The Breath that Escaped Her

This story is about a murdered anorexic that appears to have died from natural causes. However MG notices all the logs the dead woman kept of every ounce she weighed every half hour.

What madness she must've been caught in to spend her life counting minutes with calories!

Luckily, the log is what tips MG off to what killed her and when. With the help of forensics, MG learns that the last entry in the log places the suspect within the 30 min time frame and the weight of a dead body's last breath will determine that the food in the victim's body plus the weight of the last breath doesn't add up to the weight in the last entry. The murderer knows that if she eats too much or what she considers "bad food", she's going to throw it up. The evidence\weapon will disappear into the drains. There are cuts in the mouth and throat, which forensics dismiss as the normal signs of bulimia- nail scratches from gagging. The stomach lining is shredded which explains the victim's bleeding from the mouth. The signs point to the obvious: this sickly socialite gagged herself one too many times - for the last time was the fatal strike to her weakened body.

The murderer is a dietician/therapist, knowing exactly how foods digest and how long they take while giving her clients psychological profiling and therapy to deal with their eating habits. This is important in knowing when the food containing the weapon would reach the victim's stomach and give her the 'full' feeling.

Once that happens, the victim would be inclined to go vomit. By her vomiting, the weapon would do the damage to her stomach lining and throat on the way up.

To be exact, the murderer is a trained dietician who advises hundreds of young, wealthy, beautiful women in the Beverly Hills area. So, when the suspect speaks about her clients with a silent look of contempt on her face, it doesn't exactly tip MG off about anything other than jealousy.

After all, the suspect is well-built but too short to be a model and past 25 years of age. What does catch MG's attention is when she visits the suspect one day and the woman is now a blonde with bandages on her chin and nose. The dietician is undergoing plastic surgery for something and MG learns that, like most of the suspect's clients, the dietician is also a striving actress. She is desperate to land a role and has saved enough money for PS to look the young, striking part.

The problem is that MG discovers that the suspect and the victim were going after the same role, one in which the suspect learns in confidence from the victim during normal therapy session that she was sleeping with the director.

This is the last straw for the suspect and the only shot MG has at motive – but how will MG find out about it?

MG remembers the dietician as being strong, independent, and level-minded before the PS. But there always was that look of contempt when she spoke about her clients' features or personal lives. Then after the surgery she became obsessed with newspapers, ads circled, which MG catches a glimpse of – all of them were role calls.

She finds out which roll call the suspect wants to go for and visits the director. Out of all the girls he sees on a daily basis, he finds it strange that for some reason – the name of the dietician rings a bell.

MG asks him questions about his dead lover and he remembers that the dietician is the victim's therapist. The suspect's motive is confirmed. Now, for opportunity.

MG learns that the suspect spent unusual amounts of personal time at the victim's home, time of which the director found strange despite the dietician's claim that it was normal for her to make house calls sometimes – especially in the case of sick clients such as the victim with her anorexia. Nevertheless, any of those visits is enough to establish opportunity in MG's eyes.

Now, if she can only find the murder weapon!