16
Evan took a deep breath and opened the door to the autopsy suite. It was late in the day and already dark outside. The fingerprinting hadn’t taken that long, but annoyance still simmered in his gut that he’d had to do it. He’d texted Rowan to check in, and she’d replied with a photo of Thor looking very sad and said it was because Evan was still at work. And then sent three red hearts.
He’d spent a few minutes in the parking lot arguing with himself. Duty, guilt, and fear had battled inside him. Fear had finally been overcome, and he’d entered the medical examiner’s building.
Evan didn’t know the exact source of the fear. Fear of seeing Rod’s abused body again? Fear he might fall apart during the autopsy? Or fear of seeing something that he wouldn’t forget for the rest of his life?
All of the above.
Evan still struggled with what he’d seen in the junkyard. Rod’s body in the trunk had haunted his hours nonstop, the sight burned into his brain. He didn’t want to add more memories. But there was no getting around it at an autopsy. He could recall visuals from each autopsy he’d ever attended.
A child with bruises covering 80 percent of his body.
A young woman with her head barely attached.
Usually these memories popped up when least expected. Like when he was out to dinner. Or trying to get to sleep. Or grocery shopping.
Inside the suite, Evan stopped to put on the provided protective equipment. The mask helped. It acted as a barricade, helping to hide his emotions. He wished he could pull it over his eyes.
Get yourself together.
His emotions boiled close to the surface. Just the wrong sight or word could make them spill. He didn’t want Rod to see that.
I loved the guy. Why am I scared I’ll fall apart at his autopsy?
Professionalism seemed to be his primary reason. Evan was proud of how he handled his job. He never wanted to be the man who embarrassed the department. He worked by a strict code of ethics and expected the same from his coworkers.
Doesn’t mean I can’t show emotions.
Dr. Natasha Lockhart stood on her little custom platform, which circled the autopsy table. Petite, she’d had to get creative to effectively access her patients. “Glad you could make it, Evan,” she said as he moved closer. Soothing cello music filled the room. A detour from her usual rock songs of past decades, it cast a solemn atmosphere in the cold suite.
Then he realized it was an instrumental cover of a Metallica song.
In spite of his anxiety, he smiled behind the mask. “I needed to be here, Natasha.”
She looked up, meeting his gaze. “I know.”
He finally looked at the body before her. Rod’s chest cavity was open, which meant she’d already done a full external exam. She handed an unidentifiable organ to her assistant to weigh.
“You said you’d tell me your history with Rod,” Evan said, remembering her tears at the junkyard. He glanced at her assistant, wondering if the medical examiner would share in front of her.
“I did.” Natasha set a blade on a stainless steel table next to a spread of forceps, scalpels, scissors, and knives of every size. “Marina already knows the story. I told her before we started today.”
Her assistant nodded, sympathetic brown eyes flashing behind her shield.
“It was more than a decade ago. I’d just finished medical school and was about to start my residency when my mother was killed in a hit-and-run.”
“I’m so sorry, Natasha.” Evan had a hunch where her story was going.
“My grandmother lived with my mother and depended heavily on her. My grandfather had died twenty years before, and my father had remarried and moved away long ago.” She looked at the body. “Rod handled the hit-and-run investigation and promised me over and over that he’d find who killed my mother. But now my grandmother was alone, and I realized I needed to leave school to care for her. She wouldn’t go to an assisted living place; that was out of the question for her. And I agreed.”
“Rod wouldn’t hear of you leaving school.” When Evan had considered getting his master’s in public safety administration, Rod had been his biggest supporter, and had pushed hard for him to continue when he nearly quit. Evan could see him doing the same for Natasha.
“Correct. He found a network of good people to care for her in her home. His wife, Ellen, helped. She’d even visit my grandmother for tea and conversation several times a week. She understood the need for companionship, and my grandmother adored her. Because of them, I didn’t feel like I’d abandoned her. They treated her like family. They helped for four years, and I grew close to both Rod and Ellen. It crushed me when Ellen died too.”
“How did I not know this?” asked Evan. “I remember Ellen was helping the grandmother of an out-of-state medical student. I never knew it was you or that it had anything to do with one of Rod’s cases.”
“He was probably protecting my privacy. It was my story to share with people, not his.”
“Rod found the driver?”
“He did. It took five long and agonizing months. But the man served time in prison for it.”
“Do you have any family left?” Evan regretted the question the second he asked it.
“Family by blood, no. But I have the family I chose. Amazing friends who have always stood by me.”
“The best kind. I’m glad to hear it.” Evan felt more centered, no longer battling with himself. Hearing her story about Rod and Ellen had made his fears diminish. He turned his attention to the body on the table.
That’s not Rod. This was just the carrier for his energy, his passions, his skills.
Rod is gone.
Evan slowly exhaled. “What have you found so far?” he asked.
Natasha’s eyes saddened. “He had horrible coronary disease that I suspect he purposefully ignored. There’s no way his doctor didn’t know about it, and it would have caught up with him soon.”
“Damn.” Evan couldn’t recall Rod ever mentioning a heart condition. What he did recall was Rod being out of breath as they climbed the stairs in a restaurant. He’d claimed he’d been sick recently and had some lingering effects.
Not true.
“His digestive system is completely empty. He hadn’t eaten.”
“They starved him,” Evan said flatly, anger spreading through his veins.
“I wouldn’t say starved . I’ve seen starved and this isn’t it. But he would have been hungry.” She pointed at his wrist. “Ligature marks. I found some tiny natural fibers in the wounds that I’m ninety percent certain are from basic rope. It chafed the skin raw in places.”
“Tied up and hungry.”
“Ankles had been tied up too. And as I pointed out at the junkyard, the lividity didn’t match his position in the trunk. He died while on his back, not his side. There are some odd little shapes that blanched the skin of his back when he lay on something for a period of time after death. I don’t know what would cause them.”
“Show me.”
Natasha gestured for Marina to help, and the women rolled Rod to his side. Evan studied the three little white shapes. He could only describe them as mushrooms—but not really. Each had a long stem with a small disconnected umbrella shape at the top.
“I don’t know what those are either.” Evan removed his gloves and snapped a picture with his phone. “Is that a tattoo?” Surprised, he leaned closer to study a pattern low on Rod’s hip. It hadn’t been noticeable at the junkyard because Rod had been lying on that side.
“Yes. It’s a ship. Mean anything to you?”
“Not that I can think of. He used to tease Ellen that he wanted to live on a boat after they retired, and she had a very low opinion of that idea. I think he only said it to get a rise out of her.”
“Look here.” Natasha lowered Rod and turned back the skin tissue that had been folded open from his chest.
Evan couldn’t keep from glancing in the chest. Clearly the lungs had been removed, but the remainder of the organs were unknown lumps to him. On the skin, Natasha indicated several small round marks; he recognized them immediately. “Cigarette burns. Not very old.”
Charlie Graham had burned Sophia with cigarettes.
Evan made his mind stop racing ahead. “What else?”
“He’s covered in bruises. Big ones. And dozens of recent cuts.” She took a deep breath. “He might have been tortured. Not just randomly beaten.”
“Tortured?” Shock raced through him. He studied the body. What he had thought were death changes of the skin he now recognized as bruising and cuts. They were easier to see with no flies crawling about. “What would they want from him? What makes you think torture?”
Her eyes turned miserable. “His tongue was removed. Before death.”
Evan spun around and strode out the suite door, his vision tunneling, a loud ringing in his ears. Somehow he found his way to the building’s exit, ignoring everyone he passed in the halls. As he pushed through the outside doors into the dark parking lot, he ripped the mask from his face and took deep breaths, Thai food churning in his stomach.
What the hell!
Images of torture assaulted his brain. Natasha hadn’t shown him Rod’s mouth, but his imagination supplied dozens of heinous possibilities.
He strode away from the doors, needing space between himself and the building, distance from its smell, its cold air, its horrors. He ripped off his paper gown, gloves, and booties and angrily shoved them and the mask in a garbage can at the edge of the parking lot.
Then he vomited into the can.
Fuck me.
He’d never gotten sick at an autopsy, an accomplishment that gave him license to tease those who did. Although technically it wasn’t the autopsy that’d made him sick; it was his imagination. He made a beeline for a bench twenty feet away and collapsed onto it, thankful that lighting in the lot was poor and hoping no one had seen him. He ran a hand across his forehead, wiping away heavy sweat.
It’s fifty degrees outside.
I need to go back.
But he wasn’t ready. Going into that autopsy suite had been one of the hardest things he’d done in a long time. Going back a second time seemed impossible.
But duty weighed heavy on him. Rod had been his friend and deserved to have his killer caught. Collecting every bit of information possible was the key to finding that person.
Like the cigarette burns. They could indicate Charlie Graham.
But a lot of people smoke.
Is Graham capable of cutting out someone’s tongue?
He was uncertain. Graham was a bully at heart. Bullies were insecure and lashed out to appear tough, often driven by their own fears. Whoever had mutilated Rod had no empathy and had a twisted need to inflict pain. Graham was definitely an asshole, but Evan didn’t think he was a psychopath.
I could be wrong.
He took several more deep breaths, got to his feet, and headed to his SUV. Opening the back, he grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from his supplies. He rinsed and spit several times and then downed half the drink. More than anything, he wanted to get in the front seat and drive away. But he worried that if he left, he’d never attend another autopsy.
I need to know what else Natasha can tell me.
Evan could have her call him. Or just read her report. But that wasn’t how he operated. He’d given respect to other homicide victims by being present for their autopsies. He wouldn’t do less for Rod. He slammed down the SUV’s rear door and strode back into the building.
In the autopsy suite, he put on more PPE, feeling wasteful that he’d trashed the first set. Natasha and Marina watched him approach, caution in their eyes.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, returning to his original position next to Natasha.
“No apologies needed,” she said. “I had my own moment when I discovered what had happened.”
“Was the ... the tongue ... with the body?” His mouth didn’t want to form the words.
“No.”
“What’s next?” he asked, ready to focus on anything else.
“I’m almost done with the weights and samples from the organs,” said Natasha. “Fluids have been pulled, and Marina is running a preliminary tox screen on his blood. The other fluids and samples will be sent to the lab for testing.”
“Blood and urine?”
“And bile and vitreous humor.”
From the eye.
Evan looked at the head, keeping his gaze on the entry wound in the forehead. Natasha hadn’t opened the skull yet. “You’ve examined the bullet’s point of entry?”
“I have. And it’s two bullets, Evan.”
“He was shot twice? Where is the second?”
“They fired twice in the same spot.” She moved to the head. “Look here. You can see where they pressed the weapon against his forehead. The front sight left an indentation among the heavy stippling.”
Evan saw a small notch jut up from the entry wound. Not every handgun’s front sight was flush with the end of the barrel. It would help narrow down possible weapons. The stippling from the explosion of gunpowder looked like masses of tiny grains of black sand embedded in the skin, starring outward from the wound. He studied the entry. “I wouldn’t have guessed they fired twice. The barrel must not have left the skin before the second shot.”
“It wasn’t until I found a lump at the base of the skull that I realized there had been two shots. One bullet is still under the skin at the base of his skull. The other exited behind his ear.”
“We’ve got a bullet.” Evan couldn’t believe their luck.
The corners of Natasha’s eyes crinkled behind her face shield. “We do.”
I can match the bullet to a gun.
But first I must find the gun.