Robin Jenkins and Christina Clark find the dead body of Violet Hayes in their apartment. They strike an investigation of their own and enlist the help of their neighbor, Finn Dallas.
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THE NOTION OF RIGOR MORTIS HAD FASCINATED ROBIN yet disturbed her at the same time; the concept of watching a body navigate through stages of death from soft warmth to cold stiffness in a matter of hours.
That night, when she had desperately looked through every pulse point in Violet's frame to catch the faint beat that never once touched her fingers, she had noticed that her body had been bent in an awkward shape.
Her observation led to her first conclusion: she had been moved after her death.
The second her fingers had touched her forehead, she had known. It had still been warm, yet it had felt strange. She had noticed her fingers then, shaped like a claw, stiff and rigid.
Her second conclusion: she had been dead for three to eight hours.
That had been her analysis, one she had kept to herself. She didn't know what was in the autopsy report. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.
But now, that email was making the gears in her brain work.
Christina mentioned the live location ended at six. This only meant the time of death was between 6:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Even less. The time it would take her to arrive from Darwin would depend on-
Her head snapped up when she felt a soft tug at her wrist.
"Talk to me." Christina's voice was gentle, barely audible despite the piercing silence in their apartment. Robin blinked. When did they even get there? "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking..." she trailed. "It doesn't add up."
"What doesn't add up?"
"It usually takes an hour walk from here to Darwin. Thirty minutes by train. Twenty by car. I'm positive she had been dead a minimum of three hours before. But you said she was in Darwin at six."
Christina frowned. "How do you..." she shook her head; she would ask questions later, trusting her premise. The last thing she wanted was for Robin to lose her trail of thoughts. "Okay. That means the timeframe of her death is six to-" She counted quickly on her fingers- "Seven-thirty."
"Yes, but..." she ushered, hands hanging in the air, and Christina nodded.
"The time it took her to get here. I don't know." She rushed to the couch, kneeling on the ground before her laptop and typing furiously at it, fingers swiping across the keyboard. "I'm typing it as a question. We can ask Joe about how she got there."
"And why was she there?"
"To see Joe?" She inquired.
"Okay, to see Joe - but she had to get a permit."
Christina's eyes widened. She felt relief surge through her as more information came to light, relieved she wasn't alone in this. "Permit..." she typed it down. "I'll think of a way to get more information about it. She had to have a valid reason to cross. I'll ask around at work."
