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“Where was she found?”
“Port Gamble, in a park, near some trails. Where are you from?”
“Bainbridge” they said in unison.
He looked at them for another long beat, then back up at the ceiling.
“She was maybe twenty-five, obvious drug addict—”
“Why obvious?” Saber asked.
“Track marks, mostly,” he said. “Skin lesions caused by scratching. A lot of people who are addicted to opioids are also allergic to them.”
“Yikes,” she said. “What was unusual?”
“Well,” he sighed. “She died of severe blood loss, but none of the wounds on her body would cause such catastrophic loss.”
“But therewerewounds?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding slowly. “Like I said, the track marks, some infected. But there was something else, too. There were several places where her skin had been removed.”
“Like, cut away?” Saber winced.
He looked her in the eyes then, an intense and penetrating stare that felt as judgmental as it was dismissive.
“No,” he said, “notcut away. It looked more like they weresandedaway, like with sandpaper. It was bizarre and… disgusting. Fat was exposed, it looked like… pork belly in ramen. But it couldn’t have covered up a massive laceration.”
“Wow,” Saber said, sitting back.
“She was dead when it happened, whatever it was that killed her, and there was no blood, just flesh and exposed hypodermis, which was pretty—”
“Disgusting,” she said.
He cracked the slightest smile.
“I was going to saythorough.”
“Why do you use that word?”
“My guess at the time was that it was a tattoo removal. The removals were at common tattoo locations, the neck, the hip, and the area around her groin.”
“Why would someone remove tattoos off of a body and leave other identifiers?” Doug asked.
Elijah shrugged.
“At the time, I thought gang affiliation.”
“That makes sense,” Saber said. “But what do you think now?”
Elijah sighed.
“I don’t know. She was a homeless woman who probably lived a very bad life, then was murdered, then grossly,savagelydefiled. I didn’t want to ponder her harrowing circumstances any longer than I had to. You learn to compartmentalize when you see a lot of death.”
Saber and Doug were quiet for a moment. It seemed disrespectful to keep prodding. Then Doug spoke.
“Who was the next victim?”
Elijah sat forward a little and crossed his arms.
