“Seeds?” Warren said as if he didn’t hear right.

“That’s what they look like,” Val said, stunned. “Do you want to see for yourself. I have another set of booties in my bag.”

Gavin grabbed a pair, placed them over his boots, and came closer. He took the flashlight from Val and as she held back Gabrielle Morgan’s lips, he glanced inside Gabrielle’s mouth. “Holy crap. My guess is that those are seeds too.”

“Jesus, and I didn’t think this case could get any more bizarre,” Warren remarked.

Val shook her head in disbelief and replaced the duct tape back over Gabrielle’s mouth, then sealed Gabrielle’s head tightly in plastic wrap to prevent anything from escaping. Val moved to the hands next.

“Fingerprints,” Gavin said, causing Val to stop mid unravel with her plastic wrap. “Val, can you get her fingerprints before you wrap her hands?” Gavin asked.

“I think so.” Val surveyed Gabrielle’s hands, which were clenched. Luckily, Val was able to loosen the tape and pry the stiff fingertips free without disrupting the tree branches. She took an inkpad and a fingerprint card from her supply bag and pressed the tips on the pad, and then rolled them on a card. The fact that Gabrielle was thought to have killed her son would certainly be cause for Gavin to run her prints, to see if she had any past crimes.

When Val was finished, she wrapped the hands in plastic. It would all be removed and examined far more thoroughly once back in the morgue, where they’d have more control in collecting the evidence. Val rolled the body onto its side to examine the skin on the back, hoping to get an estimate for time of death. “She’s in full rigor.” Val pushed a gloved finger into purple discoloration. “No blanching. Lividity is fixed. It’s consistent with her lying on her back since she died. She hasn’t been moved. So, rigor indicates death happened about eight to thirty-six hours ago. Lividity suggests she’s been dead at least twelve hours.”

“It’s freezing in here. That’s going to change things,” Gavin said.

“Cold will affect rigor mortis, and algor mortis which is the cooling of the body. They both slow down a lot in weather like this,” Val said. “Algor is so unreliable in cold temps, that I’m not going to put much into it. Lividity, which is the pooling of blood in the lowest point of the body, usually the parts in contact with the surface the body’s lying on, isn’t affected that much by temperature. This is dependent on when the heart stops beating and there’s no more blood pressure.”