Page 32 of Lost Kingdom

“Not yet. Tim’s not here?”

He chuckles. “This doesn’t look mob-related, so he’s happy to stay away. Did you, uh…” He brings his hand up and scratches his stubbled jaw. “Have a nice night?”

“Shut up.” I reach into my bag and take out my recorder, then I make a show of switching it on and waving it in Archer’s face, then Fletch’s, when he wanders around from the other side of the car. “Good morning, Detectives.”

Playing along, Fletch gives a small, gentlemanly bow, but pain radiates from his eyes when the silly gesture hurts his leg.

“I’d like you to run primary on this one, Doctor Emeri.” Ignoring the detective, Minka sets her hands on her hips. “From start to finish. You’ll assess the scene, I’ll document it. You’ll cut in house, and then you’ll log the patient in to the fridges on level two. Your security pass, your authority.”

She’s putting me in charge during the most stressful week of my life.Awesome! “Sure.” I set my bag on the ground a few feet from the car and snag two sets of gloves. I pass one pair to Minka and slide the second pair onto my hands. Then I do the same with booties, to cover our shoes. I take out the camera and pass it along to my assistant, then I straighten again and make my way to the body.

Step one is observation. Description. What do I see, smell, hear? Beneath all that, and never on the official record, it’s about what Ifeel. And after that, what does the lab find under their scope? “Have you confirmed the vic is deceased, Detectives?”

“I checked for a pulse,” Fletch volunteers. “Waited a minute, no signs of life. I also checked his pupils and tested them for light sensitivity. None was present.”

“Alright. Thank you.” I sidle up to the car and study the body laid out, stomach to steel. His arms splay to the sides, one flat against the hood while the other dangles over the edge and down, almost to touch the top of the wheel well. “Patient appears to be mid-forties to mid-fifties, given the graying in his hair and the well-developed wrinkles fanning from his eyes. His face is almost completely destroyed, blunt force trauma. Nasal bone is shattered, visually conclusive. Zygomatic bones, mandible, maxilla, and supraorbital foramen, damaged. This patient’s face met with an extremely solid surface, at a tremendously fast speed. It would also appear the patientwas not wearing a seatbelt, though we can check for pre-mortem bruising to confirm.”

“How could you know?” Minka tests me, like always. “He’s on the outside of the car. We can assume there was no seatbelt. But how would you know for sure?”

“If he was wearing a seatbelt, and it failed because of the force of his body flying forward, then there would be indicators on his skin and below it. Bruising will be evident.”

“Good. What else do you see?”

“Bruising on his knuckles.” I crouch by his dangling hand and tilt my head to study the partially healed scabs. “These were not from this incident. Which means your victim had a scuffle in the last week.” I look up to find both detectives watching me. Not writing notes. Which means they already noticed the scabs. “It would be interesting to know who he fought and why.” Standing again, I cast my gaze further, to the top of his head and the shattered skull. But only partial. “His frontal bone is fragmented. But his parietal appears intact.”

“Which means what?” Minka presses again. “For the good detectives.”

“Adds credence to the fact he hit something face-first. Not with the top or back of his skull. Death would have been instant. Probably from the windshield, and if not that, then the bricks. Vic is wearing a windbreaker, sleeves down to his wrists, and tan pants down to his ankles. Hands, neck, and face are the only visible skin, so I can’t check for identifying features until we have him in my autopsy suite.” I bring my focus up to Archer. “Do you have an ID?”

“Yeah.” He takes out a plastic baggie and shows me the wallet he’s already collected from the vic. “It was in his back pocket, half hanging out when we arrived, so I nabbed it. Additionally,” he hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “His buddies confirmed his name. He’s forty-three years old. An investment banker with two kids, two cats, and a dog. We’ll make the death notification shortly. They,” again with the thumb, “are his colleagues. The driver,” he points to the ambulance furthest on the left, “has already blown in the bag and come back with a reading of point-one-three.”

“Which puts him over the legal limit…” Minka inserts. Though it comes out almost like a question.

“Puts him over by a long way and delivers us to vehicular manslaughter. But now we wanna know: premeditated or involuntary?”

“That’s your wheelhouse, Detective.” I fold my arms and keep my hands to myself for a minute more. I’ll touch soon. Then I cut. But until I’mready… “We’ll run the body and tell you exactly the killing blow. We’ll even tell you what day he sustained the bruises on his knuckles, and I’ll let you know if he has anything hiding under his clothes. But whether that guy over there killed his buddy on purpose…”

“That’s on us,” he accepts with a nod. Then he looks at his wife and smirks. “Guess I better get to work. It was a pleasure, Chief. As always.”

She rolls her eyes and turns her attention to me. “Let’s document, bag the hands, turn him over, then put him in a van. I doubt we’ll discover a great deal of secrets from this one. Detectives will be at the George Stanley by this afternoon, so let’s make sure we have answers and COD for them.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” I earn a glare from the woman who married a mafioso turnedgood boy. But pissing her off helps ease the tension that likes to bubble in my blood. So I don’t even care anymore. She has the happily ever after. The awesome, devoted husband. The amazing support system. The brain most others would kill for. And the intimidation tactics I could never achieve, no matter how hard I try.

She has so much more than that, and most of it, she hasn’t verbalized for me to hear.

But I know. And so, for today, she can be my scapegoat.

“Let’s get started,” I announce with a sugary sly smile. “It’s already Wednesday, and I have a stupid dress to have fitted this afternoon. Do you know what you’re wearing yet?”

She snaps a picture of the deceased’s hands. “What day and time is the wedding?”

“Saturday. Ceremony’s at two.”

“Then I’ll decide what to wear on Saturday at one.” She lowers the camera and flashes a dimpled grin. “Not all of us require a salon day and professional seamstresses to attend someone else’swe’re gonna have so much sex tonightceremony. Detective Malone said the vic was married and had a cute little doggy, too.”

“Well, no. He?—”

“Vic’s not wearing a wedding ring, though. That’s interesting…”

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