“The knife, as well as a wineglass on the nightstand, held her fingerprints,” Walt said, turning his head to look at Avery as they were huddled over the desk. “All of it put her at the scene.”

Avery looked back to the photos. “So, at this point in the crime, when Victoria cuts herself, it was suspected that Cameron Young was already dead?”

“Yes. The theory was that Cameron Young was strangled during some sort of S and M practice. He had whip marks all over his body, so we know whatever was going on that night was quite violent. After he was dead, Victoria Ford attempted to set up the scene to look like a suicide.”

“How did you come to that conclusion?”

“The wounds on Cameron Young’s neck, according to the medical examiner, suggested that he had been strangled with the length of rope initially. Autopsy findings showed that he had suffered what’s called short-drop asphyxiation—congestion in his lungs, petechiae in the eyelids and cheeks, and a host of other findings. We can go over the autopsy results and I can walk you through it. But it was clear that the cause of death was ligature strangulation, possibly the result of erotic asphyxiation. Then, after he was dead, his body was thrown over the balcony. That resulted in what’s called long-drop trauma to his neck—deep ligature gouges and a severed spinal cord. But those wounds were determined to have occurred after he was already dead.”

Avery ran her hands over the photos to organize her thoughts.

“So Victoria kills Cameron Young because he won’t leave his wife.”

“And because he got his wife pregnant after he made Victoria have an abortion.”

Avery slowly nodded. “And how did you learn about the abortion?”

“We subpoenaed her medical records, and then she admitted during an interview that she had had an abortion.”

“And during the abortion there was a complication?”

“Correct,” Walt said. “The procedure left her unable to have children in the future.”

“And this was the DA’s argument for why she killed him?”

“It was.”

“Okay,” Avery said. “So Victoria kills him. Then she comes up with the idea of making it look like a suicide. She ties a second, longer rope around his neck and runs to the closet to secure the rope to the safe, the heaviest thing in the room.”

“Correct.”

“As she is rushing to set the stage of suicide and slice the rope so she can tie it to the safe, she cuts herself with the knife.”

“Correct.”

Avery studied the photo of the bloodied carpeting. “Then she ties the rope and dumps the body over the balcony?”

“Yes, that was the assessment of the crime scene and the prosecution’s argument.”

“Why did she leave the knife?” Avery asked. “If Victoria was setting things up to look like suicide, why would she leave a knife with her fingerprints next to the safe?”