“Kitchen knife?” Amanda asked.

“Statistically, it’s the most likely weapon, and the struggle took place in the kitchen, so it makes sense. They’ll have to do a comparison at the ME’s office to be sure. Did they find the weapon at the scene?”

“Yes,” she answered. “Are you sure about this? She was on her back?”

Sara could see that Amanda was not pleased with the evaluation. She wanted her friend to be a fighter, not someone who got lucky. “The majority of fatal stab wounds are in the left chest region. If you want to kill someone, you go for the heart, overhanded, straight into the chest. This was defensive.” She indicated the man’s sliced palm. “But Evelyn didn’t go easily. At some point, she must’ve come at him directly, because he grabbed the blade of the knife.”

Amanda seemed only slightly placated by this information. “Is there anything in his stomach?”

Sara reached under the gurney and pulled out the transportation packet destined for the Fulton County medical examiner. Krakauer had filled in most of the information while Sara was being interviewed by the police. The form was standard. The ME performing the autopsy needed to know drugs on board, procedures followed, which marks came from the hospital and which had more nefarious origins. Sara found a thermal reproduction of the X-rays on the last page.

She said, “The belly looks clear of any foreign objects. They’ll know for sure when they cut him open, but I’m assuming that the amount of heroin we’re talking about, something worth dying for, would be easy to spot.”

Will cleared his throat. He seemed reluctant as he asked, “Would Evelyn have a lot of blood on her from stabbing this guy?”

“It’s not likely. Most of the bleeding happened inside the belly, even after the knife was pulled out. There’s the defensive wound on his hand, but the ulnar and radial arteries are intact and none of the digital arteries were compromised. If the cut on his hand was deeper or if one of the fingers was sliced open or off, you could expect a significant amount of blood loss. But that’s not the case with Estevez, so I’m guessing Evelyn would’ve had a minimal amount of blood on her clothes.”

Will said, “There was a lot of blood on the floor. You could see footprints back and forth across the tiles.”

“How big was the space?”

“Kitchen sized,” he said. “Bigger than yours, but not by much, and enclosed. The house is older, ranch-style.”

Sara thought about it. “I’d have to see the crime scene photos, but I’m fairly certain that if there was enough blood on the floor to show a struggle, that blood didn’t come from Estevez’s hand or belly. At least not all of it.”

“Could Estevez just get up on his own and walk off after sustaining his injuries?”

“Not without help. Any type of damage to the abdominal wall makes it difficult to breathe, let alone move.” Sara put her hand to her stomach. “Think about how many muscles have to fire just to sit up.”

Amanda asked Will, “What are you getting at?”

“I’m just wondering who struggled with Evelyn if this guy couldn’t get up after being stabbed and there wasn’t a lot of blood from his wound.”

Sara followed his logic. “You think Evelyn was injured.”

“Maybe. They did blood typing on scene, but they didn’t look at all of it, and DNA won’t be back for another few days.” He shrugged. “If Evelyn was hurt, and Estevez didn’t bleed much, that could explain the extra blood.”

“I’m sure if she’s injured it’s nothing serious.” Amanda waved away Will’s theory as if swatting a fly. Any logical person would’ve already accepted the very real possibility that Evelyn Mitchell’s chances of survival were very slim considering how much time had elapsed. Amanda seemed to be holding on to the opposite theory.

Sara wasn’t going to be the one to tell her otherwise.

There was a large magnifying glass on one of the trays. Sara pulled down the overhead light and went back to the examination, checking the dead man head to toe for trace evidence, needle marks, anything unusual that might lead them to a clue. When it was time to roll him over, Will put on a pair of surgical gloves and helped flip the body.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Amanda said with her usual flair for under statement.

Estevez had a large tattoo of an angel on his back. The image covered the width of his shoulders and reached the bottom of his sacrum, and was so intricate that it more closely resembled a carving. “Gabriel,” Sara said. “The archangel.”

Will asked, “How do you know that?”

She pointed to the horn in the angel’s mouth. “There’s no biblical foundation, but some religions believe that Judgment Day comes when Gabriel blows his horn.” Sara knew that Will had never been to church. “It’s the sort of thing they teach kids in Sunday school. And it tracks with his name—Marcellus Benedict. I believe those are the names of two different popes.”

Amanda asked, “How recently would you say this tattoo was worked on?”

The skin at the small of his back was still irritated from the needle. “A week, maybe five days?” She leaned in closer to look at the scrollwork. “This was done in stages. Whoever did this took a long time. Probably months. It’s not the kind of thing you’d forget, and I imagine it’d be very expensive.”

Will held the dead man’s hand in his. “Did you see this under the fingernails?”

“I saw they’re dirty,” she admitted. “That’s fairly typical for a man this age. I can’t do any scrapings. The ME’s office would have a fit and anything I found would be inadmissible because we haven’t established the chain of evidence.”

Will put his nose close to the man’s fingers. “It smells like oil to me.”

Sara smelled for herself. “I can’t tell. The police told me that they checked the outside security cameras. They’re not static. They sweep back and forth across the back lot, which the bad guys obviously knew because they managed not to get caught leaving the body. The time stamp says that Estevez was by the Dumpster at least twelve hours. The smell could be anything.” She rolled over the hand to show Will. “This is more interesting. Estevez obviously worked with his hands. There’s a hardening of the skin on the ball of the thumb and here on the side of the index finger. He held some kind of tool for long periods of time. It would’ve had some weight to it and moved around a bit.”

He asked Amanda, “You said he was unemployed?”

“The state shows he’s been collecting unemployment insurance for almost a year.”

Sara thought of something else. “Can you hand me that?” She pointed to the magnifying glass. Will picked it up and waited as Sara forced open Estevez’s mouth. The jaw was stiff. The tendon popped when she pried open the lips. “Hold it here,” she told Will, indicating he should focus on the upper teeth. “Do you see these tiny indentations in the bottom edges of his top front teeth?” Will leaned in closer, then let Amanda take a look. “These are repetitive impressions. They come from constantly gripping something between his teeth. You see this sort of thing with seamstresses who bite thread or finish carpenters who put nails in their mouth.”