He didn't go back to the station,James drove to the morgue first, which was ten minutes across town way past the church and down the hill to the low grey building behind the hospital that most people in Ashford Hollow pretended didn't exist until they needed it.
Dr. Fiona Webb met him at the door of the hospital entrance. she was in her forties and a really efficient doctor.
She handed him gloves without being asked and took him to the morgue.
"Petrova girl,"
"Yes."
The examination room was cold and white and smelled of chemical underneath something else that James had no word for.
Nadia Petrova was on the table, she looked smaller here than she had in the park. what always surprised him was the way people got smaller as though the essence of life took up space and the absence made the body shrink.
"Walk me through it," he said.
Dr. Webb opened her file .
"Cause of death asphyxiation," she said, specifically manual asphyxiation combined with positional asphyxia, two mechanisms working together."
"Meaning?" James said.
"Meaning someone used their hands first" She indicated the neck without touching it"You can see the hemorrhaging here these small red spots scattered across the skin of the neck and jaw which happens when the blood vessels rupture from sustained pressure, the capillaries burst under compression and It's one of the most consistent indicators of manual strangulation we have."
James leaned slightly closer to have a good look. The spots were there small and red and scattered like something delicate had broken beneath the surface.
"Her eyes," Dr. Webb continued, "showed the same hemorrhaging in the conjunctiva the whites of the eyes ,Tiny burst vessels which is again completely consistent with manual strangulation. When the jugular veins are compressed blood continues to be pumped into the head by the carotid arteries but cannot drain back out and when the pressure builds, the vessels rupture."
"She fought?" James said.
"That's the significant part." Dr. Webb paused"She didn't or just couldn't there is no defensive wounds on the hands or forearms, nothing is broken, no skin under the fingernails, no bruising on the wrists consistent with grabbing or restraint." She set the file down. "For someone being manually strangled the absence of defensive wounds tells us something important."
"She was incapacitated first," James said
"That's my working theory, whatever was in her system toxicology isn't back yet but preliminary indicators suggest something present it was enough to significantly impair her ability to resist, she may have been semiconscious by the time it began, she may have been conscious but unable to coordinate her movements properly." She paused. "Either way she could not fight back."
James stood with that for a moment.
"How long?" he said.
"From initial compression to death between four and seven minutes." Dr. Webb looked at her notes. "The brain begins losing oxygen within seconds of the airway being fully compressed, consciousness goes first usually within sixty to ninety seconds if the compression is complete and sustained. After that the brain continues to deteriorate. Neurons begin dying within three to four minutes without oxygen." She paused. "It is not an instantaneous death but the victim is unlikely to be fully aware of what is happening for most of its duration."
James looked at Nadia's face.
He thought about four minutes.
About what four minutes felt like in the ordinary world, a song on the radio ,a cup of tea going from hot to warm, the time it took to walk from one end of Market Street to the other.
Four minutes.
"The positioning," he said. "She was found on her back. Arms at her sides."
"That's the positional component," Dr. Webb said, " after manual strangulation was or possibly while it was ongoing she was placed on her back in a position that continued to restrict her airway, that angle of the neck, the way the head was positioned against the ground she paused. "It was deliberate ,someone arranged her."
"After death?" James said.
"Possibly during, possibly after, it was careful ." She looked at James directly "This was not a moment of rage, this was not someone who lost control.
The incapacitation, the method, the positioning afterward all of it was pee planned and executed without apparent hurrying"
"The coat," James said," it was buttoned wrong."
Dr. Webb nodded.
"Buttoned after death most likely or during death either way it was not by her."
James looked at the coat buttoned wrong and thought about someone standing over a dead girl in the dark of Kelmore Park taking the time to button her coat, getting it wrong, not noticing, or not caring.
"Release the paperwork," he said "Her parents want to bury her."
"End of day tomorrow," Dr. Webb said. "They can collect her Friday."
"Thank you Fiona."
She nodded once.
James took his gloves off at the door.
Dropped them in the bin.
Walked outside.
Stood in the car park in the cold Ashford Hollow afternoon and breathed.
Just breathed.
The small private ritual he had never told anyone about standing outside the morgue door and breathing the outside air and reminding himself which side of it he was on.
Then he got in the car.
Sat quietly for a moment.
Asphyxiation, deliberate and arranged also a coat buttoned wrong by hands that were not Nadia's.
He thought about the moth.
Placed not fallen.
He thought about the file from three months ago from a different town and a different victim which was filed as accident.
He thought about tomorrow.