“I’ll reserve judgment until I know what’s going on. Should I ask for a time of death?”

“Eight to twelve hours. Rigor is moderate. The inferior portions of her thighs and calves are swollen and red—lividity combined with the upward percolation of the blood that she’s sitting in. That takes time.”

Decker nodded. Dee had died somewhere between five and nine in the morning. Certainly enough time for someone to come down from the mountain and take her out as well.

The coroner proceeded to bag Dee’s hands. “There’s gunpowder residue here.”

“She fired the gun,” Baum said.

“Not the gun,” Liu corrected. “A gun. If she had been deep asleep or drugged up, someone could have done it for her. Just popped it in her mouth and fired the trigger. We’ll know more once we’ve done the blood work-up.”

“Does it look like suicide to you?” Baum asked.

“Sure.”

“But it could be homicide,” Martinez said.

“Sure.”

Decker said, “Anything left of her mouth?”

“Some of the front portion of the maxilla is still intact.” Liu took out a dental mirror from his bag and slipped it between blue lips. A small beam of light that had been attached to the handle gave him some visibility inside the dark cavity. “Yeah, the incisors and canines are still there. It looks like the bullet caught the back edge of the bony palate, deflected upward and backward through the brain stem.”

“Any soft palate left?” Decker asked.

“Nothing.”

“Hard palate?” Decker asked.

“Yeah, a few tissue shreds behind the incisors…more, actually. It goes to the premolars. I can even see the start of her palatal torus, but everything’s pretty roasted back there.”

“Any cuts or lacerations on it?”

“Can’t tell.” Liu pulled the mirror out. “What are you thinking?”

“If she had been coerced, she might have struggled and the nose of the gun might have cut her palate and cheeks.”

“Her buccal mucosa is charred from the heat of the bullet.” He considered Decker’s thoughts. “I’ll look when I have her on the table and opened up.”

“Also, if you can say something about the amount of powder on her hands,” Decker said. “If someone did this to her—had his hand over Dee’s hand when the trigger was pulled—some of the powder must have wound up on the shooter’s hand as well.”

Liu said, “So maybe you should go out and look for someone with gunpowder residue.”

“So you’re saying it wasn’t suicide,” Baum said.

“I’m not saying anything,” Liu said. “I’m just saying if you have a suspect, test him for gunpowder residue.”

A great idea, except at the moment, there was no suspect. “Where’s the gun?”

“It’s been bagged,” Martinez said.

“The bullet?”

“Embedded into the wall,” Baum said. “Techs’ll get it.”