The crime scene techs and the coroner were already there when I pulled my unmarked sedan in behind the two squad cars and other vehicles. It was a two-story home that sat about a hundred feet from the curb at the end of a cul de sac. The neighborhood was one of the upper-class suburbs of the city and probably the least likely place in Nashville I'd have expected to be investigating a murder. From the looks of all the neighbors standing in their yards and watching, they were pretty surprised by all the activity too.
The 911 call had been from a woman who said she found her friend lying on the floor in a pool of blood. The 911 operator told the woman the police were about ten minutes away and that she should leave the house and wait for them.
Jimmy, one of the officers already on the scene, filled me in before I went inside.
"The woman who made the call is in the first squad car, but she doesn't seem to know much. She says she knocked on the door but didn't get an answer. She tried the knob and it opened so she walked in. She called for the victim, but didn't get any answer then either so she started looking. She found the victim on the floor of the kitchen.
"When I went in there to look, I figured the victim was gone because of the size of the blood pool. I didn't want to mess anything up, so all I did was check for a pulse. The woman was dead, but she hadn't been very long. She still felt warm to me. Rudy and I checked the rest of the house in case who ever did this was still there, but it was clear."
I asked if there were any signs someone had broken into the house or if there'd been a robbery. Jimmy said both the front and back doors were unlocked but it didn't appear anyone had gone through any drawers or closets.
I walked in the door and followed the voices into the kitchen. Other than the body on the floor and the blood pool, nothing looked out of place. There was nothing to indicate there had been any sort of a struggle. It just looked like the woman had been standing in front of her kitchen sink, and then fell down on her front and bled out.
The coroner and his assistant were just turning the woman over, but I didn't need to see that to know she'd either been shot or stabbed with a pretty big knife. The blood pool was almost four feet in diameter. It had clotted a little but hadn't dried except around the edges, so I figured Jimmy was right. The woman hadn't been dead for very long.
Barbara, one of the techs, was taking pictures of the scene. Jason, the other tech, saw me and handed me a pair of latex gloves and a pair of booties.
"She was killed by a gunshot, probably a.38 or 9 mil, but we'll have to look at the bullet to tell you for sure. Hit her dead center in the chest and probably got her heart. She'd have bled out in a couple of minutes. It's odd though. It wasn't through and through like I'd expect. Maybe it hit her spine and bounced around instead of making an exit wound. We'll wait here until the coroner gets through and transports the body to the morgue. Then we'll finish up and head back to the shop."
I asked if he'd found any evidence so far.
"No, not really. There's no gun, so that pretty much rules out suicide. There's also no spent case, so the shooter must have used a revolver. Either that, or the shooter was calm and cool enough to pick up the case before leaving. I do know she was facing away from the sink when she was shot. There's a small blood spray on the side of the refrigerator. It's not really big enough for a normal gunshot either, but the pattern is the same. We'll lift fingerprints from everywhere, but I'd bet my left nut they all belong to the victim. Once the coroner takes the body, we'll collect anything that was under her.
The victim was a woman about thirty-five or so it looked to me. She didn't have the lines in her face that would indicate she was much older. She was, or had -been, a pretty woman -- not beautiful, but pretty enough most men would have looked. I felt my neck getting hot because I was getting pissed.
It doesn't do much to me when I see a guy lying dead, but women are a different story. Some would call me a chauvinist, I suppose, but I tend to think of most women as gentle people who are usually far away from any type of crime. There are exceptions, I know, but women aren't supposed to be murdered in their own kitchens.
The woman sitting in the back of the squad car looked to be about forty or so and was also a woman who would turn any man's head. She was still shaking when I introduced myself.
"Hi. I'm Detective Mason. Are you the woman who made the 911 call?"
"Yes. I found Judy like that and called 911."
"Judy? That's the woman's name?"
"Yes, Judy Green."
"What's your name?"
"Melissa Grady."
"Melissa, I know this is hard, but can you tell me what you did and how you found Judy?"
Melissa nodded.
"We were going to have coffee at two this afternoon. We've been doing that on Tuesday and Thursday every week since we met. I got here about ten 'til two and knocked on her door. I knocked three times, but she didn't answer. I tried the doorknob, and the door wasn't locked, so I went in. I thought she might have been in the bathroom or something.
"I called her name several times, but she didn't answer, so after I looked in the bathroom and didn't find her, I went into the kitchen. It's hard to hear someone in the living room from the kitchen, so I thought she was probably in there making something for us and just didn't hear me. When I walked in, there was Judy, laying..."
Melissa sobbed and then wiped her eyes with a tissue.
