“All right, this is what you should look for. Basically, the severity of the damage is going to depend on the shape and speed of the vehicle. So if your victim was hit by a four-door sedan, he’ll have what we call a bumper injury—on his legs, same height as the bumper. If, say, the victim was hit by one of the university buses with the flat faces, he’d have injuries on his chest.”

“It was a BMW.”

“Really? Huh. Those techs,” she shakes her head, “they were all saying it was a bus and speculating about how the university would handle it. There’s a rumor that if you get hit by a bus, you get free tuition. Not that it would matter in this case”—she crosses her eyes and draws her finger across her neck—“but anyway, speed matters here, too. If it’s a low-speed collision, say around fifteen miles per hour, the victim will land in front or to the side of the vehicle—this can still be bad because the victim could get run over or even dragged…” Her eyes light on Teddy, and for a twisted moment I think she’s hoping for this out of medical curiosity. But neither of us move.

“Okay,” she continues with just a hint of disappointment, “if it’s medium speed—anywhere from twenty to forty miles per hour—the victim might get thrown up onto the hood or against the front windshield of the vehicle, but if it’s high speed—anywhere from forty-five to, I don’t know, seventy-five miles an hour, the victim would be flung into the air and then crash onto the ground. They may be found thirty or forty feet from the site of impact. And often it’s hitting the ground that does the worst damage—severe head trauma, brain meeting road—even if the skull doesn’t break, the brain bouncing from side to side can cause tearing of the internal lining, tissues, and blood vessels and then you’ve got internal bleeding, bruising, and swelling. It’s the same kind of trauma you might see if they’d fallen off a building.”

I close my eyes a moment and will the image to disappear.

“Say the driver was going forty-five to fifty,” Teddy asks, “would the victim still be thrown that far?”

“Maybe.” Cindy grabs a boiled peanut. “But not necessarily. Definitely would be tossed up on the window though.”

I think of the blood pooling on the asphalt, crimson stains leaking from our victim’s nose and mouth, and kick Teddy’s foot under the table.

This also confirms what our witnesses said—the driver didn’t slow. If anything—considering the thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit—he sped up. Teddy and I are mouthing words across the table, but Cindy’s too giddy with medical knowledge to notice.