Goddess of Justice by Dwayne Clayden (mobi ebook reader TXT) 📕

off the street. I convinced him to let you handle these murders. That it was better to keep you busy. He agreed, for now. You need to keep me informed. I don’t care how late or how early you call, but make the call. I need every detail. Leads, suspects, forensic evidence.” Jackson’s gray eyes bored into Brad. “Am I clear?”

“Yes.”

“What?” Jackson bellowed.

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s better.” Jackson slapped Brad’s back and grabbed the coffee off the car roof. “Glad we understand each other.”

Brad drove to the drab building of the Medical Examiner’s Office. He parked in visitors’ parking close to the front door.

He smiled at the receptionist and headed down the white hall to the autopsy suites. With four new bodies, he didn’t need to know who was where. There would be a backup of postmortems all morning.

Sturgeon, dressed in green surgical scrubs, was sitting outside an autopsy suite reading the paper. Brad handed him a coffee. “The city paying you to read the paper?”

“No. The city is paying me overtime. I’m at nine hours so far. Likely be sixteen or eighteen before I head home.” Sturgeon sipped his coffee. “Where the heck did you go last night?”

Brad yawned. “I figured you were mad at me, and there was no way you’d let me back into the crime scene until today, so I went home.”

“And slept?”

“Like a baby.” Brad rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. “Pleasant, long, hot shower this morning. I’m refreshed and ready to go.”

“Asshole.”

“Tell me a story about last night.”

“While you were getting your beauty sleep, and I don’t mind saying you need more, we were doing your work for you.”

“How so?”

“We videoed the scene and took about thirty rolls of film.” Sturgeon sipped his coffee. “The techs will process them this morning. We pulled a couple hundred different fingerprints off the walls and the objects in the room.” He held up his hands. “Don’t even ask about the objects. The room lit up like blue sky under the black light.”

Brad clenched his jaw. “Disgusting.”

“The autopsy is completed for victim number one at the front door. Zinovy Frolov. Perhaps you should have been here for that?”

“It’s barely eight-fifteen.”

“The ME came in early because of the lengthy list of customers, to get an early start.”

“I guess you’ll have to testify on the first. What did the ME find?”

“Knife inserted under the xiphoid, then up and into the heart. The blade was rotated, destroying the inside of the heart.”

Brad nodded. “Extremely sharp knife.”

“Sharp and skillfully used,” Sturgeon said. “Just like the two drug dealers in Victoria Park.”

“What about the knife?” Brad asked.

“At least an eight-inch blade,” Sturgeon said. “Either a hunting knife or a tactical blade.”

“Steele, Zerr and I were talking last night. Either military or tactical experience.”

Sturgeon tapped his finger to his cheek. “Who do I know who fits that?”

“We decided all three of us. And Sergeant Jackson.”

“Bingo. There’s more.” Sturgeon sipped his coffee and stared across the hall. “He killed two others with single shots to the head, and the last guy had a double-tap to the chest. Tight grouping.”

“Did you find any slugs?”

“Yeah. One in the wall behind the bed and another in the wall beside the camera. We’re examining them this morning. I’d say 9mm.”

“Same as the pimp and his bodyguard shooting.” Brad sipped his coffee and stared at the wall. “Maybe same gun?”

“I’ll know later today.” Sturgeon twisted as the door to the autopsy room opened.

“Sergeant Sturgeon,” the ME assistant said. “We’re starting the second autopsy. Nico Yudin.”

Sturgeon stood and grinned at Brad. “Just in time.”

“One Russian and I couldn’t care,” Brad said. “Two Russians, now I’m interested.” Brad headed to the change room. He hung his leather jacket, gray button-down shirt, and black dress pants in a locker and left his hiking boots on the floor. He changed into green surgical scrubs and entered the autopsy room.

It was the smell that got to him. He could handle the cutting and ripping out of organs. It had taken time, but that was okay. The mix of blood, stomach contents, and bowels fighting with disinfectant made a concoction not meant for a human to endure.

He grabbed a stool and slid it close, but not too close, to the autopsy table. The asshat on the table was the rapist. Brad thought of volunteering to do the cutting. He would start with the suspect’s dick, except the killer had already done that.

The attendant grabbed a scalpel and started the Y-cut—shoulders to high on the chest, then down past the belly button. The ME peeled the skin back, revealing the sternum and ribs. The attendant used bolt cutters to snip the ribs. When he was done, they lifted the ribs and sternum off as one piece. Brad glanced away. After he attended his first autopsy, it was years before he could eat ribs.

Brad took a few deep breaths of the foul air. Well, that didn’t help.

The medical examiner came in, removed and weighed organs, and visually inspected the stomach contents.

This asshat was shot in the head, so there would be nothing of interest in the chest and stomach as far as the homicide was concerned. Maybe what he had for a last meal. Forty minutes later, they were ready to examine the head.

The medical examiner was recording his findings. Again, nothing Brad didn’t know. The bullet had entered the left side of the head and exited the right, the explosion blasting the back of the skull across the wall. The bullet was through and through and into the wall—the first bullet Sturgeon found.

Brad remained seated while the next two autopsies were conducted. The bullet that struck suspect two entered at the left corner of his mouth and exited behind his ear—the second bullet found. That side of his face was missing.

The suspect, likely the cameraman, took two bullets to the chest. Both bullets entered the heart and then lodged by the spine. They were in relatively decent shape. Sturgeon slid them into evidence bags.

It was well