Chapter Nineteen #3
“Let’s go see if the ME has anything yet,” Gene said, tucking his notebook into the inner pocket of his coat.
Together, they all headed there.
Standing over the ME, and the dead woman, was the city ME, and he was being a bitch. It was clear he had ruffled feathers and planned on rocking the boat as much as possible.
“Are you sure you know how to…?” he began, only to have Gene shut that shit down.
When on an FBI scene, you didn’t poke the FBI ME. That was a no-go for Gene.
“Hey. How about you call it a night, Doctor Parker?” Gene asked. “We have an ME here, so we’re good to go. There’s no need for you to be up Doctor Fuentes’ ass—unless that’s his kink, or he’s paying for it.”
The man gave him a dirty look when the FBI ME just snickered as he kept working.
Oh, well, Gene could share the fun by giving him one back.
“Had you wanted to be involved in this case, you shouldn’t have tucked tail and bailed this morning. We had questions, and now Doctor Fuentes has to redo your autopsies to give them to us.”
The man protested, just like they knew he would.
“I didn’t miss anything!” he stated.
Gene shrugged.
“Were they restrained?” he asked.
The man stared at him.
“Yes.”
Gene wasn’t done.
“Was there sexual assault?” he asked.
Again, the man answered.
“No.”
That’s when Gene let him have it. ALL OF THAT should have been INCLUDED in the file. It was shit they needed to know to do their job.
“I don’t know how the cops around here solve shit, and frankly, that’s none of my goddamn business, but when the FBI asks for autopsy results, maybe put ALL OF THE RESULTS IN THE REPORT!”
The man bristled.
Dannie cringed because someone was REALLY going to be miserable from here on out. The ME was being called out in front of everyone.
Everyone was staring at the Fed reading the local ME the riot act. Oh, he didn’t blame him, but it was damn uncomfortable to watch.
Gene was making no friends here.
When he was done being pissed, the Fed focused on his ME and started getting as much information as possible.
“Doc, help a guy out. We’re two days in, and I still don’t know more than the basics. What can you tell me?” he asked. “I’ll want confirmation on what the ‘good’ doctor just shared with the class about the restraining and assault.”
Oh, the Fed ME got it.
It was wild that at the two-day mark, the other ME hadn’t given them the basics.
Luis was just finishing liver temp and doing the math with the temperature outside. He held up a finger, used a calculator, and then shared.
“She died a couple hours ago. I’m going to say around nine or ten. Her COD…that’s looking like a single stab wound to the heart. It’s a clean in and out, and likely bisected her aorta. She probably died immediately. I’ll know more on that when I open her up.”
Oh, there was no doubt.
“How about as to being bound or sexually assaulted?” Gene asked, staring right at the other ME as if daring him to say shit.
Luis tried to move her arm, but she was locked up from rigor and the cold.
“I don’t see anything, but when you remove the skin, you take away the visible part.
I’ll have to look at tissue under the microscope.
What I can see is a slight discoloration in the blood vessels on her wrist. I’m going to say yes to being bound.
As for sexual assault, I have to get her in to see that. ”
Gene was curious.
“Can we brush off her face a little more? I can see her features, but we need to get a picture of her so we can figure out who she is.”
Their ME did as they asked, and when he did, Dannie actually moved closer.
“She looks familiar.”
That had Gene and Ethan’s attention.
“She does?” Blackhawk asked.
The man nodded and then looked over at his partner for confirmation.
“Does she look like that attorney at the courthouse? You know, the one who works there?” he asked.
Leah got a little closer and squinted at the woman. Her face was distorted from death.
“Kinda,” she said.
Dannie didn’t let it go.
“What’s her name?” he asked. “I can’t remember it, but I know I’ve seen her there. Vera? Valerie?” he asked, talking it out to figure it out.
Leah tried to help.
“Vina, I think. I don’t know her last name,” she admitted. “I’m pretty sure it’s Vina though.”
Dannie pulled out his phone, and started looking something up, and as he did, Ethan moved closer to him to read over his shoulder.
He was on the town’s website, going through the people who worked for the city.
“There,” Ethan said as he saw a picture of the woman. She had long black hair and was smiling in the photo.
That’s when Dannie saw it.
His partner had been right.
“It’s Vina Beede. She’s one of the attorneys for the city. I knew I saw her at the courthouse before. I think it’s because of her hair and the unique eye color.”
Well, he’d been right about that.
Ethan glanced over at their ME.
“In the picture, she has violet-colored eyes. Can you tell on our victim?” he asked.
The man shook his head.
“She’s a vic-cicle. Her eyes are frozen and cloudy. I’ll need to heat them up to get that for you,” Luis admitted. “It won’t be until morning, he admitted. “I’ll need to get her dentals too.”
When a cop whistled, they all looked over.
He was holding a plastic bag in his hand.
“We found a bag of items,” he admitted. “It was shoved in some of the bushes not far away.”
Gene waved him over.
Thankfully, he was wearing gloves. Now, it was about seeing if it was some homeless person’s stash, or if the killer had dumped this victim’s things.
“We didn’t find anyone else’s things, right?” he asked Dannie.
He shook his head.
“I mean, we found Ivey’s things in her home, but that was it. Nothing from Megan, and nothing from Phylis. We didn’t search the reservation. You guys took over there.”
That they had.
Gene was trying to figure if it was worth their time to walk around out there and see if they found them.
Time would tell.
When they cop put the bag down, both Gene and Ethan were ready to search it. They had gloved up. Well, Gene did over one hand. The other, he kept away from the evidence.
Carefully, Blackhawk opened the bag, and that’s when he found clothing—likely the things that had been cut from her body. They were eviscerated up the front of each garment.
“Jeans, a sweater, a purse, and a light coat,” he said. “All decimated.”
He kept digging.
“A bra, panties, and socks. No shoes,” he stated.
As he was pulling them out, Luis was having one of their techs bag the items for inventory of evidence.
Just.
In.
Case.
“What’s in the purse?” Gene asked, directing his partner to dig in. If they found Vina’s things, that would give them a head start on this.
Oh, and they needed it.
They had four victims, and no idea what the hell was going on.
Blackhawk opened the purse and dug around in it. He pulled out lipstick, a wallet, and a few other items like hair ties, a pencil, and some other makeup.
Opening the wallet, he saw the driver’s license.
“The wallet belongs to Vina Beede,” he said, pulling out the picture and holding it next to the dead woman’s face. “It looks to be her.”
Again, their ME went there.
“I’ll make positive ID with dentals.”
They weren’t shocked. That was normally the hill all MEs were willing to die on.
So to speak.
“That’s her,” Dannie said, seeing a less traumatized face in the license as he held the picture on the phone beside it. “I knew she looked familiar.”
Well, it appeared luck was on their side. The killer wouldn’t have that big of a head start on them.
“Um, something is on her tongue,” Luis said, as he was shining a flashlight into her mouth to find trace for the techs to bag up.
That had Ethan’s attention.
This was what he was looking for to continue profiling. It was odd that they didn’t have the same markers as the first three victims, and he needed to see what the killer was telling them.
“What?” he asked, moving closer.
Luis looked up at the city ME, who was so close to him that he’d be on him with a few more inches.
“Do you mind?” Luis asked. “I need my elbows to be able to bend my arms.”
The man rolled his eyes.
“I’m leaving,” Doctor Parker said. “It’s clear, I’m not needed here.”
Gene went to say something, but Ethan was staring at him. So, instead, he kept his yap shut. Oh, but that was a hard-fought war. He wanted to be so goddamn snarky to the man who suddenly wanted to be up in their business when this morning he wanted the opposite.
No one said anything as the city ME hustled off with that stick up his ass.
With him gone, Luis went back to what he was doing. He was carefully prying open the woman’s mouth with his thumbs.
“Are her lips stitched shut?” Ethan asked.
The man shook his head.
“No, I can feel her tongue,” he said. “It’s the advanced rigor due to the cold that’s making her lock up.”
They waited.
When he finally got her mouth open, he used his penlight and shined it into her mouth.
That’s when they saw it.
On her tongue, something had been burned.
‘Liar.’
It was one word, and it made them all pause. Immediately, Ethan was working on how this connected.
Because it would.
He just needed to figure out the context of this particular message.
“Well, that’s new,” Gene admitted. “Here, I was hoping that it would be three and done. I guess we’re back to the cuckoo party and being held hostage by this killer.”
Yeah, that was what it was looking like.
Now, they’d have no idea how many more victims there would be.
When someone shouted something from outside the police tape, Gene looked over. The media presence had tripled, and they were all over the crime scene. The local police were working damn hard to keep them back.
“Doc, you should get her bagged and tagged. We’re about to have a melee. The reporters have been chomping at the bit to get information. We don’t need a picture of this on the news.”
Oh, and if this got out, he was personally killing the ME since only so many of them had heard her name, and the two cops were right there with them.
Luis understood.