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Just like with Kiera, blood and bile coat her face and neck.
It sits frozen, where Kiera’s wasn’t, because there’s no friend here, screaming in anguish and drawing attention.
“She’s been here a while. It’s possible she even dropped before Kiera.” I take the recorder from our bag and hit the button. “Doctor Minka Mayet on scene at the Copeland City Bay, attending to a suspected homicide that may relate to the Kiera Chase homicide. Immediate observations provide similar blood pattern in the patient’s vomit.”
I slide a pair of latex gloves on and pry open her eyes, one at a time. “Burst blood vessels. Same as Kiera.” I don’t find scratch marks on her neck, or skin under her nails, but I find blood. “We’ll bag her hands and have them tested at the George Stanley, but I suspect she caught her own vomit before falling. Can you get time of death, Doctor Emeri?”
Surprised for only a moment, Aubree’s gaze swings to me, but she sets the camera down and goes back to our bag for tools. Scalpel, fresh gloves, and a digital thermometer.
While she does that, I take the assistant’s role and snag the camera. “Patient’s extremities are suffering from frostbite. Rigor has already set in, limbs are stiff.” I glance to Aubree when her scalpel sits just an inch from our patient’s sternum. “Have you officially announced death yet, Doctor?”
“Oh shoot!” Aubree switches the scalpel from her right hand to her left, then she presses her fingers to the woman’s neck and waits almost an entire minute. “No pulse.” She leans closer and lowers her ear almost to the woman’s mouth. “No breath sounds.” She pulls back and studies her chest. “No inhalation of air. Additionally,” she takes a different thermometer and pulls her temperature. “Way too cold to be alive.”
“Sounds legit,” I snicker under my breath. “Alright, proceed with temperature of liver to determine best guess at time of death. While you do that, I’ll document and bag her personal items.”
I photograph the gold ring on her right hand, but I don’t remove it. She’s already swelling. I photograph the gold bracelet on the same side, and as I slowly push the sleeve of her coat up, I photograph script tattoos lining her forearm.
“We have a mark on her right arm that appears to be a birthmark, but the patch is lighter than the surrounding skin. Could be melanin disruption intrauterine, or it could be vitiligo. To be confirmed.” I continue to push her sleeve up and stop again at another tattoo of script. “Patient wasn’t living below the poverty line. She has professional ink drawn on by a talented artist. Note for the investigating detectives; perhaps they can track down the artist.”
Thinking of them, I glance up and catch sight of Detectives Malone and Fletcher speaking to a uniformed officer and another guy—not quite as well off as our patient, if his ratty clothes are an indication—about twenty feet from where Aubree and I are. Archer is engaged in the conversation they’re having, but it’s Fletcher’s mouth that moves, while Archer’s eyes flicker to me every now and again.
He’s keeping watch.
He’s protecting.
And damn him and Aubree for making me feel uncomfortable about being taken care of.
“Fingerprints,” Aubree murmurs. “I’ll get those next.”
“Good.” I gently tug the woman’s shirt up and note the blood gravity has pulled into her back. “Posterior hypostasis has already begun. She’s been here awhile.” Intending to lower her shirt and move on to the next task, I stop again and scowl as something catches my eye.
Leaning closer, I don’t stop until my nose almost touches the woman’s ribs.
“What do you see?” Aubree whispers. “Minka?”
Pulling back, I take the camera again and zoom in as far as technology will allow. “There appears to be an injection site on the patient’s torso. Between her,” I move around Aubree’s thermometer and count ribs, “nine and ten. All the way at the bottom.”
Frowning, I think for a moment as Aubree finalizes the woman’s temperature and takes note in her book. “When we get back to the George Stanley, I want to check Kiera all over again. Maybe we missed an injection. Maybe that’s how our killer is getting it done.”
“How does this connect to the other, though?” Setting her tools aside, Aubree sits back on her haunches and drops her hands to her thighs. “Kiera was in a nice club with a friend. Our Jane Doe appears like she may have been a patron of the same type of club, but she’s all the way out here.”
She glances out at the water, then across the bay that, on the other side, is home to some of the more affluent parts of the city. “Even if he picked her up at Opulus, or a place like it, why bring her here? And how? There are no drag marks on the ground or on the body. There doesn’t appear to be any injuries to our Jane except for the fact she’s dead and we’ll probably find complete system shutdown when we open her up. She wasn’t dumped here, she wasn’t dragged here. She was drugged here, and dropped on her own.”
“Those are good questions.” Taking my gloves off, I push up to stand. “Probably questions the detectives need to answer. That’s not our job.”
I meet her eyes when she looks up. “Get her prints for me and log them. Let’s work on identifying her. I hate calling these people John and Jane Doe.”
“Got it. What are you gonna do?”
“Talk to the cops.”
The moment I turn, Archer’s eyes swing to me and search my expression. He’s always watching. Always waiting. At my subtle nod, he breaks away from his group and heads in my direction.
“You okay?” As soon as he stops in front of me, he’s back with the questions. “Low blood sugar?”
“You need to stop.” I grab the sleeve of his coat and drag him an easy ten feet from our Jane and a sniggering Aubree. “Stop caring about my eating habits. Stop caring about my sleep. Stop caring, full stop. You moved on, remember?”
“Rumors.” He reaches out and brushes loose strands of hair off my face. “Now, what’s up? You beckoned me.”
