“That’s just it. We don’t think she was trying to fit in, at all.” Warren continued to stay back from the autopsy table. “So, we can rule out attempting to fill her social calendar. According to her neighbors, she waved when she saw them, but that was all. The boy rarely came outside and when he did, she was with him. They never saw friends of the child at the house. Gabrielle had mentioned on more than one occasion, when pressed, that he was sick a lot and had allergies. That was her excuse. They didn’t buy it. It became neighborhood gossip that Gabrielle was a hypochondriac because of the way she acted with her son. Anyway, this is what the neighbors told the responding officers. We’ll be interviewing them too in more detail over the next several days.”

“He was sick the day he disappeared,” Val reminded them. “He fell down and then went to the nurse’s office and vomited.”

“And that fact,” Gavin said, “is concerning.”

“The mother’s actions, now that I’ve heard all of that, have the hallmarks of a possible abusive household.” Dr. Maddox stopped removing organs and looked up. “Rich or poor, however you look at it, abuse happens everywhere. The fact that he was sick is raising my red flags.”

“You’re right,” Warren said. “They’re either hiding from someone, or she doesn’t want anyone to know what she’s doing to her kid. Or planning to do to her kid.”

“We hope to interview the boy’s teachers and classmates soon. He might have confided in one of them if something wasn’t right at home,” Gavin said.

Dr. Maddox continued with the autopsy. Now that Gabrielle’s organs had been weighed, he moved to sectioning them. “This is odd. Her lungs are edematous. There’s fluid in them.” He tilted his head, peering at the contents. “She had pretty strong congestion at the end. I’ll test for any pathogens to find out what she had.”

“How sick was she?” Gavin asked.

“Hard to say. People react differently to physical ailments. What might make one person want to lie in bed all day, would only make another go to work and struggle through it. Some people just tough it out more. Could she have functioned with this amount of congestion? Yes.”

Dr. Maddox moved on to the other organs, cutting through each. The specimens would have samples prepared and these would be sent to the histology lab to check for any abnormalities. Others would go to the toxicology lab to investigate for drugs or poisons. He stopped mid slice with Gabrielle’s liver. “Would you look at that!”

Val noticed the problem immediately. And the significance.

“What’s that?” Gavin asked.

“That’s a tumor,” Dr. Maddox said.

“She had liver cancer?” Gavin asked, coming closer to get a better look.

“More than likely this is not liver cancer,” Dr. Maddox answered.