Page 27 of Lau Ahi
“I assume you both are here for my official findings?”
The coroner came out of the room looking aggrieved that he’d had to stay so late but I wasn’t sure why. That was the thing with becoming a person of importance in this town. If you used a favor to curry favor with the masses it was always going to be called in. Someone had wanted him to work on this case and he’d been called out of his bed to do so. I didn’t have any sympathy for him and needed him to get his shit together so that Vega and I could move on with the rest of our night.
“We don’t need everything, just cause of death confirmed and if pathology has any initial findings.”
He nodded and flipped through the screen of his tablet as if he were searching for the answers we’d been hanging around for.
“Cause of death was exsanguination from multiple stab wounds. They’ve been photographed and numbered. Initial pathology report shows that there was something in her system that could’ve caused her to be impaired.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Lack of strain at her ligature marks. She has bruising on her arms and legs that are consistent with being bound but the precision of her cuts don’t show a struggle.”
“Dead when they were inflicted?”
He shook his head as he looked from his findings. “No. The volume loss is too consistent with an active and normal heart rate while the wounds were being inflicted. I’m sure you’ve already gathered that where you found her was a secondaryscene. She lost about a third of her blood volume before her heart finally gave out.”
I nodded realizing that someone had basically drugged this girl before stabbing her up. That seemed a direct conflict with the way she was displayed near the river. It had been done boldly hoping someone would find her. But to give her the mercy of sleeping through her death was unusual.
“They must have known her.”
I nodded at Vega’s words which mirrored the direction of my thoughts. “You’ll be sending this over to Cochran in the morning?”
“I was instructed to send it to her and the director tonight. I’m assuming that everything will be delivered to you all securely when she views it.”
Knowing Cochran she would try to wait to give us the information to force our hands in going to George Washington University tomorrow. Vega already had his phone out like he was going to send her a message to advise against it. I was happily going to allow him to take the cannon fodder for that because I was sure I would be on Cochran’s bad side the second I refused to work with this person after meeting up with them. And I was going to refuse. I hated the people in my office thinking they could tell me how to do my job. Someone from the outside who only understood the concepts of criminality and had never dealt with the reality of it was for damn sure not going to tell me what I needed to alter about my methods. They got results and that was all that mattered.
“Thank you.”
Despite being disgusted with his attitude, I appreciated the information he provided.
We turned to walk away but were stopped by the coroner’s voice. “That’s not all.”
We turned back slowly and I was now heightened by the need for his pageantry. Since I wasn’t able to stay civil Vega spoke up instead.
“What else is there?”
“She’s missing her liver and there look to be teeth marks on the tissue surrounding where it should be.”
ASHA
“Asha are you almost done with the assignments for this week?”
My door swung open and the bane of my existence walked through. I don’t know how many times I’d demanded this man knock before he entered my office but each time he took it as a suggestion instead of a boundary. I took another minute off his life.
He’s lucky he wasn’t already dead.
That was my fault since I’d allowed myself to succumb to the charms of a man and he’d been running through my mind for weeks since then. I’d only just gotten him out of my brain since work had geared back up for the spring semester.
I’d had my mind on writing a new book since my first had been so successful academically. Of course, so many people thought I needed to achieve commercial success for me to feel vindicated by my findings but that didn’t matter to me. There were so many books, fiction and non-fiction, worthy of more praise than those on the bestseller list. All you needed was good PR and a story that slanted to whichever lens they needed the public to view reality through and you’d made it. My peers having robust discussions about my ideas across the nation and inviting me into their classrooms to discuss my theories had been the highlight of my last semester. I’d taken time off and so my arrival back on campus was met with a bunch of busy workmy colleagues felt they could dump on me as a punishment for the success I’d gained in our very small circles.
Why is it that you want to stay within academia again?
Criminology and psychology were similar disciplines, and when they intersected you had the point where my expertise flourished. But being spoken to like I was a first-year psychology 101 student and he was my professor had me shutting off the civilized side of my brain. My fingers twitched as he stood there with an expectant look on his face as though he were my supervisor instead of a peer.
“Dr.”
“Yes?” He rolled his wrist in the universal motion for me to hurry up and now I was going to get angry. He had the audacity to be a redhead and freckled and used it as an excuse for his abominable behavior. It was something that was going to have me counting how many little pricks of melanin existed on his face as I carved them off.
