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“Depends on the method of removal.” My words come out, even without my brain consciously registering them. “Burning isn’t the only way to accomplish that. There’s acid, other chemicals or sanding the prints off, though that’s not permanent. Depends who did it and for what purpose. Then you work it back and find out how long it took.”
Silence hangs for a beat. Loaded, as he glances across at me. “Thanks, Detective Mafia. I forgot you know shit from the other side.”
Smirking, I straighten my leg and reach into my pocket to grab my phone. Bringing the device out, I scroll to Minka’s name and hit dial.
We can’t answer other questions until I ask her this one.
“Detective Malone,” she answers within seconds. “Your obsession with me borders on pesky and inappropriate. I ate. I’m resting. I’m alive.”
“I’m glad. But that’s not why I called. I wanna know about John Doe’s fingerprints. How’d he get rid of them?”
“How?” she parrots. “Like, the method?”
“Yeah. Were they sliced off? Burned off? Sanded? Removed with acid? Chewed off?” I look out the windshield and watch Copeland pass as Fletch angles us toward the police precinct. “Tell me,” I continue, “so we can work it forward. The answer matters.”
“Well… I haven’t run diagnostics yet.” She swaps out her mischievous tone for a far superior professional voice, like it’s a second skin. “But my initial observation says they were burned away.”
“Burned how?”
“My first guess is chemical. But it was done either a long time ago, or extremely carefully. Definitely not chewed, sliced, burned with a flame, or otherwise. I’d say the procedure was done a number of years ago, considering how well it’s healed. Probably a non-issue in his life at this point, except if he were to attempt to gain access somewhere using fingerprint technology.”
“Can’t do it?”
“Nope. But retinal technology is in place now, Archer. Prints are old-school.”
“True,” I concede. Swapping hands, I bring the phone to my other ear. “But it’s the most widely taught school. Authorities keep prints on file, few keep retinas. Although,” inspiration has my head whipping around and my gaze stopping on Fletch’s profile. “Maybe they took the eyes not for the torture, but for the ID.”
“That’s fuckin’ sick.” Wrinkling his nose, he pulls left, cutting another car off and earning a honk of dissatisfaction. “Who the hell does that shit? It’s creepy.”
“Yeah, Archer.” Minka teases, “Who would take eyes? It’s weird.”
“Hush,” I tell her. “Do you have anything new for us yet, Mayet? If not, I’m hanging up.”
“You just use me,” she sighs. “Then discard.” Turning serious again, she continues, “I have nothing pertinent for now. We’re busy cataloguing John Doe’s injuries. We’ve counted more than two hundred lacerations with a single thin-bladed knife, and an additional hundred from a different, thicker blade. All but a small handful remain in the dermis layer. The remaining few hit fat, but go no deeper. Direction of each lac varies, and the timeline of each partially healed wound tells us the vic suffered over the course of a few days. Not all at the same time, and none so serious that he was at risk of bleeding out.”
“Teeth were removed using a standard-variety garage tool,” Aubree adds from somewhere else in the room. “Pliers, probably. They’d been used in a garage prior, because we pulled traces of oil and debris from the vic’s mouth.”
“Unpleasant,” I mutter. “How many teeth?”
“Three,” Minka answers. “Two were removed completely, the third shattered while the roots remain in place. The lacerations and dental work alone would have been extremely painful. I, for one, would tell my captors anything once they came at me with the pliers.”
“Not true,” I argue, quieter now. “You’ve always been too brave for your own good.”
“Not when it comes to teeth.” She shivers. “I’m not playing that game. I’d toss you over in a heartbeat,” she teases. “Ortho is my weakness.”
“Noted.”
I glance up as Fletch brings us into the police precinct driveway and through to the underground parking garage. Our wheels squeak on the smooth floor, and the concrete walls create the perfect space for each sound to echo back and hit my ears like a badly tuned orchestra.
“Anything else, Mayet? We’re pulling in.”
“Not really. Bowels and stomach have been sent off to the lab. Except for his wounds and, ya know,death, he was a healthy male. A little round in the middle, but fit as a fiddle otherwise. I don’t see markers of nicotine damage in his lungs. His tongue, albeit sliced, was clean. His kidneys and liver were clear. I just…” she pauses for a beat. “I see no signs of disease anywhere, Detective. Even for being around fifty, some of the markers we’d expect to see are not there.”
“So he’s lived a clean life,” I surmise. “Healthy. Above the poverty line. No alcohol abuse. No smoking. No drugs. Possibly an athlete in his younger years, but that’s not so important to him anymore.”
“He’s a completely normal, non-descript man,” Minka says. “If you passed him on the street, you’d have no clue he was a walking target with no fingerprints.”
“Makes me wonder if he has affiliations with the kinda places that are all letters.”
