20 The Anomaly

"Hey…" Chiara walked into the ME's office," got the report?"

"Yeah, the same as before, canister and all. But, there was an exception" he said, searching around for the paper.

Chiara looked at the gray body, looking over at Enzo now and then. For a man who seemed to be a domestic person, seeing a girl with her throat open and face peeled off, he wasn't really affected. But he did mention that his entire family was killed, perhaps that was why he was immune to such a gory scene.

The smell of formalin lingered around the room making the insides of her nose burn, she covered her nose with a handkerchief and took the paper.

"Nail polish?" she asked, confused," does that mean we got prints?" she asked.

"Nope, no prints, she left a little nail polish in the canister lid, so it scraped her fingernail"

"That's...weird." she looked at the small dot of pink nail polish whose picture was on the paper. Kore never left prints, so it was assumed she wore gloves. If she left nail polish she obviously wasn't...or perhaps she had a premade canister?

"Let me think about this for a while," she said," send me digital copies of the autopsy and tell me one thing... was this the same level of gruesome as the previous? I mean in case of strength? Because the gash on her throat seems deeper than the previous girls"

"It is... it almost cut through the trachea... good observation, I was about to tell you about it," he said, impressed by her finding.

Enzo spoke up at this," that could just be a mistake"

"It's not, she is angry. Maybe that's why she slipped up? But she did and this is how we get her... by making her angrier. We are going to rule these deaths as failed robbery attempts"

"Why?" he asked.

"So she doesn't get credit for her shit work... and everyone is alerted about a possible burglar in the area thereby being safer."

"Good idea" the ME nodded," I'll send you the reports"

Nodding, she looked over at Enzo who seemed stone-faced," shall we leave?"

"Sure" he shrugged a shoulder," we do have more work to do"

"Yeah... I wonder why she was silly enough to leave nail polish in the canister" She muttered as they walked out of the building.

"Calling her silly is a stretch" he scoffed," she's the smartest criminal I have seen"

"Can't be that smart if she left nail polish on" Chiara looked at him," Why are you so hell-bent on making me think she's impossible to catch?" she asked.

"Because she is" He exclaimed," I feel like you are taking her lightly and should be a bit more scared of her"

"If I do that I really won't be able to catch her" She reasoned," I mean I think she is a human, and every human slip up. Is she hard to catch? Yes... Is it impossible? Nope"

"Well, then you're either an overconfident fool or Sherlock reincarnated. Anyway, I shall see you later, I have a class to teach" he concluded and walked away.

Furrowing her brows, she wondered if she had misheard him when he said he had taken a sabbatical from teaching. Perhaps she was mistaken?

Anyway, that wasn't important now, what was important was to go back to her desk and work.

It took her a large coffee to actually get her down to work. She skipped through the reports, pushing aside all those that she found suspicious. They were segregated according to the date when Kore had broken out of the hospital. There were a few suspicious cases from other dates, but she kept those in a different file on her laptop which she would see later.

After all, Kore could kill only after she broke outright? She muttered the names of the victims to herself as she saw the cases. It helped her to actually connect them to each other.

She had been in the business for quite a long time, she herself wasn't young anymore. Well, technically she was but society doesn't really consider a 35-year-old woman to be young anymore.

But she had seen a lot of cases, if not for a few incidences, she would be one of the most respected officers in the department. Everyone knew how capable she was but her previous dishonesty had tarnished her image.

That however was a topic she wouldn't think about. For now, all that mattered was the case and catching this Kore person.

She wondered how she would look? Blonde? Brunette? Redhead? Could be anything.

The only thing that she knew about her was that she had a large scar on her belly. It had been noted during the medical checkup, Her fingerprints however were of no use as she had a habit of routinely mutilating the skin of her fingers, so it would be unrecognizable.

Something about the girl seemed off. She was extremely meticulous in her work, but slipped up and got caught, slipped up and left nail polish proving that she didn't wear gloves.

How would she leave absolutely no prints? At least a partial print would be present if she wasn't wearing gloves. So had she prepacked the canister?

Furrowing her brows, she pulled up pictures of the canister and began to search for a similar-looking one online. The nearest one she had found was an hour away. She sighed and decided to go as soon as she could. No other place made such kind of tiny canisters. And if she had bought two, the store may have a record of her.

It was a very loose lead but a lead nonetheless, she called them and asked if they would be open, but they weren't and asked her to come on the weekend instead which worked better for her.

She decided not to tell Enzo as he would want to come, and she wasn't interested in him coming with her. In fact, his company itself wasn't very pleasurable.

He seemed to be overly scared of Kore, and it was a hindrance to her.

"I need another coffee" she muttered as she got up to go home to continue searching through the groups.