Fiction: Title to Be Determined (Part Two)

You can find part one here.

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Alistair stood over the body, his eyes transfixed by the row of stitches running up the victims chest. An expletive escaped his mouth as he peered closely at the wound. "Tell me the bad news, Andy." he barked at the medical examiner.

Jules looked from Alistair to the staff on the scene - just a couple of uniforms, probably the first to respond to the call, and the ME along with a CSU photographer. The medical examiner was rotund, balding and not a day younger than sixty-five. Jules was so caught up her in assessment of Andy that she hardly noticed his look of shared disgust.

"Oh, Dr. Julian, let me introduce you to a colleague, Dr. Andrew Thompson. He's been working as our medical examiner going on thirty years. Andy, this is my new partner." Alistair shrugged at the older man's questioning look. "What have you got?" he prompted again.

"Same as always - heart's missing, wound's stitched up, no assault, no sign of trauma other than a six inch incision between the..." Andy looked up at Jules and it was all she could do not to laugh at his face, frozen somewhere between fear of what he had been about to say and anger for having to stop for her.

"You want to fill Dr. Julian in on what's been going on 'round here?" Alistair urged. He appreciated Andy's commitment to the job, and he'd be the first to defend the man's right to be a good ol' boy if he wanted to be one, though Alistair didn't share that proclivity and could tell by the look on his partner's face that she most certainly did not share it, either. "From the beginning, if you would?"

"I've read the case file, Detective." Jules cut in.

"I don't care - I asked Andy to share his observations with you. From the beginning, Andy?"

The elder man took out a red handkerchief and slowly began to mop the top of his head. "Well, let's see. Back near Christmas we had our first body show up on the West side of town. It was smack in the middle of finals at the university and I came out expecting to find some poor kid died of an overdose or a stupid dare - maybe a suicide, but we don't see too many of those, they usually wait to go home before they end it." Jules caught the nervous glance Andy threw at Stirling.

"That seems a logical assumption, given the timing." Jules affirmed, hoping to smooth over the relationship with the ME.

"'Course it's logical." Andy cried, looking at Jules as if she'd just discovered the sky was blue and grass was green. "Girl, logic ain't no part of it."

"But what did you find, Andy?" Alistair asked, trying to get the man back on track.

"White female, mid-twenties, naked, no sign of trauma or sexual assault, no sign of struggle, no sign of anything 'cept a six inch incision through the sternum, nicely sewn up. We take her in, notify the hospitals of a missing patient, and for a few hours I figure there ain't nothing wrong."

"Except there were no missing patients." Alistair concluded.

"So I get to diggin around, find a small puncture wound in the arm, like she'd been poked with a syringe, and start to open her up, do all the tests, and I realize the incision's fresh, not more than twelve hours old, but it's only 11 in the morning, so I just go ahead and open her up again, but she's got no heart. It's gone." Andy looked at Jules, expecting her to be shocked by his revelation. "Well it's not every day I find a dead body in otherwise good health missing a heart. Well, used to be, anyway."

"What were your findings with regard to the puncture?" Jules asked. She knew the answer, but if they were going to the trouble of this farce, she might as well join in.

"I'm getting there. I took samples of her blood, looked at her stomach contents, checked everything. It was all normal, I retested the blood sample and saw a trace for a tranquilizer - propofol - used all the time in sedation, even in veterinary settings. In enough of a dose, it's pretty strong - strong enough to knock 'er out for an hour or so."

"She was still alive when he made the incision?" Jules asked.

"You assume it's a man?" Alistair laughed.

"Most serial killers are male." Jules relied. "Andy, have all the victims had the same sedative in their system?"

"Nope, but that'll all be in the file." he snarked.

"Fine. But what you're telling me is that the killer removed her heart while she was alive?"

"Yeah - each and every last one of 'em. Even this girl here's got the puncture wound and the same stitches."

Jules stooped down to look at the body. "They look like a surgeon's stitches."

"Very professional." Andy confirmed. "If it weren't for the fact that she's dead, she'd have a clear scar when it healed... even go so far as to say it'd be minimal, for a cut like that."

"What's her time of death?" Alistair asked, obviously ready to take control of his investigation.

"I'd say between 3 and 4 am." Andy shrugged. "She'd already been in the sun for a couple of hours when we got here."

Jules paced the area, her eyes scanning for details. "Where have you typically found the bodies?" she asked, rejoining the two men.

"Last two were out off 16 and Crossover - lots of open land out there." Andy supplied.

"And before that?"

"December body was found out on Double Springs, girl in January was dumped on the tracks by Gregg Road, February was out behind the baseball stadium, March was on a construction site off Porter."

"Always on the edges of town?"

"Well, one was more in town - local flasher hangs out on the trail and found her." Andy conceded.

"But this looks like he was desperate to get rid of the body." Jules quietly spoke. Or that he's getting cocky."

Alistair snorted. "Last thing I need right now is a cocky serial killer." Or a cocky partner, he thought to himself.

Jules scanned the area once more. "There's less cover here. He'd be more likely to be seen by a passing driver or someone in one the houses." she pointed at newer building across the street, which contrasted starkly with the older homes on their side of the road.

"The uniforms canvassed the area - didn't turn up any information from the neighbors." Alistair objected. "No one's out at 4 am during the summer, it makes sense to dump a body on the edges of town when you have thousands of students crawling around town at all hours of the day and night. Besides, he's been pretty obvious in wanting us to find the bodies, location's got nothing to do with it."

"But the other body that was found in town?"

"During Spring Break."

"Have any of the victims been students?"

"Just one. Most of them aren't even from the area."

"Look y'all, I've got to get the body back to the morgue." Andy interrupted. "I'll try to get my initial report to you by the morning, Al."

"I appreciate it, Andy."