The boy is stark naked, and dried blood streaks extend from the crushed area of his forehead down to the hollows of his eyes where it pools like small, bloody twin lakes. The lines of his ribs stick out so much I could climb them like a ladder. A stark white shaft of bone sticks out from his leg, gleaming against the bloody rupture on his thigh. A pattern of crimson, crossed lines decorates his crushed left hip. His skin is dirty and he stinks like crazy, but not from death. Not yet. More like a latrine.
Under his layer of grime is a layer of bruising, both fresh and old. His feet and toes are black. How he was able to stand on them, I can’t imagine, as it looks and smells as though they are rotting. Calluses surround his ankles and wrists. I think he must have been tied up. Another pool of blood spills from under his head, spreading wide on the asphalt road. He looks to be sixteen to eighteen years old with the slightest bits of young facial hair growing about his chin. His body sprawls out on the street with his limbs twisted at awkward angles around him.
I’m going to catch the person who did this. I want to tear his heart out with my bare hands and squeeze it into a bloody pulp.
My fantasy of mushy heart muscle squeezing through my fingers as blood drips to the ground is unsatisfactorily interrupted. Dr. Nathan Perlman leans over the boy’s hand with a pair of tweezers and carefully plucks out a piece of dark red thread snagged on a fingernail. It gets tucked away safely in a clear plastic evidence bag for future analysis. Realizing that my hands are still fisted from my little fantasy, I release them and try not to look like the vengeful murderer I momentarily wish I were.
Nathan looks up at me and says, “I’m ready to move the body. Can you step back?”
“Sure.” I remove myself from the body, giving room for the Medical Examiner and his assistant to hoist the body onto the gurney.
While the men are in mid-lift, I take the opportunity to examine the boy’s underside. With one hand squashing my hat to my head, I lean over until my hair drags on the asphalt. “Holy Plane of Fire!”
Nathan’s assistant stumbles at my exclamation and drops the boy’s leg.
Nathan’s fury overflows. “Holy shit, Patrick! Hasn’t this boy been through enough?”
Four hands jostle the body until they manage to get it on the gurney.
Nathan’s foul mood and abuse of Patrick is unusual. His typically jovial face is soured, and his smile lines twist in the wrong direction. My chest tightens at the pained look on Patrick’s face. My heart goes out to both of them, really. I can feel the anger and pain rolling off Nathan. Patrick is feeling empathy for the boy and anxiety at having made a mistake on the job. I try to push their pains aside as I have to focus on the matter at hand, and dealing with my own emotions is enough. Luckily I can’t feel everyone’s emotions all the time, just the stronger ones—unless I open up my sixth sense, that is. Then I can feel it all.
When the body is safely enshrouded in clean white linen, I turn to Nathan. “Did you see the lacerations on his back?”
Nathan grimaces. “I hate to see shit like this.”
I agree, and my heart squeezing fantasy transforms into daydreams of watching the perpetrator’s flesh slowly disintegrate in a vat of acid. Propping my hands on jean-clad hips, I observe Nathan and Patrick load the destroyed body into the hearse.
***************************************
Mini-excerpt from: The Light Who Shines
By: Lilo Abernathy
On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Light-Who-Shines-Bluebell-Kildare-ebook/dp/B00HYH3ZU4/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1392572506
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'd love to hear your comments!