Alia was having "the dream" again, the one where she dreamed she had turned the alarm off, then woke again to find she had not done so. And so, the cycle would repeat until she was awake. She hated the dream because it left her feeling tired.
When she finally opened her eyes, she realized that Mathias had turned on the bedside lamp and left a mug of steaming coffee for her. "Ah, thank you Mathias," she said out loud, and drank deeply from the hot, bitter brew. Mathias always made his coffee strong, but she preferred her lighter brew.
She grabbed her thick, woolen robe and wrapped it around her. The cabin was warm, and she didn't need to use the bathroom heater as she took her shower. When she emerged, she rubbed her thick hair down with a towel. She could let it dry naturally—no one in the morgue would care what she looked like.
Mathias was in the kitchen, spooning bacon and eggs onto the plates they had just bought. The smell made her hungry, so she refilled her coffee and sat down to eat her breakfast.
"Pink scrubs?" Mathias asked, "That the standard uniform for an autopsy?"
"They're my uniform, especially if I'm not working for any one agency. I'm free lancing here. Hey, is it true Doc Weston wants to pay me?" She put forkfuls of food into her mouth between words.
"That's what he told me. I told him you wanted to work for free since you were doing this on your own, but he seems to think he should compensate you, even if it's basically minimum wage. You'll like him, he's professional, and he seems grateful for the help. Who can blame him, you're former FBI and he has high expectations."
"And he won't be disappointed. I've been dying to get my hands on those girls. I want to give you something to tell the parents, even if it's bad news it's better than none. Now, if I can only ID them, we can find out who they are and notify their parents."
"Well, maybe you'll have better luck with the new one." Mathias was smiling, he liked to tease her if getting a rise out of her was possible.
"Aaarrgh, I was perfectly happy forgetting about that one, thanks, Matias. But I need a break and you can never tell when it's coming. There's no way I'm going to get all three done today, I might not even finish two, depending on what I find. Plus, I've got to get used to working in his lab without re-arranging things. I liked my labs at the FBI, I had everything exactly where I needed it. Did you warm up my car, Mathias? I think I'd like to get going and get this done."
"It's ready. Call me and let me know what you've found out." He kissed her, holding her closely for a moment before letting go.
Hospitals usually had their morgues in the basement, but as a courtesy she introduced herself at the front desk and told them Dr. Weston was expecting her. A few minutes later he appeared, a tallish man wearing rumpled green scrubs, the universal uniform for hospital coroners. His face looked tired, and his hair was tousled, as if comb and brush had been lost a long time ago.
"Alia?" he asked and held out his hand. She took his, liking the firmness of his grip.
"Dr. Alia Kassam, formerly of the FBI. Now I'm…" she didn't know how to finish it.
"Well," he said, "I've got plenty here that I need help with, including the three brought in by the Cheyenne Police Department." He punched an elevator call button. "Morgue is in the second basement. The only elevator is this one, and I have a card for you. Need to keep the civilians and curiosity seekers, plus the occasional reporter, out. Cafeteria is on the sixth floor, not bad but I bring food from home. They do make a decent breakfast."
The elevator beeped and the door opened. "After you," Weston said in an attempt to be gallant, "We'll get you going on paperwork. I know you'd like to get to work right away, but we got to do things the right way. Make everything official and you can work here all you like. You wouldn't mind helping me out with some other cases, would you?
"After my girls are take care of, yes, I'd be happy to. I know what it's like to be overwhelmed, it's going to be a little crazy for me trying to get those girls autopsied. I'd planned on only having to do two, but I should know things never work out the way I expect them to. It's going to take longer, and that I hadn't planned on."
The paperwork wasn't as bad as the FBI's, but still an annoyance. After she finished, Dr. Weston had her stand against the door so he could take a picture for her badge. The last thing he gave her was a key card for the door and a pin number. "Well, this makes you an official employee now. It will be nice having another doctor here, even if you are technically a medical examiner. Bet they're glad to have you at the Indian Health Clinic, even though they don't tend to have much luck with their volunteer doctors."
"That's because their doctors probably didn't serve time with 'Doctors Without Borders' or work in the Palestinian refugee camps. I know what it's like to have to run for cover when the shelling starts or the camp is being invaded. I've seen hopeless and it's not pretty, but it makes me feel better when I try to help. My dad was big on that, and I inherited it from him."
She was not going to be discouraged by the skeptical look that Weston gave her, but asked him to bring out the latest victim.
She hated to see a body pulled out from the drawer, having it place on a gurney didn't really seem to help. The girl had been found the previous night, not far outside town. Her clothes had been removed and bagged so Alia could check them later.
"We don't know how long she's been out there," Weston said apologetically, "A few days, she's too cold to get a time of death. She had ligature marks around her neck, in addition to the bruise on her head. I don't know if he strangles them first, then beats them, or what. I figured I'd leave the autopsying to you and see what you can come up with. My lab isn't as well equipped as the FBI, so if there's something you need, let me know."
Alia nodded, hoping he'd go away and leave her alone, which he fortunately did. She stood and looked at the body, running a gloved hand over the wound. The ligature marks were a surprise, but not unexpected. A killer was not necessarily consistent or logical, and it fell to her to try to figure out why he did what he did. She wished that murderers would stop doing what they did and put her out of business.
First came the swabbing of the body, and the DNA samples. It would have been better if she had seen the body in situ, the context was always important, for it could yield valuable information. Photos, as always, helped, but bit was not the same. There was a reason coroners liked to be at the crime scene to supervise.
She sighed, then picked up a scalpel and made a "Y" incision, then took the spreader and opened the chest. She had done this so often over the years that it had become second nature, and if she's ever been bothered by it, she could no longer recall it. Being around corpses didn't bother her the way it did the other students, she had seen more than one dead body, some fresh, some not.
She began the more mundane part of autopsies, the measuring and weighing of organs and checking of stomach contents. The girl seemed healthy enough, there were stains on her fingers that indicated she smoked, but that seemed the worst of it. She looked at the girl's face—so young and so pretty. Cheyenne, from her looks. Who was killing these girls?
She suddenly had a thought, reaching her hand down, she found the uterus and ovaries, and what she could feel gave her an idea.
She found Weston, working on another autopsy in the adjacent room. "Can I have an ultrasound sent down here? I think I found something."
"What are you looking for?"
"Well, I think she's pregnant, and I don't know if a standard pregnancy test would work. If I do an ultrasound maybe I can tell how far along she is. This guy is really a monster if he's killing pregnant girls. I won't get around to the other two today. Now, can I get that ultrasound?"
"How does after lunch sound?" Weston asked.
Lunch? How had that much time passed. It was like when she worked for the FBI. She'd get involved in her work and lose all track of time.
She headed to the cafeteria. From the looks of it, the food was no better or worse than that of other hospitals she'd worked in. She chose a Caesar salad, promising herself she would pack a lunch tomorrow. Eager to get back to her work, she didn't linger over her meal, but bought an extra coke for the afternoon when she would need the sugar and caffeine.
As he'd promised, an ultrasound was waiting for her. "Good, thanks," she said to Weston, "I don't know if this will work or not, but sometimes it does. It can be hard to find a dead fetus in a dead mother, but sometimes I do have luck."
She put the lubricant on the girl's stomach, and began to move the ultra sound indicator around. Doc Weston watched, adding an extra eye.
"There," said Alia triumphantly, "I knew it, she was pregnant at the time of death. I'll see if I can get a DNA sample for the father, but I don't know how badly it's degraded. She looks like she's been out there longer than the other two girls."
"So," he said, "What do you know about serial killers?"
"Outside of the fact that they're messed up people in general? They generally stick to their own ethnic group, though Gary Ridgway blew a hole in that theory. Since these girls are Cheyenne, there's about a ninety percent chance their killer will be Cheyenne, too. If you want psychological stuff, he may have been a bed wetter, had mother issues, but I'll leave that to a profiler. My guess is that these girls were prostitutes, and he has a big problem with them. What? Who knows. In the meantime, I'm going to call Mathias and tell him we're having pizza for dinner, unless he feels like cooking. I've got a bunch of dictation and notes to work on."