Pretty Dead by Ifeanyi Esimai

Author:Ifeanyi Esimai
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635897999
Publisher: ShotReads

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The weather was nice, so they cut across the courtyard to the ME’s office.

Vikki led the way. She walked past the receptionist, gave a quick wave, and went down to the morgue, where she was sure Dr. Brandon was.

They donned protective gear and entered. Feeling cold in there was a constant. The smell of autopsy chemicals was another constant.

Dr. Brandon was typing on the computer keyboard when they entered. “Hello, Detectives. Thanks for coming.”

“We just let our main person of interest go,” Gomez said.

Dr. Brandon raised an eyebrow. “The boyfriend?” It was a rhetorical question. “You can pick him up again when you have evidence. Discovering the cause of an illness and crime have a lot in common. They both start with an investigation, and the process is evidence-driven.”

“What do you have for us?” Vikki said.

Dr. Brandon walked over to the autopsy table with Paige Arden on display. Her body was cleaned. Her skin still had the marks made by the knife. In addition, she now sported the Y-shaped baseball thread scar.

“The victim died from her wounds, and they were numerous,” Dr. Brandon said. “The attack was sudden. She never saw it coming. She has no defensive wounds.”

Vikki’s heart pounded as if she were experiencing violence right now. That was precisely what the CSU head had said, no defensive wounds.

“The perpetrator was very angry or was in a frenzy. She was stabbed fifty-four times. One lung was deflated. Her voice box was crushed. She had significant trauma to the head. Her skull was fractured in many places.”

Gomez let out a loud sigh, shaking his head.

Dr. Brandon continued. “She would have bled to death if left alone. But she was strangled. The imprint from the sock was on her neck.”

Vikki let out a strangled breath. “What about the rape kit?”

Dr. Brandon shook his head. “She was raped. But he’d used a condom. We recovered some identifying chemicals from her vagina. Nonoxynol-9, and—”

“Spermicide?” Gomez threw up his hands. “Every condom has it. The perp’s lawyer would walk all over that if this ended up in trial.”

Dr. Brandon nodded. “I know. But nonoxynol will be in conjunction with another lubricant we found called pulegone.”

Vikki’s eyes narrowed. Hope surged in her heart. Anything that could be leveraged to find the perp was welcome.

“It gives lubricants a raspberry smell. Find a suspect with that in his glove compartment or toilet bag, and that narrows it down further.”

“Or turns a person of interest into a suspect,” Vikki muttered.

“Thanks, Ted,” Gomez said. “You’ve given us food for thought.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. Based on the angle the knife was plunged into her back, the perp is likely left-handed.”

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