Next, Val pulled back the woman’s eyelid and shone the flashlight beam on the eye. “There’s a film that develops on the corneal surface after death, it’s called corneal cloudiness. If the eyes of the victim remained open, this occurs in a couple of hours. These are closed which can delay corneal cloudiness from happening for as much as twenty-four hours. Cloudiness is just beginning, and that’s not temperature dependent either. She hasn’t started to decompose yet, but she’s getting there. That starts at about twenty-four hours, but that is temperature dependent. Given all of this, I’m going to say she’s been dead about twenty-four hours.”

“Don’t people die with their eyes open?” Warren asked. “Wouldn’t someone had to have closed them for her?”

“No. If she closed them herself, maybe in preparation for death they would have stayed closed when she died.” Val pointed to the boy, hesitating for a second, sick to her stomach with what she was about to say. “Her son’s eyes are open. He saw what was about to happen to him.”

“I can’t imagine the terror of that,” Gavin said.

“Neither can I,” Val said, stepping back from both bodies. “I’m going with the same time of death for Adam as well. I can’t do any better here. We’ll have to wait for Dr. Maddox to make his analysis at the morgue to hopefully get a more precise estimate.”

“How’s the new chief medical examiner working out so far?” Warren asked. “We haven’t had a lot of interaction with the guy.”

“He’s all right,” Val said of Dr. Maddox. “A little strict with protocol but seems to know his stuff.”

Another half hour passed as she pored over the victims, finally becoming confident there was nothing more she could do at the crime site. “I’m done. Is there anything more that you need before I bag them up for transport?” Val asked.

“No,” Gavin answered. He jotted down a few notes. “I want the information about the tree branches and seeds kept confidential. This isn’t to be released to the media.” The significance was clear. If this was a double homicide only the killer would know about this oddity. Keeping the detail back would help rule out crazy people who usually come forward to claim that they’ve committed a murder they’ve had nothing to do with.

Val pulled off her Tyvek suit, booties and gloves. These would be bagged with the body. All of her protective clothing possibly contained transferred evidence, and would need to be examined by the crime lab as well. Next, she took out her phone and sent a text to Dr. Maddox, letting him know she’d be leaving soon. Val looked around at the crime scene. With the bodies packed up and ready to go, this wasn’t an ending. No, this was only just beginning.

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