“Of course.” Jesse leads us over to the body we’d found at the crime scene. “Still waiting on identification. He seems to be in his late thirties and was dead about half an hour before he was found.”
“So the person sets up the scene, kills the guy, removes his eyes… then someone shoots off a gun and we arrive,” I say. “Eyes removed postmortem, correct?”
“Definitely,” Jesse agrees. “Multiple stab wounds in the chest are the cause of death. Looks like they were trying for the heart but took a few attempts to get there.”
“Any other wounds we didn’t notice?” Gabriel asks.
“No. No other wounds, no tattoos, nothing of interest. No broken bones… the rope burns on his wrists show that he wasn’t tied too long or didn’t fight too hard before his death,” Jesse says. “The removal of his eyes makes me hesitate. It wasn’t done with much precision. Kind of makes me think it was the person’s first time…”
“You have to have a stomach of steel for eye removal,” Gabriel comments. “Even if a person is fine with stabbing someone, there are some things that just put you over the edge, and plucking the eyes out is one of them.”
“I’m convinced there’s a reason for it,” I say.
“Like… he saw something he shouldn’t have?” Gabriel asks.
“Maybe…”
Jesse goes over to a tray and points at the evidence on it. “I found this ticket stub in his pocket. Looks like it’s for a band.”
“I think I know the club that it took place in,” Matthew says as he examines it.
“You might get something out of the club employees while we’re waiting to ID him. With the blood stains on it, I can’t tell the date stamped on it, but I’ll send it upstairs to see if someone else can.”
“We’ll work on it,” Gabriel says. “Thank you.”
“Yeah…” Jesse trails off, and I notice he’s staring at me. Usually when people stare at me, they want me to harass them some more.
“Sorry, I’m taken,” I say as I nod at Gabriel.
His face scrunches up. “I was over here wondering, ‘Should I ask Liam for help at the expense of my sanity?’ and the words that came out of your mouth just confirmed that the answer is no. Very much a no.”
I grin, proud of my ability to get out of having to do the work of others. “You’re welcome,” I say as I head toward the door, but the look on Gabriel’s face makes me turn right back around and walk over to Jesse. “There is actually nothing I would rather do than help you. I’ve never wanted to help you so muchin my life.”
Jesse looks impressed. “So… this is what dating Gabriel does to him.”
“There’s hope for him to become a semi-decent human being yet,” Matthew says as they bond over bullying me. They shouldbe careful because the second Gabriel looks away, I will remind them just why I bully them.
“Come here,” Jesse instructs as he pulls open a drawer and draws the tray out. “So this is a Jane Doe, early twenties, found after jumping off High Street Bridge. The couple who called her in said they’d been walking home from having drinks and saw her leap off the railing. While the wife called the police, the husband ran down the slope and dove into the water to retrieve her. By then, she was dead. Assumed to be suicide.”
“If it was a suicide, you wouldn’t have me looking at her,” I say as I grab some gloves and start examining her. “Cause of death?”
“Drowning.”
“But you find it weird because the fall isn’t that far and water levels are low but not low enough she’d hit something. More like low enough she could stand on her tiptoes if she chose to. She would have been completely coherent when she hit and would have been forced to dive under and purposely drown herself. The body passes out from lack of oxygen but in that time, the man could have pulled her out … how quick was he?”
“His wife said she’d never seen anyone move so fast. She repeated how he was a swimmer in college and grabbed her immediately.”
“I mean, it’s notimpossiblefor her to have drowned in that time. She could have hit just right so it stunned her… but my gut is with you on this. I’m assuming you’ll be waiting on toxicology for a while.”
“Yes. I see no physical evidence of her either doing drugs herself or someone drugging her. No track marks.”
I flip her hand over and follow the bruises. “These don’t look like they’re from the fall.”
“No, likely a few days old.”
“Trauma anywhere else?” Gabriel asks.
“Nothing I’ve noticed.”
