I Am Death

Thirteen

Garcia looked at Hunter, then at the body, then back at Doctor Hove.

‘She died due to an excessive build-up of her own blood inside her brain?’ he asked. ‘And that was induced by the killer? How?’

‘By keeping her upside down for long enough,’ Hunter answered in a subdued voice. ‘That would explain the difference in restraints from her wrists to her ankles. They needed to be stronger to be able to hold her body weight.’

‘Correct again, Robert,’ Doctor Hove agreed, moving closer to the head of the examination table, and resting her hands by Nicole’s ears. ‘If you understand the process, oedema of the brain isn’t very difficult to achieve. You see, it all rests on the difference between arteries and veins. Arteries are thick-walled vessels that carry blood away from the heart and into the organs of the body.’ Like a medical professor addressing her students, she pointed at Nicole’s chest, and then moved her hand away, spreading her fingers at the same time as she explained. ‘Even upside down, the heart will continue to distribute blood through the arteries just as strongly as it would right side up. That blood travels with a lot of pressure, due to it being forced into the arteries by the pumping of the heart. So, right side up, upside down... it makes no difference. Blood will always travel with the same force away from the heart. Veins, on the other hand, are thin-walled vessels that carry blood from the organs of the body back into the heart for repumping. They have essentially no pressure in them, and they rely on gravity, inertia and the force of skeletal muscle contractions to help push blood back to the heart.’

Doctor Hove coughed to clear her throat before continuing.

‘With no skeletal muscle contractions happening inside the skull, if you reverse gravity by placing someone upside down for long enough, blood will still travel normally from the heart, through the arteries, and into the brain, but it will cease to travel through the veins back to the heart. So what you have is a build-up — blood coming into the brain, but not getting out.’

The doctor paused, the look on her face just a little more somber than a moment ago.

‘With a build-up of blood in the brain, after a while blood will start to leak from the capillaries, accumulating inside the cranium, increasing pressure, and causing the brain to swell. And with that comes a hell of a lot of pain — head, ears, eyes, nose... every heart pump would probably feel like thunder was exploding inside her head. All the killer had to do was suspend her by her feet, nothing else. Gravity does the rest. He didn’t even have to be in the room anymore. The pressure would’ve just kept on building up inside her head until it brought her gradual loss of consciousness, and then finally death as the brain would signal either respiration to fail, or the heart to stop pumping blood.’

Uneasily, Hunter shifted his weight from one foot to another.

‘How long?’ Garcia asked. ‘How long before she died? How long could one stand all that pain before the gradual loss of consciousness and death?’

Doctor Hove gave the detective a subtle, unsure headshake. ‘It would depend on several factors, Carlos, like strength and health of the victim. She appears to have been very healthy — good muscle tone, non-smoker, strong lungs, healthy liver and kidneys. But even if I’m wrong, the killer could’ve prolonged the whole process for as long as he wanted simply by returning her to a right-side-up position, decreasing the pressure in her brain, and then starting it all over again an hour or so later.’

‘Do you have an approximate time of death?’ Hunter asked.

‘Supposing that her body was always kept at room temperature after death,’ the doctor explained, ‘and I found no indication to the contrary, I’d say that she’s been dead for about thirty hours, give or take a couple.’

Hunter and Garcia knew that Nicole Wilson had been abducted seven days prior to her body being found, which meant that her killer could indeed have tortured her for five and a half consecutive days.

Before she spoke again, Doctor Hove took in a deep breath and held it for several seconds.

‘But that’s not all,’ she finally said.

Hunter and Garcia both looked at her, surprised.

‘Everything I’ve told you about this victim... about how she was tortured, about how she was murdered... I’d say none of it is scary in comparison to this.’

‘In comparison to what, Doc?’ Garcia asked.

The doctor turned and retrieved something else from the instrument table behind her — a clear plastic evidence bag containing a white piece of paper.

‘To this.’

‘And what is that?’ Hunter this time.

Doctor Hove looked down at the evidence bag for a couple of seconds before locking eyes with Hunter.

‘This is a note from the killer. He left it lodged inside her throat.’

‘Wait. What?’ Garcia asked, lifting a hand as if he hadn’t heard it properly.

Hunter didn’t move.

‘This piece of paper was first rolled up into a tube,’ the doctor explained, ‘then carefully inserted into the victim’s throat.’ She handed the plastic evidence bag to Hunter. ‘The note speaks for itself.’

The piece of paper inside it was about eight inches long by five wide. Plain white. No lines. Across the center of it, written in blood, were three words.