Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
The lab was a world unto itself.
Two thousand square feet of blindingly white tile and stainless steel, kept cold enough to make my breath visible in the air.
The overhead lights buzzed faintly, casting everything in that flat, shadowless glare that left nowhere for secrets to hide.
It smelled of antiseptic and something fainter beneath—the scent of a place where death was examined, cataloged, and ultimately explained.
Lily had set up while I was upstairs. The intake forms were stacked neatly on the desk, the case file started, the autopsy report template pulled up on the computer. She looked up when my footsteps echoed off the stairs, those vivid blue eyes sharp and alert despite the hour.
“Everything’s ready,” she said. “I’ve got the paperwork squared away and the equipment prepped.”
“Good.”
I crossed to my desk and grabbed the clipboard with the autopsy forms, then moved to the hooks by the door. The ritual of preparation was as familiar as breathing—lab coat first, the weight of it settling across my shoulders like armor. Then the heavy canvas apron, tied snug at my waist.
Finally, the gloves. I blew into each one before sliding my hands inside—an old trick from my ER days that warmed the latex just enough to make it bearable against my skin. The snap of them settling into place was its own kind of signal. Time to work.
“Alexa,” I said, “play some Weeknd.”
The opening notes of “Earned It” purred through the speakers, all smoky bass and seduction.
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Lily was already on her feet, waving her hands. “Alexa, stop.”
The music cut off. I raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”
“That song is on Cole’s…” She paused, color rising in her cheeks. “Playlist.”
“His playlist.”
“His playlist playlist. The one he puts on when we’re…” She gestured vaguely, her face now roughly the color of a tomato.
“Ah.” I bit back a smile. “So you’re telling me you can’t focus on an autopsy while listening to the same song you and Cole—”
“Can we please just pick something else?”
I laughed. “Alexa, play Bon Jovi.”
The opening riff of “Wanted Dead or Alive” filled the lab, and Lily’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Though we’re going to revisit this conversation later.”
“We absolutely are not.”
“I want to know what else is on the playlist.”
“Very funny.”
I moved to the autopsy table, where Andre Tyrell Washington waited in the black body bag. Lily fell into step beside me, camera in hand, ready to document every step of the process.
I picked up my digital recorder and felt its familiar weight settle into my palm.
Some coroners relied entirely on digital transcription these days, but I preferred the old ways.
The recorder backed up my handwritten notes, my sketches, my photographs.
Technology failed. Paper endured. And I’d learned the hard way to always have redundancy.
“Recorder on.” My voice shifted into clinical mode, steady and precise. “Dr. J.J. Graves performing the autopsy of Andre Tyrell Washington, case number 2024-0547, on May twenty-eighth. Assisting is Lily Jacobs.”
I unzipped the bag.
The moving blanket we’d documented at the scene was gone now, sent to the state lab in Richmond for fiber analysis. What remained was the man himself—or what was left of him after days of brutality.
“Let’s get his clothes off first,” I said. “Document everything as we go.”
I’d learned the hard way to remove clothing while the body was still in the bag—any fibers or trace evidence would be caught in the plastic rather than lost to the floor.
Lily photographed each item as I cut it away—jeans, worn soft at the knees and stained with blood.
A T-shirt, once white, now a roadmap of violence.
No shoes, no socks. His feet were still bare, still covered in the residue I’d noted at the scene.
“Victim is clothed in blue denim jeans, size thirty-four waist, thirty-four inseam. White cotton T-shirt, size extra large, with extensive blood staining on the anterior surface.” I went through his pockets methodically—empty, all of them.
No wallet, no phone, no keys. Nothing to identify him beyond the name we’d already learned.
“No personal effects recovered from clothing.”
With the clothes bagged and labeled, we lifted him from the body bag and onto the table using the electronic pulley system—a strap beneath his torso, a switch, and the mechanical whir of the lift doing the work that would have wrecked my back.
“Victim is an African American male, well developed, well nourished.” I pulled the measuring tape from my pocket, stretching it along the length of his body. “Height is one hundred eighty-eight centimeters.”
The table’s built-in scale gave me the rest. “Weight is ninety-nine point eight kilograms.”
I began the external examination at his head and worked my way down, documenting every wound, every scar, every mark that told the story of who this man had been.
“Severe facial trauma,” I recorded, leaning close to study the damage.
“Left orbital fracture with significant depression. Nasal fracture with lateral displacement—this is at least the third fracture to this area based on the scarring pattern and bone remodeling. Mandibular fractures, bilateral. Extensive bruising and swelling throughout the facial region.”
I tilted his head to examine the entry wound I’d documented at the scene. Under the surgical lights, with the blood cleaned away, I could see more than I’d been able to in the field.
“Single penetrating gunshot wound to the posterior cranium,” I recorded, measuring carefully.
“Wound diameter is six millimeters—consistent with a .22 caliber round. Soot deposits visible within the wound track.” That was new.
At the scene I’d noted the stippling, but the soot told me the muzzle had been even closer than I’d initially thought. Near contact. Inches away.
Whoever pulled the trigger had been close enough to feel his breath.
“I’ll confirm the bullet’s position and trajectory on x-ray,” I said.
His head was shaved clean, the scalp smooth except for a small scar near his left temple—old and faded—the kind of mark that came from stitches long since removed.
“Let’s get a better look at that tattoo,” I said.
At the scene, I’d only been able to see part of it through the blood and grime. Now, with better light and a damp cloth to clean the area, the full design emerged on the back of his neck, just below the hairline.
It was an eagle—wings spread wide, talons extended, rendered in stark black ink with military precision. Beneath it, in small block letters—USMC. And below that, a series of numbers that looked like a unit designation.
“Tattoo on posterior neck,” I recorded. “Eagle design with USMC text and numerical designation, possibly unit identification. Professional quality, approximately five centimeters in height, well healed.”
A Marine. Andre Tyrell Washington had been a Marine before he’d been a construction worker, before he’d been a fighter, before he’d ended up on my table. I filed that away, another piece of the puzzle that Jack and Cole would need to chase down.
I continued down his body, cataloging the evidence of years spent in combat—not the military kind, but the kind that happened in rings or on the street.
“Hands show significant damage consistent with long-term fighting.” I lifted his right hand, examining the knuckles under the magnifying lens.
“Extensive callusing across all metacarpophalangeal joints. Palpable deformity of second and third metacarpals consistent with multiple healed fractures. Similar findings on the left hand affecting the fourth and fifth metacarpals.”
“He broke his hands a lot,” Lily observed.
“Repeatedly, over years.” I flexed his fingers gently, feeling the way the joints ground against each other where they should have moved smoothly. “And he’s not that old. He started young—mid-teens, probably, to have this much accumulated damage.”
The old damage was expected. I’d seen it at the scene and knew what it meant. But what the autopsy gave me that the field exam couldn’t was confirmation of timing.
“All phalanges show perimortem fractures,” I recorded, examining the tissue surrounding each break under the magnifying lens.
“Vital reaction is present—edema and early hemorrhagic response in surrounding soft tissue, indicating fractures were sustained while the subject was still alive.” I set his hand down carefully.
“These injuries occurred hours before death, not after.”
“He was conscious?” Lily asked.
“His body was still mounting an inflammatory response. You don’t get that postmortem.” I moved to the next hand, documenting the same findings. “He felt every one.”
Lily was quiet for a long moment after that, the camera still in her hands.
I moved to his torso, where the real brutality became apparent.
“Multiple contusions to the anterior and lateral chest and abdomen.” I measured each bruise, photographed it, noted its position on my body diagram.
“Bruising shows variation in coloration—some contusions appear fresh, dark purple to black, while others display green and yellow margins consistent with healing over twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
Lily was quiet as she documented, the camera clicking in steady rhythm.
“He was worked over for a couple of days,” I said, not for the recorder but for her. “At least two, maybe three, based on the healing patterns.”
“While he was restrained.”
“Yes.” I moved to his wrists, where the zip-tie marks cut deep into his skin. “Ligature marks on both wrists, consistent with zip-tie restraints. Deep tissue damage with evidence of significant resistance—he fought against the restraints hard enough to tear his own skin.”
No old marks beneath the fresh wounds, though. Whatever had happened to Andre Tyrell Washington, it had happened fast.