Chapter 21 Vigilance is Key #2
Taking Cristiano and Mikko’s silence as his cue to continue, Joseph gripped the edge of the sheet before peeling it back to reveal Ivan’s pale face.
Even though he’d seen his fair share of deceased people, it never dulled the shock.
But amongst the surprise he felt, Mikko’s observant gaze caught on the fleshy hole in his forehead.
Bruises littered his now gray toned face, evidence that the wounds had been exacted right before his death.
Everything Mikko’s men had inflicted nearly a month ago had healed.
Only smaller scars remained from that exchange.
Yet a larger clue had his stomach dropping.
Where Ivan’s eyes should’ve been were gaping holes. Cristiano hadn’t been exaggerating when he said Ivan had been mutilated.
“It appears whoever plucked his eyes out, waited until he was dead,” Joseph said, answering the unspoken question cloaking the entire room.
“As for his fatal wounds, he was shot once in the head and twice in the chest, though I am unsure of which was the killing blow.” Joseph hovered his hand right above the sheet where Mikko presumed those other two holes were located.
“I’m not sure if that’s reassuring to know,” Cristiano spoke up.
Dropping his hand, the mortician continued, “If I was in his shoes, I’d prefer to be dead before someone started dismantling my body.”
“Good to know.” Mikko’s voice was quieter, contemplative.
Death was common, everyone knew that, but something about this was eerie. His mind searched for the reason, determined to prove that he was not growing weak as he aged. Other aspects of his life may be unraveling, but not this one—
Suddenly, he knew why.
Ivan was clean, devoid of blood, and lacking the grime usually coating the bodies Mikko interacted with. This, the pristine condition of Ivan’s body minus the deathblows, made the experience more grotesque.
And Mikko hated it. Death was harder for his brain to process when it lacked violence. A cause. When that was all he’d known growing up, the absence of it was jarring. Joseph glanced at Mikko from the corner of his eye as he swallowed audibly. Mikko waited for the mortician to go on.
“I apologize for my crudeness, but in this field it’s pertinent to look at the positives.”
Mikko nodded, his mind wandering to another time—to another death that had rocked his world.
His mom.
“With a little makeup, he’ll look good as new,” Joseph added.
“I have no doubt.” Mikko said as his hand accidentally brushed against the icy gurney making his jaw clench.
Again, he was unwillingly transported back in time to his mom’s body laying carefully within a casket.
She’d been devoid of life and blood and violence even though cancer had ravaged her body.
He recalled how her skin had been cold under his touch, and the makeup someone had slathered onto her face looked terrible.
She would’ve hated that, was all his younger self had thought about then.
“—victim’s autopsy went well,” Joseph’s voice faded back in and Mikko worked to unclench his jaw.
“Everything seemed conducive with him being shot three times; a robbery gone wrong perhaps since his body was found in an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district along the river. It’s a well traveled thoroughfare that has new people coming and going every day.
” He cleared his throat before continuing, “That is, if I overlooked his eyes being removed, and when I looked deeper, excuse the pun, I determined nothing about his death was normal.
“I determined that his eyes had been removed post-mortem, an act that would take time and most likely was done to send a message. They might’ve even been kept as a trophy by the killer since the victim’s eyes still haven’t been located.
A typical robbery wouldn’t entail this level of detail—of blatant malice. ”
“I agree,” Mikko said.
“Good. Do you know of anyone who might’ve been involved with Mr. Morovich? Anyone he owed money to, secrets, revenge? Who would’ve wanted to get back at him in this way?”
Mikko and Cristiano shared a look before the former spoke. “In our line of work, that list of people is far longer than would be helpful, unfortunately”
“Still, it’s a place to start. Nevertheless, after I noted his injuries there, I examined a fairly clean incision starting right above his belly button and ending a few inches below his Xiphoid process.
” Joseph donned a disposable glove and traced where the cut would be on Ivan’s torso over the sheet.
“Once I reopened the hastily sutured wound, I came across something abnormal.”
“More than his eyes being gone and the large cut on his stomach?” Cristiano countered, untucking his chin from his shirt to speak before retracting back inside the fabric again.
Joseph’s fluffy white eyebrow raised. “You tell me.” The mortician reached over Ivan’s unveiled face and produced a bag from a cart sitting there, keys evident in the bottom corner. “I found car keys planted in the victim’s torso.”
Dread swelled in Mikko’s gut as he looked from Ivan’s motionless body to Joseph.
“They’re yours, I hear,” the older man continued.
Silence stretched taut between them.
Mikko crept closer, the plastic’s glare making it hard to discern the keys inside completely. But Mikko didn’t have to see them, he already knew.
And once the glare was gone…
Mikko’s jaw clamped down.
Sure enough, there inside the bag was a set of Audi car keys.
The small golden locket containing a photo of him and his mother inside glinted in the lights like a taunt.
At least now he knew where they went, and why they’d been stolen from his penthouse in the first place.
And he knew who’d done it…now he had to corner her and prove it.
“Do you know why your keys would be inside the victim’s body?” Joseph asked. His insinuation wasn’t lost on Mikko, his own deductions pointing at him too if he’d been in an outsider’s shoes witnessing this.
But, for once, Mikko hadn’t committed this atrocity.
“If I did, do you think I’d be standing here letting you interrogate me like a second class citizen?” Mikko asked coldly.
The idea of someone toying with him was driving him up the wall, all while Joseph thought he knew everything because the bodies he dissected “told stories.”
Undeterred by Mikko’s unfriendly response, Joseph continued. “Can’t blame me for askin’ though, can you?”
Mikko shook his head.
“The police were also curious, but once they discovered the keys were yours, their motivation disappeared…” Not surprising since more than half of the police force were in his pockets, doing his bidding on the side.
Joseph let his words, a terribly veiled threat, hang in the air while he pulled the sheet back up over Ivan’s face.
Pivoting to face a line of casework along one wall in the room, Joseph placed the bag containing Mikko’s Audi keys into a bin inside one of the many drawers.
Stepping back, Joseph locked it before letting the key slip back amongst the others at his waist. The cheerful jingle was at odds with everything else surrounding the men.
Joseph’s suspicion wasn’t misdirected, Mikko understood that, but it still irked him. “If it helps at all, I’m just as perplexed as to why my keys ended up in his body,” Mikko said.
“I want to believe you,” Joseph responded, but he still sounded apprehensive.
Cristiano piped up. “Did this incision also occur after he died?”
“I believe so. There was little blood or bruising marring the stitches which means Ivan’s heart wasn’t pumping anymore. Regardless, it was a decently precise cut like the person knew what they were doing and had either sedated the victim or restrained them while performing the act.”
Mikko interjected. “Or had they already killed them?”
Joseph nodded solemnly. “Perhaps, it’s someone in your line of work?”
The insinuation made Mikko’s gut clench, a small wave of frustration curling around his heart.
“While our line of work deals with death and blood just as much as yours does, we don’t deal in precision.
It’s cutthroat, efficiency over cleanliness.
Now, your field…that’s a place we could start.
” Mikko knew his emotions were getting the best of him, but the words slipped off his tongue before he could stop them.
He was tired of feeling out of control, but that seemed to be the only sense of structure he had left anymore—continuously grasping at the grains of sand slipping through his fingertips.
Mikko needed to find out why Anika was framing him. And fast.