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"Yup That’s how it is"

He grinned and picked up his clipboard, beginning his exae and held it out to me "You said you wanted to help," he said calh! No Way" I shuddered as Doc laughed, and even Carl cracked a s a needle into the eyeball and drawing the fluid out At the first autopsy I’d attended, Carl had h the pupil after it was inserted I could handle a lot of things, but the needle in the eye always squicked h and shook his head as he swiftly and expertly slid the needle into the side of each eye to extract the clear fluid "I have to do everything ht this man to be dour and humorless?

He squirted the fluid into a tube, then dropped the syringe into a Sharps container Meanwhile, Doc set his clipboard aside, and pulled a black case out from beneath a cabinet He popped it open and pulled out three pairs of colored goggles and a device that looked like a conized it as an ALS, an alternate light source "Kill the lights, please, Kara"

I obligingly flicked the lights off, then put the yellow-tinted glasses on as Doc began to shine the ALS carefully over Carol’s body

"Look at that," Doc said, as the bruising on her neck stood out in stark contrast to the rest of her skin "There , but here you can see where the scarf dug in" He scanned it over her torso and thighs next "And there ya go" Several bitetoo hard or too deep"

I bent closer, frowning at the ht breast "Shine the light on this one"

Doc co?"

A flutter of exciteh my belly "Would you say that the teeth that left those ed "I’m no dentist, but it looks like there are ihtened "Brian wasa pickup basketball game last week and hadn’t had it fixed yet"

Carl let out a lohistle "And if Brian didn’t kill her, ould he kill himself?"

"Exactly If he didn’t kill her, then I rather doubt he pulled the trigger" The thought of a fellow officer being ht ht that he’d been a ain at the bites as Doc bent his head for a closer look Unfortunately, the marks weren’t nice and clear, and I couldn’t tell for certain if there was a gap in the bruising or not

After a few seconds Doc sighed, shaking his head "I can’t tell They’re not hard bites We’d have to consult a forensic odontologist Or we can find out for sure another way Kara, can you get me a swab, please?"

I handed him the swabs and the vial of sterile water Doc dampened the sith the sterile water and then carefully wiped across the bite marks "Whoever bit her left saliva behind," he explained He repeated the process in several more locations on her body, then finally switched off the ALS and pulled off his goggles while I turned the rooed the swabs up in an evidence envelope "Fortunately, it doesn’t ood" He put the envelope aside, then picked up a syringe with a wickedly long needle and jabbed it into her groin area, working it around until he was able to get into the fee went into the area just above her pubic bone, drawing out urine "I’ at me as he filled various vials "It still looks like an accidental asphyx, but ant to be sure she wasn’t drugged"

I started to run h loves that had dead person on the fiercely Never failed: As soon as I knew I couldn’t touch my face, I was overwhelmed with the need to

If it’s not Brian’s DNA, then he probably wasn’t the one who killed her, and his ed to look like a suicide Which led to the question: If that’s the case, were Brian and Carol killed by the sa ahead of myself First I needed to find out if it was Brian’s DNA "This will tell us for sure if it’s Brian, right?"

"I’ll call down to the lab in Slidell to tell them I need a rush on a comparison," Doc said "I’ll casually drop that this is the son of a judge, but it’ll still be at least a week or two Convenient that we have access to Brian’s DNA" He nodded his head toward the cooler

I watched as Doc coinal, rectal, and oral swabs, the nail scrapings and clippings, blood and hair samples

The rest of the autopsy went quickly Carl took the coet it sealed and ready to take to the lab Doc worked quietly and efficiently, opening her up and re back the skin and muscles of the throat "The hyoid bone isn’t broken, so it wasn’t a forcible strangulation--not like your Syhtened from his close exaed "Y’know, Carol had a rep for being pretty indiscriminate about who she fooled around with I think most of the PD and half the DA’s office had slept with her"

"I can’t believe I’h

"It’s better that way, trust lanced at e"

He gave me a sympathetic smile "It’s been only, what, six, seven weeks? There’s no trauhed, and once again had to resist the urge to run h my hair "Yeah Sure" I wished it was as easy as that

"Doc’s right," Carl said fro me "She’ll come out of this But you’re too stressed out You need to eat more You look better with some meat on your bones" He extended a saw to roaned "No And thank you for going straight froed the saw in as I escaped to the viewing room

I ALMOST DIDN’T come back out for Brian’s autopsy Even on the other side of the wall, I could feel that there was so hope that I rong on the scene, both with Brian Roth and Davis Sharp, but the gaping void and tattered remains were still there

I forcedroom once Brian’s body was on the table His body was a lot messier, mostly because of all the blood that had seeped out into the bag fro holes in his head His head had been wrapped in a sheet to try to control some of the blood, but it was still a nasty le" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>