Notes: Just a drabble really that I've had on my hard drive for some time now. It was written as a challenge involving the words: cluster/kleptomania/shelved and since there aren't enough Doc Robbins pieces, here's my attempt. Short and to the point and kind of angsty.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Jane Doe
By SLynn
The bruises were visible now.
Such a simple thing bruises. Just another one of the body's many defenses. Platelets cluster around the wound protecting it, healing it. Bruising and scabbing. The human body was an amazing thing.
Except now.
Now it didn't seem so amazing.
Not now laid out on the table, nothing more then a shell.
Not now covered in bruises.
Al Robbins hated it sometimes.
He was as much like Gil as the rest of them. Looking for answers. Solving crime. Finding truths. But there was no truth here.
She was just a girl.
Just a little girl, fourteen maybe.
He might act cold at times like it didn't get to him. It was his glibness that some times put people off. But how could he not be glib? How could he not be dry? He took it all very seriously, but sometimes he had to play the part. Sometimes he had to make a joke or say an oddly timed thing just to get through it.
Today he couldn't even pretend.
This girl had died of asphyxia.
She'd been beaten and drowned and her body in a twisted form of kleptomania had stolen her last breath, her every breath, to save her lungs from being filled with water. Her throat had swollen shut depriving her of air as a defense mechanism.
Yes, the body was an amazing thing.
There was nothing he could do for her now.
Normally David cleaned the bodies, but not today. Today he felt the need to do it for himself.
He had nothing new to give to Gil. Nothing that would point them in the right direction. Nothing more then a report telling them things they already knew. Nothing that would save this girl from being anything more then a shelved case. A cold case.
Finishing his job, he placed her body gently into its temporary resting place.
Just a body bag.
Just another body bag he tried to tell himself.
Jane Doe #103.
The End