Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
The clock hit nine as I entered the medical examiner’s office through the back and made for the locker room.
It was empty as I shrugged off my clothes and put on my scrubs.
I could smell the lingering scent of decay and bleach.
There were voices echoing down the hall as I covered my hair and glared at myself in the locker mirror.
“Today is going to be good. You’re not going to have an anxiety attack. You were a two-time homecoming queen and runner-up valedictorian, and that has to count for something, dammit. So, get your head in the game.” I smacked the locker shut.
Snapping on my medical mask, I headed for the elevator and down to the morgue.
I could already feel the anxiety creeping its way up as the elevator took me down to the basement.
Good thing I had an extra xannie in my bag for later.
I shifted on my feet, my left knee stiff a bit.
Man, I was going to have to take it slow today.
Good thing Jana didn’t mind me taking more than my usual break if I had to.
As the elevator door opened and I came to the wide door of the morgue, I nearly jumped out of my skin, almost knocking into Cameron.
“Yo, Lena.” The hulking mass of a man nodded his head at me in greeting. There was a small stain of blood on his apron. His eyes lit up behind his goggles. “You good?”
“You know it,” I said, slipping around him.
“Sweet. We got a fresh batch already this morning.”
“I figured.” I went over to the counter, passed the dozens of little square doors housing those fresh batches of bodies Cameron was talking about. Washing my hands in the sink, I snapped on a pair of gloves.
“Jana wants occupants four through eleven tagged and weighed. I’m working with four now.”
“Got it.”
“Be careful of eight when you handle them,” he stated as he went over to one table with a corpse under a sheet. “That one’s going straight to the autopsy suite. A couple of pieces came off just transferring them. Jana said she wants you for that one when the body is ready.”
I could only guess why pieces were falling off, though if it was going to autopsy, it wasn’t the usual poor soul discovered in their tub a week later with the flesh falling off the bone. Those always made me feel bad.
“Accident or murder?”
“My bet is murder.”
I clicked my tongue. “You always bet murder.”
He shrugged. “In this city, it usually is.”
I went over to door five and opened it. Cold air spewed out along with that earthy scent of the dead. Pulling the body out, I had Cameron help me carefully transfer it to a metal bed and move it over to one side with an exam light and a scale.
Number five was an older woman with her tongue and cheek missing.
According to the police, she’d been found dead in her home that way.
An examination later determined her cats had gotten hungry.
Not a great way to go but something told me she would have been glad that her cats were taken care of at least while she was gone.
Mrs. Soo was examined, tagged, weighed, and ready to be released an hour later. By then my damn knee was aching. I took a small break, popping a gabapentin in the bathroom before moving on to number six.
A boy. Seventeen years old.
According to the autopsy records, it was determined the poor kid got caught in a gang fight and was stabbed to death.
As I had taught myself in school, I let the emotions pass through me but not affect me. With a numbness and acceptance I could only learn from the field, I examined the body, tagged and weighed it.
“Wherever you are, kid,” I mumbled softly so Cameron couldn’t hear, “I hope it’s a better place. Or the place you want to be.” I slid the body back in its house, ready to be transferred.
Number seven was an older, heavier set man who—by the hospital records—had died in ICU from sudden organ failure.
Examination later found several toxins in his blood.
Overdose was the most common answer to many of the bodies that showed up alongside gun shots and stab wounds. Still, a report would need to be made.
By the time I was done with seven, the anxiety was starting to take hold a little tighter. But I forced myself onward.
Just get eight ready for autopsy, then take a break.
I went over to door eight and opened it. As I pulled the body halfway out, I froze.
The corpse was covered by a sheet with only their hand exposed at their side. I stared at the hand, unable to look away.
Realization hit me as the blood drained from my face. A strange sound, kind of like a whimper, slipped past my lips.
No. No, it couldn’t be.
The hand was lying palm up. And on the inner wrist was a tattoo. Two snakes curled around each other with a double-edged knife going through them.
I recognized that tattoo.
Because I’d seen it every day down in the basement of the church.
I’d watched Dom’s hands write on his pad enough to notice the tattoo on his inner wrist. And the few times Lez had handed me his knife, I’d seen the same image poking out from under his black sleeve. I’d seen the ink enough to have it engrained into my memory.
I stood there utterly speechless, unable to move.
Which one? Oh god, which one?
“Lena, you okay?” Cameron called from the other side of the room.
I licked my lips as my mouth went dry. “I…um…yeah, I just need a minute.”
My heart was thumping in my ears. Taking a deep breath, I slid the corpse out all the way.
Standing beside it, I stared at the sheet. Visions of the church came roaring back, and it felt like I was on the edge of some place between memory and reality.
What did you do?
I reached out and curled my hand around the sheet. Then slowly drew the cover aside.
For a solid second, I stared at the corpse, trying to process what I was seeing, before I released a shaky breath, letting the cover drop.
Jesus, fuck.
I closed my eyes, covering my face with my elbow.
Not them.
If there had been a chair, I would have sat my ass down. Instead, I dropped my elbow and stood there, trying to get myself calm.
A rush of emotions passed through me from dread to relief, to sadness, then anger.
I shouldn’t feel any of this for them. I shouldn’t have to feel this.
They didn’t deserve my concern or sympathy.
A stinging pain in my palm made me flinch as I realized I was digging my nails into my skin. I released the fist I’d made and forced my emotions away. Regaining my composure, I turned back to examine the body.
The man was built like a brick house, with thick, muscular arms and a wide torso.
I could tell enough from that alone it wasn’t one of the twins.
Not that the twins hadn’t been fit, just that this man looked like he was ready to compete in a body building tournament.
Every part of him was shaved save for the matted brown hair on his head.
He had none of the other tattoos that the twins had save for the double snakes.
The body had been the deciding factor. His face, on the other hand, was practically non-existent. The skull was crushed in, his eyes gone, along with his nose and half his teeth.
Someone or something had done this to him.
“Gruesome, right?” said Cameron behind me. He helped me transfer the body on to a gurney before rolling it over to the weighing station.
“I’m thinking you won your bet.”
Cameron chuckled. “You think? He could have come in from one of the factories. Machine might have crushed him.”
I pressed my fingers into the man’s shoulder, noticing a smattering of dark bruises up his collarbone and along his neck. I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, I just didn’t like to think someone would go to these kinds of lengths. Pretty sick.”
I let my fingers drop from the corpse’s shoulder. I got another bad feeling in my gut, something I couldn’t explain. “When did he come in?” I asked.
“Real early this morning. Found next to a dumpster down river.”
As Cameron went back to weighing a set of organs, I took my time examining the body and preparing it for the autopsy room down the hall. My eyes continued to drift over to the tattoo on his wrist. It had to mean something; it was no coincidence they all had the same one.
What kind of trouble were those two into now?
I shook my head. Didn’t matter. Wasn’t my concern. It was likely a gang related thing anyway, something they would be a part of considering their past.
Throwing the sheet back over him, I tugged on the gurney and rolled it out to the hallway and down to the main exam room.
Sliding past the double doors, I caught Jana’s slender form at one of the counters, packing away a set of samples.
“Good timing, Lena, I was just finishing these up,” she called, not looking my way.
I rolled the corpse over to the examiner station, right underneath the big light.
On one side was a large metal slab filled with tools, from saws to pliers and more than a few types of knives.
Next to that were a few microscopes and a mini fridge for blood samples.
A bigger fridge sat in the corner for the larger samples like hands and feet.
On one wall was an erase board with a few notes scribbled, hardly readable.
Jana packed her last set of samples up and placed them in the fridge. “Looks like we got a looker today.” Her black gaze glanced my way, her medical mask hid any trace of a smile. “You ready or do you need a minute?”
My knees ached only a little and the anxiety was still swelling in my chest, but I nodded anyway. “I’m ready.”
Jana replaced her pair of gloves and retied her apron. “Let’s get to work.”
We started on the face first, since that was where most of the trauma was located. Carefully, I took samples of hair and bone fractures, placing them in little bags.