Free The Divine Appointment by Jerome Teel Page A

that didn’t kill her,” Dr. Stephenson explained. “It probably dazed her, then the assailant finished her off by choking her to death.”
    “But it didn’t happen when she fell to the floor?” Brantley inquired.
    “No, she was clearly struck with something before she fell. She does have a small contusion on the back of her head from the fall, but again, that didn’t kill her either.”
    “What was the time of death?” Brantley asked.
    “Probably between twelve thirty and one thirty a.m. I can’t get any more precise than that.” Dr. Stephenson partially removed the drape that covered the torso of the corpse, so as to expose the victim’s arms. “Defensive bruising on the inside of her forearm,” he said, rolling the left arm so the detectives could see the bruises for themselves. He then walked to the other side of the table and rolled Jessica’s right arm to likewise expose the bruises on the inside of her right forearm.
    “She didn’t go down without a fight.” Dodson studied Jessica’s gray, lifeless body. More than anything he wanted to arrest someone—and he hoped it was Dr. Grissom—for this murder. The woman—the young woman, Dodson reminded himself—had been struck on the forehead and strangled while she lay on her own living-room floor. Her life had literally been choked from her. Anything short of frying in the electric chair would be too good for her murderer.
    “No, she didn’t,” Dr. Stephenson concurred. He hobbled to the counter located to the right of the examination table and retrieved a chart containing the complete report from the autopsy. Brantley and Dodson followed.
    “I found skin tissue under the fingernail of the middle finger on her right hand,” Dr. Stephenson said, flipping through several pages in the chart.
    “Not hers, I take it,” Brantley said.
    “Nope,” affirmed Dr. Stephenson. “Probably the assailant’s.”
    Brantley and Dodson thanked Dr. Stephenson for his excellent work and returned to their car. Their investigation into Jessica’s murder was moving rapidly.
    “You remember that bandage on the side of Dr. Grissom’s face?” Dodson asked as he opened the driver’s-side door.
    Brantley peered at Dodson over the top of the car. “Yeah, I do.”
    “I hope it’s his skin Dr. Stephenson found under Jessica’s fingernail.”
    “I hope you’re right.”
    As they sat down in the car and closed the doors, Brantley’s wireless phone chirped. “Brantley,” he answered.
    Dodson could only hear Brantley’s end of the conversation. “Great,” he heard Brantley say. “We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Meet us in Captain Montague’s office.”
    Brantley pressed a button on the telephone to disconnect the call and faced Dodson. “That was Sergeant Crossley. She has a match on one of the prints her team lifted from the crime scene. She’s going to meet us in Captain Montague’s office to see if we have enough to get an arrest warrant.”

    The Metropolitan Nashville Police Headquarters, Nashville, Tennessee
    Sergeant Dodson and Lieutenant Brantley hastily returned to the police department headquarters downtown and met Sergeant Crossley outside the office of Captain Bill Montague. Captain Montague was a thirty-year veteran of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and was in charge of the criminal investigation division.
    “What ya got, Sergeant?” Dodson asked.
    The three detectives waited for Captain Montague in the hall outside his office. Dodson could see Captain Montague through the glass walls that separated his office from the rest of the department. He was standing behind his desk, talking animatedly on the telephone.
    “We found a fingerprint match through the Tennessee Department of Safety for a handgun permit issued in 2001 to a Todd Allen Grissom.” She handed Dodson the report.
    Dodson scanned the report, then passed it to Brantley.
    “Amazing.” Brantley read the report and smiled at Dodson and Sergeant Crossley.