17 The Body

'Well,' thought Kyle, for the tenth time in as many minutes, 'It certainly could have gone a lot worse.'

Ever since Andrea had left, he'd been running their conversation through his mind over and over. Thinking about what he said. Thinking about what she said. Thinking about what he wished he'd done differently…

An unhealthy mental habit? Probably. Bordering on obsession? Definitely. But what was the alternative?

He looked around the bare walls of his solitary cell.

'View? Zero.'

'Company? Zero.'

'Reading materials? Zero.'

'Recreational facilities? Zer– Well, actually, I supposed I could do some sit-ups and push-ups… start working on my prison physique… No, save that for later. Important to have things to look forward to.'

The only other thing he had to look forward to was Andrea walking back through the door.

When she had arrived the last time, he could have believed she was an angel the way his heart leapt. That his plan had come together, that she was there in all her beautiful, frustrating, argumentative glory… It was the first good thing that had happened to Kyle since yesterday.

And that little bit of banter, it was the first opportunity he'd had to feel normal all day, just for a few minutes.

Had he loved her almost busting a blood vessel laughing at him? Not so much. It was cute to see her laugh, he'd give her that, but still… could have done with a little bit less of it.

The flirty banter? A++ Highly Recommended. Would banter again. Andrea was massively fun to tease. She was so easy to annoy. Today was different. Fewer angry comebacks, more being teased in return… It was fun.

What was it she had said? 'Wouldn't you like to know, Mr Wynn…' Correct. Yes he would. He would like to know lots of things, starting with where had Andrea been hiding THAT voice?

He'd put up with a whole lot of yelling for the chance to be talked to like that again.

That had been the highlight though. After that, downhill. Would have preferred less yelling.

Maybe he should have been a little more up front with her…

"Andrea," he said out loud. "I've had another lawyer call in a crazy number of favors in order to get you to meet with me because I have something very important to ask you!"

Said out loud… maybe not. Maybe there was no good way to reveal that without her yelling.

…Still, it had been a good plan. And it had worked! She came, she listened… She also laughed, yelled and left in a huff. But maybe things had gone as well as it was possible for them to go.

Maybe he should have just called her. Except there was no way just being straightforward and honest would have EVER worked, that much he knew for sure. What was it she said…? 'I guess we'll never know.' Sure, she could believe that if she wanted. Kyle knew.

For now he just tried to think about how good it would be to see her again, and what he'd say when she came back.

After all, what else was he going to think about? Everything else to do with his current plight? About what he would do if she didn't come back…?

No thank you! Much better to focus on thinking about Andrea, about her walking through the door and taking the case.

He wondered what she was doing now. Probably back at the office looking through paperwork…

* * *

Andrea was tense, ready to fight back against a visceral reaction to the body being revealed and… to her surprise, it was fine. The body of Beatrix Davenport was just that, a body. There was none of the blood she had seen in the crime scene photos. It was so still and obviously lifeless, it felt more like a statue or a mannequin than anything that had once been a person.

Andrea noticed that the coroner, Dr Alcantara, was staring at her over the corpse between them. She realized that he was studying her reaction, making sure she wasn't going to be a problem. Andrea wondered how many people he had seen before who thought they would be fine until facing their first murder victim in the flesh.

She nodded reassuringly. "I'm okay, Bob. Please continue."

(A/N: Some of this and the next chapter might be uncomfortable. It's not overly gruesome, but it is clinically unrestrained. Important details are discussed.)

"Alright, firstly, I assume you've seen the police report, so you can recognize the difference between the various wounds the body already had when it arrived versus the incisions made to allow our internal examination."

Bob gestured to a long Y-shaped cut that started below the belly button, up through the stomach before splitting into two separate cuts that arced up to the armpits.

"Don't you normally sew those closed once the autopsy is complete?" Andrea asked.

Bob nodded. "True enough. I suppose I misspoke earlier when I said the autopsy was 'complete'. It would be more accurate perhaps to say 'initial' autopsy examinations. We still have a number of lab reports we're waiting to get back before we can be sure our work is done."

He reached out and gestured to the incision closest to Andrea.

"You'll notice we had to take a slightly unconventional path to avoid the pattern of wounds across the torso. An I-type incision would have been easier, but that would have interfered with the neck wound."

Andrea nodded like she had any idea what the standard incision pattern looked like, but she could see how the coroner had taken care to avoid cutting too close to any of the existing wounds. The most obvious was the multiple deep stab wounds all over the chest and stomach, but the neck had also been cut wide open so that the flesh inside was visible.

Andrea pointed to one of the stab wounds. They were all shaped like a long thin triangle, "Were you able to match the wound to the suspected weapon?"

Bob gave another delighted smile. "Very good, Andrea, you are absolutely right. The sharp force injuries across the torso left a remarkably clear wound outline from which we can deduce the nature of the blade used. This triangular shape is definitely consistent with a single bladed knife with a slight upward curve and a fairly thick spine."

Bob reached out and probed his fingers into one of the stab wounds in a way Andrea found unsettling. "The puncture wound depth indicates overall length was at least eight inches," he said. "Even without the police report, I would have concluded the most likely match to be a large chef's knife, and certainly the one the investigators found in the apartment would have done the job.

He continued. "Now this isn't proof that the knife was the weapon used. Forensics may have more to say on that matter, but it is a good enough match that we can't rule it out. We are planning to conduct some experimental confirmation testing once we can lay our hands on a replica blade. We wouldn't want to contaminate the original in that kind of testing, and apparently the knife in question was an imported brand."

"Confirmation testing?" she asked.

Bob scrunched his face in an embarrassed expression. "Probably not as scientific as you're thinking. We pretty much get an animal carcass and then stab it the same way," he said, miming making a thrusting motion in the air. "Then we can check if the wounds generated are consistent."

"What about the slash across the neck?" Andrea asked.

"Yes, now ordinarily I would have said this kind of CTI—that is, Cut Throat Injury—couldn't have been caused by a typical kitchen knife. It's more reminiscent of a skinning knife or some sort of surgical tool." Bob peeled back some of the skin of the neck. "See how clean the cut is? Your average kitchen knife would have left a more ragged wound. It certainly indicated the use of a very sharp blade."

Andrea thought back to their lunch the previous day. Kyle had said that his knives had arrived back from being sharpened just a few days earlier. A lot of things he had said as part of that conversation took on a new meaning in the context of him possibly being a murderer.

"Also, slash is a very apt description for the action. The knife went deep, right down through the larynx and trachea. No indication of sawing, this looked like a single powerful strike." Once again, Bob acted out the blow, swiping his arm across towards Andrea as though slashing her throat.

"Now, some of the less obvious injuries are a number of bruises at various locations, including under the knees and armpits. It looks like she may have been picked up and carried, and not handled particularly gently. Given that, we have toxicology labs submitted to test for the presence of narcotics."

"Narcotics?" Andrea said. "You mean like she was taking drugs?"

"Could have been taking drugs, could have been some kind of drug administered to her. GHB, GBL, rohypnol, we've seen girls before dosed up with all sorts of things. Even more common party drugs if taken in excess would induce unconsciousness. Alcohol doesn't remain in the bloodstream for more than a few hours, but urine tests show that she hadn't consumed excessively within at least 72 hours. But there are a lot of other possibilities we haven't ruled out yet."

She… girls… party… The words Bob said seemed to throw a switch in Andrea. She hadn't been acknowledging it to herself, but it suddenly hit her that this wasn't just a body, this was a girl, named Beatrix, who just a few days ago had been alive and going to parties and now was lying cut open in the basement of a police station.

It suddenly felt wrong for her to be lying there naked while the two of them discussed all the awful injuries that had been inflicted on her. It was disrespectful, it was… immodest.

Andrea felt a strong urge to finish the discussion as soon as possible. Not because she was going to throw up or faint, but because she wanted the doctor to put back the sheet and put the body back in the drawer and leave her in peace.