Face of Murder

Lying naked on the metal gurney, the man was reduced to nothing more than white meat. Take the sheet away, and it was hard for Zoe to connect and keep connected the lines between this hunk of dead flesh and the man it had been. Whoever he was had long gone. She could see it still, in the yellowed fingertips that spoke of a nicotine habit and the small inch-long impression over his left ear where he had spent years wearing ill-fitting glasses. But the essence, the being, whatever it was that had once filled this body and animated it, was nowhere to be found.

It was better that way. People distracted her. They hid their true selves behind words and gestures that she could not always understand. But bodies could not lie. They were as they were, no more and no less.

It didn’t hurt, of course, that his face was gone. Smashed inward. The nose had been reduced to an entirely flat plane of the face, all the bumps and curves pressed against the inside of his skull now. The right side of the head, too, was cracked and squashed, bearing clear lines of impact. No one could have survived that. Even one of his eyes was gone.

The equation was there on his torso, written out sideways from the top of his chest to just below his navel. It was all as it seemed in the photographs—the full piece had been captured faithfully. Wearing uncomfortable white disposable gloves, Zoe turned over each of his arms and legs, and even hefted him onto his side with Shelley’s assistance. Nowhere could they see any other trace of ink, or indeed any marking that could hint at being a missing part of the equation.

“They didn’t miss anything,” Shelley said out loud, confirming the growing frustration that was building in the center of Zoe’s forehead.

“The other one.” Zoe turned to look at the coroner. “We need to see the student as well.”

The coroner shrugged, making a gesture that seemed to suggest she thought it pointless, and walked over to open another tray of the metal filing cabinet that served as a temporary resting place. She tugged it open with a long scraping sound of well-oiled metal on metal, and stepped back to allow them access to the resident.

The college student looked even younger than he had in the photographs, lying on the cold metal tray with all the blood drained out of his cheeks and the color with it. The top of his head was a mess, open and crushed inward. He was covered with a respectful sheet, but respect was only an obstacle in this case. Zoe stepped closer and tugged it aside, noting Shelley’s reluctance to do so.

For a long second, Zoe stared, unable to comprehend what she was looking at. Then she briefly wondered if they had pulled out the wrong body, but she had recognized his face from the crime scene photos. Finally, disbelief reigned, and she turned on the coroner with a glower that had the other woman backing away.

“Where are the equations?” Zoe asked, her tone low and flat, menacing enough to tell anyone about the anger behind it.

“Well, we performed the autopsy,” the coroner stuttered, feeling for a metal table behind her to steady herself. “We always wash the bodies to perform the autopsy.”

“You scrubbed away the evidence.”

Shelley stepped closer to lay a gentle hand on Zoe’s arm, perhaps warning her to cool down. Zoe ignored it. She was seething, every muscle in her body wanting to explode in a burst of energy and throw something at the wall. Maybe at the coroner.

The only reason she didn’t was that it was very clearly against the professional code of conduct. How could they have allowed something like this to happen?

“Who authorized the cleaning?” Shelley asked, her tone quiet and calm. She stepped forward, slightly in front of Zoe, as if shielding her.

The coroner fumbled for paperwork, still stuttering, her face gone pale. Zoe couldn’t take any more. She stalked out of the room with a growl in the back of her throat, slamming the door behind her for good measure. It being a swing door, the movement lost some of its effect, but it released some of the tension in her body all the same.

Shelley joined her a couple minutes later, finding her pacing up and down at the end of the corridor.

“We should have them written up for tampering with evidence,” Zoe said, as soon as Shelley was close enough to hear.

“They were within the scope of their instructions,” Shelley sighed, shrugging her shoulders. “The photographer felt they had captured everything. We’re just going to have to take their word for it.”

“They should be punished anyway. Do they not have common sense? It was clearly evidence. And the lead investigators not having even seen the body yet!”

“Well, in fairness, this was a local case when they did the autopsy, not a federal one. What’s done is done. We just have to work with what we have.”