I shook my head, gaping down at the man who, a few weeks earlier, had spent hours watching me from his car. We’d had four appointments to discuss his anxiety and panic attacks. What had Carl gotten himself into?
“Where was he found?”
“A shallow grave in the woods. As naked as a newborn baby. Dr. Buckley found him two mornings ago while checking his deer cams on his property. Called the cops. Record says the rain had washed out most of the sand and his foot was sticking out of the ground. Can you imagine walking up on that? Heck of a way to start his day.”
A horror story indeed.
Andrew moved up to the head of the table. “Looks like we’ve got a murderer on the loose in Berry Springs.”
“A psychotic murderer,” I muttered.
He frowned down at Carl’s head, then swapped his glasses for a pair of intimidating magnifying lenses—equal parts science and supervillain.
My curiosity shifted from the open chest cavity to his face—specifically, to the wound I hadn’t noticed before.
There, at the temple, was a jagged hole.
I instinctively covered my mouth and leaned in.
“Was he stabbed? In the head?”
Andrew didn’t answer. Just tilted his head, adjusting the lenses for a better angle, completely absorbed.
“There’s two,” I said.
“Two what?”
“Lacerations.”
“You’re incorrect. Not lacerations. Puncture wounds.”
“Puncture wounds on the side of his head?”
“Directly in his temple. The softest and most lethal part of the head, yes.”
“His killer cut his head open?”
“I said,puncturenot laceration. Big difference.”
A sick fascination began to replace my uneasy stomach. “But you said he was stabbed.”
“He was stabbed, but not with a knife. Try to keep up.”
“What’s the difference between a puncture wound and a laceration?”
“There’s a huge difference. A laceration is a tear in the soft tissue, usually jagged and uneven and open in a V-like shape. Kind of like his chest here. There’s significant loss of blood with lacerations. These are most typical with knife wounds. A puncture wound, on the other hand, closes back up and doesn’t bleed excessively. Big difference, and very important to be able to tell the difference.”
“Because this difference can help you determine how the victim was killed?”
“Not only that, it helps us to determine the murder weapon that was used—which is gold in a homicide investigation.”
“But you said Carl died of a heart attack?”
“That’s right, but this was done moments after he died. He wouldn’t have survived this wound. It punctured his brain.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip. The thought—the image—was terrifying.
“Yeah, like I said, a mad man.”
