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“If no one on this street is brave enough to stick around and make a statement,” Aubree looks up from her work, squinting from the sunlight, “then who called the cops?”
“According to dispatch’s transcription, the lady down at the seamstress shop called.” I point for the doctors. “Glenda Morris. She’s up next. I haven’t had a chance to look into her business yet, but we’ll get to that soon.” I meet Aubree’s sky-blue stare—the same stare my future nieces or nephews are likely to inherit if she and my brother eventually marry. Or, well… go to bed together. “She’s been here awhile, according to the uniform we talked to. Maybe she feels protected. Or maybe she felt petty robbery is no big deal, but killing a dude is something she should report.”
“Either way,” Fletch cuts in, “she’s our next stop.” He nods for Minka when she reaches under the vic’s body, much the same way I did. “Can we get that wallet out and an I.D.? Once we do, we can move forward.”
“I was going to, anyway.” Grumbling, she feels around beneath our John Doe’s body with a gloved hand, battling with his two-hundred-ish pounds. His six foot frame. She rolls his hip and fights with the denim, then she frees the wallet from his back pocket and reveals dark brown leather.Finally, she flips it open, only to startle when she’s met with something shiny. “Shit!”
“He’s a cop.” Fletch snags his phone, dialing and slamming the device to his ear. “For fuck’s sake, Arch. He’s a cop.”
“Hold on a sec.” I place my hand on Minka’s stiff shoulder, holding her still before she touches the body more. “We need to call this in and get new instructions.”
“Lieutenant,” Fletch snarls, turning on his heels and walking just three feet before he spins back. “Our G.S.V. over on Marigold is a cop. He’s carrying I.D. and his badge. No weapons have been recovered. No holsters that I can see. No cuffs. Could be U.C., I suppose. But?—”
“Or maybe he’s just off duty,” Minka adds. Finally, she speaks without poison dripping from her every word. But she twists her neck and looks up at me. “Do you often wear a vest to work, Detective?” Before I can answer—to tell her no, I rarely do—she adds, “Perhaps now is the time you should start. A vest would’ve saved this cop’s life.”
“Lieutenant Fabian’s coming out,” Fletch announces, killing his call and squeezing the phone in his hand. Veins fill and throb in his forearms. His jawline, flexing from the rage he works hard to contain. “Case is still ours, but Fabian wants to be here for it.”
“Undercover or off duty,” Aubree murmurs, placing the bloody wallet on the ground and leaving it wide open for Minka to photograph. “Lucas Mercer is now a dead cop, Detectives. Maybe Doctor Mayet and I should be the ones guarding your backs.”
MINKA
“I’m less angry at Detective Fletcher now that we have a dead cop on our slab.” I slide my protective visor down and reach back to tie the laces on my plastic apron. Soft, instrumental music plays from Aubree’s phone in the corner of the autopsy suite, while Doctor Emeri herself works to remember she’s not playing second fiddle today.
She’s accustomed to assisting me in an autopsy. She’s to photograph. Document. Measure and weigh. While I get to cut and biopsy. I get the less tedious jobs, purely because of my seniority and title.
It’s a perk I enjoy. But one I can easily hand over when I have other things on my to-do list.
“I’ve been so angry at him,” I admit. “Because he hurt the feelings of someone I care about. But instead of talking it through like a mature adult, I kill him with my glares and give him the silent treatment instead.”
“Death usually reminds us of what is important.” She slides a pair of gloves onto her hands, stretching the fingers and snapping the latex into place. Then she adds a second pair, but the latter are made of cotton. The materials stick to one another, tangling and snagging as she slips a finger into each allocated gap. “Sometimes we have to be reminded to love those we have in our lives. Not take their presence for granted. That kinda stuff.”
“You’re lucky, I think.” I don’t press my hand to my stomach, though I want to. Nerves batter inside and attempt to make me sick. “Being in love with a cop, while autopsying a cop,freakin’ sucks.”
“Sure,” she snorts, grabbing another pair of latex gloves and reinforcing her protective layers. “I’m the lucky one in love. What with the fact my heart yearns for a man I’m not sure is wise, nor likely to lead anywhere fruitful.” She finishes her gloves and glances at me over the top of her raised hands. “I’m ready.”
“You have to find the missing slug with your fingers.” I know she knows, but I say the words out loud, if only to settle my nerves. “No tools, no knives, no machinery. The steel casing is likely to be jagged. That poses a danger to you, Doctor Emeri.”
“We’ve pulled Detective Mercer’s medical records. He has no history of blood-borne disease. No HIV, HCV, or HBV. No documented history of syphilis or malaria. Nothing I need to worry about.”
“There’s always something to worry about when we’re mixing body fluids. Go slow. Be careful. And if you think you’ve found it, don’t tear your gloves. If you do?—”
“Retract, sterilize, examine, then re-glove.” She looks down at the body, naked as the day he was born, and tilts her head to study the single-entry wound. “Can you document scars, tattoos, and freckles while I’m working on this? Stay close by, but?—”
“I’ll stay close.” I watch, staring so hard, I’m certain she’ll feel the warmth, as she slowly probes Detective Mercer’s bullet wound. “That’s a mid-range shot, if we’re just eyeballing it.”
“I agree.” Cautiously, she slides her pointer finger into the hole left behind, yet her eyes go to the ceiling. She’s exploring by touch and clearing out all other images from her mind. “Closer, and we’d see the burn. Penetrating wound enters through the intercostal and then trends down.” She nibbles on her lip while she probes the wound. “Fractured ribs.”
“Can you find the slug?”
She nods, long before her brain registers the words. “Yeah. I feel it. Breached the lung. It’s spongy and filled with blood.”
“I’d say we have cause of death.” I make notes on a page fastened to a clipboard. Not only of our newfound C.O.D., but of the small scar on Lucas’ left rib cage. It’s old and healed, but it goes in the report. Then a mole only three inches from the scar. That, too, is written down. “Five-inch achromic nevus situated approximately two inches from his navel.” I make note of the pigment-less birthmark and glance up at movement outside our autopsy suite.
Techs move by our windows all day long. I long ago grew accustomed to a building fitted with glass walls everywhere I turn. But my staff are not thereason I look up now. Rather, cops. A dozen of them loiter near the elevator. Grim faces and fiery eyes. They know we have their brother on our slab, and though I meet the stare of the cop closest to our suite, he only continues to watch.
Study.
Judge, probably.
