The Innocent Woman

on the base.”
    Dirkson nodded approvingly. “Thank you, doctor. You say you removed this bullet from the body during your autopsy?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Did your autopsy determine the cause of death?”
    “Yes, of course. The bullet was the cause of death. The man had been shot in the heart.”
    “The bullet that you have identified, the one with your initials on it, the one marked for identification People’s Exhibit One?”
    “That’s right.”
    “That bullet was the cause of death?”
    “Yes, it was.”
    “Did you find any other cause of death? Any contributing factors?”
    “No, I did not.”
    “The bullet was, in your opinion, the sole and sufficient cause of death?”
    “Absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind.”
    “I see. Tell me, doctor. Did you determine the time of death?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “And what did you determine that to be?”
    “The decedent met his death on Thursday evening, June tenth, between the hours of seven-thirty and eight-thirty P.M.”
    “Can you tell us how you made that determination, doctor?”
    “Certainly. The decedent met his death approximately two and a half hours before my preliminary examination. You’ll recall I began my examination by ten twenty-nine. I had taken the body temperature by ten thirty-two. The body temperature was ninety-four point nine.” Dr. Stanton smiled. “The rest is simply mathematics. Normal body temperature is, as you know, ninety-eight point six. After death, the body cools. The rate of cooling is approximately one and one half degrees Fahrenheit per hour. The body I examined was ninety-four point nine, which is three point seven degrees cooler than normal. If the body cools one and one half degrees per hour, three degrees would be two hours, and point seven degrees would be approximately a half an hour. So the three point seven degrees of cooling indicated the body had been dead approximately two and a half hours. Since the temperature was taken at ten thirty-two, that put the time of death at approximately eight o’clock. The reasonable parameters when death might have occurred would be seven-thirty to eight-thirty.”
    “You say death could have occurred from seven-thirty to eight-thirty?”
    “That’s right.”
    “When was death most likely to have occurred?”
    “In my opinion, right around eight o’clock.”
    “Thank you, doctor. That’s all.”
    In the back of the courtroom, Tracy Garvin shifted in her seat. Steve Winslow loved to go after doctors. He explained it once that many doctors come across as self-assured and arrogant, and jurors just naturally love to see them torn down. So Steve always did his best to trip them up.
    The problem was, he usually concentrated on the time of death. Usually, it was Steve who brought up the rate of cooling, made the doctor do the math. He used the math to contradict something the doctor had previously said.
    But Dirkson had walked the doctor through the time of death, and in Tracy’s opinion, he had nailed it pretty well. If Tracy thought so, it was a cinch the jurors thought so too. So she wondered just what Steve was going to do.
    It appeared Steve Winslow didn’t know either. He got up, frowned, looked at the doctor, frowned again, and looked around as if trying to think of something to ask. After a moment he walked over to the court reporter’s table, where Dirkson had returned the plastic bag containing the bullet. He picked it up and approached the witness.
    “ This bullet, doctor?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “You have testified that it was this bullet that was the sole and sufficient cause of death of the decedent, Frank Fletcher?”
    “That is correct.”
    “Are you certain of that?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “No secondary cause of death? No contributing factors?”
    Stanton shook his head. “None that was apparent in my autopsy.”
    “And I assume your autopsy was quite thorough?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “Did you test for poisons?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Drugs?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Did you find any?”
    “Nothing significant.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “Exactly what I say. I found nothing that would be significant.”
    Steve smiled. “Did you find anything that was insignificant?”
    “I got a faint positive for cocaine.”
    “A faint positive?”
    “That’s right.:”
    “Is that like a little bit pregnant?”
    “No, it is not. I got a borderline reading that might have been a trace residual effect of recreational