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But as a thirteen-year-old, I wasn’t ready to be unique. What I’d needed was to fit in, to be a little invisible until I could find my comfort zone. That was impossible with Tessa. Was it any wonder that I’d rebelled and found a different way to hide and feel comfortable? Or at least, what felt like comfort.
Carl remained silent, but it didn’t feel judgmental. It simply seemed as if he was waiting for me to digest his comment on my own, and he’d be there to pick up the conversation when I did. I felt an odd surge of gratitude toward him. I had a few friends who knew that I summoned demons, but somehow talking it out with Carl was different, and it felt oddly freeing to be able to discuss bizarre shit like this.
“She’s different,” I said at last.
“That she is,” Carl agreed.
I shook my head. “No, I mean…since she woke up.” My aunt’s essence had been stripped from her body by a serial killer, and it had taken me several weeks to find a way to call her back to herself.
His eyes met mine. “I know.”
“I don’t think she wants to summon anymore.”
“I think you’re right.”
I tilted my head. “Do you know why? I mean…has she said anything?”
“Not to me.”
Our conversation was cut off by the entrance of Dr. Lanza. A slender man about my height with distinct Italian coloring and features, he had an easygoing manner that had done much to put me at ease when I was still learning the ropes of investigating homicides. And now I’m an old hand at this whole find-the-murderer thing, I thought with mild amusement.
Dr. Lanza shot me a warm smile as he pulled protective clothing over his jeans and New Orleans Hornets T-shirt. “You must have some dark suspicions, Kara,” he said, his smile teasing.
“C’mon, Doc, I always have dark suspicions,” I replied with an easy grin, automatically slipping away from the confiding and open mood of the conversation with Carl and into the tone that I maintained with everyone else—the ones who had no clue that there was more to our world than what was apparent to the usual five senses. I was used to it. Humor, and lots of caution about what I said and asked. But I was damn grateful that there were people with whom I could discuss the more bizarre details.
“Luckily, that’s part of your job description,” Doc said as he lifted a scalpel and started in on the Y incision. “So, yes, your two victims both had nosebleeds, but those can be caused by a lot of things,” Doc said as he filleted the skin and flesh away from the ribs. I retreated even farther as Carl stepped up to cut through the ribs with the pruning shears. “I’d be willing to bet that the second victim’s was caused by the air bag.”
I simply gave a nod and a slight shrug. I had no intention of sharing the other, more personal connection. At least not until I knew more.
I waited patiently while Doc went through the procedures, and I did my usual escape from the room when Carl used the bone saw to cut through the skull. He wore a breathing mask for this part, since the saw kicked up all sorts of bone dust—which, of course, had blood and other yuck in it. Not only did I have no desire to breathe it in, I didn’t want it in my hair or anywhere else. Nasty.
As soon as the brain was revealed, though, I ducked back in, not hiding my eagerness very well as I waited for Doc to do his examination.
He took the brain from the scale and began to slice it into neat sections. I watched as he narrowed his eyes and frowned. “Well, this one definitely stroked out.” He let out a low whistle. “Fucking hell. Looks like he had several at once. I’ve never seen anything like this. This guy never had a chance.” He motioned me over with the bloody scalpel. “Come see, Kara.”
I really didn’t want to see it, but I knew I had to look, for my pride as much as for my own personal education. I moved to his side and peered at the pink and grey convolutions. He didn’t even have to point anything out. I had no trouble seeing the damage and clots of blood. “What could have caused that?”
He blew out his breath. “Not sure. Perhaps a cancer…â??.” He trailed off, mumbling under his breath about occult large cell carcinoma and some other stuff I couldn’t make out. His brow drew together in a frown as he continued his examination. “No obvious sign of cancer, though. I’ll have to take a look under the microscope later.”
I wasn’t surprised when he asked Carl to preserve the brain, and the sections he’d cut, in formalin. Doc seemed perplexed but also a little excited, as if he couldn’t wait to dig into the mystery of why this man had died this way. Heck, it was probably a welcome change from the usual boring parade of drug overdoses and heart attacks. Doc continued the autopsy, peering carefully at the quick test that showed if any of the most commonly abused drugs were in the victim’s system.
“Clean,” he muttered. “But I’ll order a comprehensive toxicological screening.”
He retreated to write up his notes while Carl put the body of Barry Landrieu back into the cooler and got Evelyn Stark prepped and ready to go.
Carl laid the woman’s body out on the table and snapped pictures, then removed her clothing and took more pictures, expression emotionless and clinical. He wiped away the blood on her face, but I could still see it clotted up in her nostrils. Evelyn had been an attractive woman, but it was clear she’d been awfully close to that point in life when even the best of genetics weren’t enough. She had a slim, leggy build, but the skin of her belly sagged and her thighs were flabby and had no muscle tone.
He glanced up at me after he set the camera aside. “Can you give me a hand?”
“With what?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him in distrust. He had a habit of asking me to do gross and nasty things during autopsies.
He silently held out a syringe. His face was expressionless, but humor danced in his eyes.
He was asking me to get the vitreous—the fluid in the eyeball. The process for this involved sticking a needle into the side of the eye. Needless to say, it squicked me out big time. I usually shied away from this. Emphatically.>I was silent for several heartbeats. “I knew them both. Barry here was the one who gave me heroin.” Carl knew about that incident already. “And the other one, Evelyn Stark, was the drunk driver who killed my dad.”
“Ah,” he said, and in that one syllable was a paragraph’s worth of meaning.
“Plus, Eilahn and I encountered a graa early yesterday morning,” I added. Carl knew a great deal about the arcane and demons, but I didn’t know if that was because of his relationship with my aunt or if he had prior knowledge. I knew that wards didn’t seem to have any effect on him, and he’d once been attacked by an assailant with the ability to suck out a person’s essence, yet he’d been completely unaffected. But despite not knowing a damn thing about him, I trusted him.
