerking at slammed against her attacker. He got up and ran as abruptly as he had come. Diane struggled to her feet to follow him.
A door near the nurses’ station was partially ajar where he had gone through, and she headed for it. It opened into a large storage room with a door on the other end. Diane ran for it. A hallway lay beyond. She looked both ways up and down the hallway and saw nothing. She had been too slow. She hurried back to the examination room. A nurse was there, or maybe a nurse’s aide. It was hard to tell.
‘‘You aren’t supposed to be back there,’’ she said. The blond woman was about Diane’s age and dressed in scrubs with cartoon prints all over them that looked more like she should be in pediatrics. She stood looking at Diane in confusion.
‘‘There aren’t supposed to be maniacs running around the hospital either. I was just attacked in here. Get security.’’