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Here is Chapter 2. Thanks for stopping by!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Crossing Jordan

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Chapter 2:

When the body was ready I donned a pair of scrubs and joined Bug in the autopsy room.

"How's it going?" I asked Bug who had already started the autopsy.

"Hmm," he said. "Hard to tell as yet. There are so many stab wounds I can't even make a proper T incision."

The 'T' incision opened up the body cavity. I grimaced slightly when I walked over to the body, seeing immediately what he meant.

I swallowed and forced myself not to think about the fact that I knew this girl. I made myself look at it as a regular autopsy.

But it didn't take long for either of us to realize that this was NOT just another autopsy. On top of the violence of the way she had been beaten and murdered there was almost no trace evidence. Nothing under her nails. No hair, no fibers on the body. She hadn't been raped. She had been beaten but the perp hadn't choked her so there were no fingerprint impressions on her skin.

By the time we finished frustration was burning inside of me. Bug looked almost as frustrated as I felt. He tossed his gloves into the trash with a little more force than necessary.

"I sure hope they found some evidence in that apartment," Bug said, scowling.

"No kidding," I replied. I flipped through the print out of our findings, or lack thereof. "This is ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous?"

Bug and I turned to see Woody coming through the autopsy room door. He gave a sideways look at the body, which was covered. With a relieved sigh he walked over to us.

"We didn't find any trace evidence," I said, handing him the preliminary autopsy report. He shuffled through the papers, his brow furrowed. "Did you find anything in the apartment?"

Woody looked up, his brow furrowed. "We found a lot of blood, the victim's fingerprints, fingerprints belonging to a Jordan Cavanaugh," he paused to give me a pointed look, "And two other sets, one belonging to the apartment super that let us in and another unidentified set. We ran them but we didn't get any hits."

"That could be our guy," Bug said.

Woody shrugged. "Possibly. Jordan, your prints are in the apartment so I need to get a statement from you even though you're cleared. You weren't on the surveillance tapes."

"Oh good," I said sarcastically. "I'm glad to know I didn't murder my old high school friend. Thanks for telling me."

"Jordan, knock it off. You know its just standard procedure," Woody said, giving me an injured look.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," I said. "I'm just frustrated."

Woody snorted. "You and me both," he said and turned his attention back to the report. "So the kitchen knife was the murder weapon?"

"It appears that way. The wounds match the knife, the blood on the knife is the vics. But the only prints on it are the victims," Bug said.

"Wonderful," said Woody.

"Do you wanna get a statement now?" I asked. "We have to meet with Macy in a half hour."

Woody nodded and I led him to one of the interview rooms.

It didn't take long for Woody to get a statement since there was really nothing to tell. Once we were done he left, promising to call if or when the found anything new.

Bug and I went over our findings with Garrett who ended up as frustrated as everyone else was with the lack of evidence.

"There had to be something," he said. "We have to go over the body again."

"Garrett, we went over it. We were in there for hours. There was nothing there," I said.

"Yeah, Dr. Macy, there was nothing," Bug agreed.

Garrett sighed heavily. "The DA is going to be all over this one. If we don't make sure we cover our bases..."

"Yeah, and with me on the case you know she'll be an even bigger—"

"Jordan!" Bug hissed, shaking his head.

"A bigger what, Dr. Cavanaugh?"

I turned around to see the DA, Renee Wolcott, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, eyes narrowed.

Garrett stood quickly and walked over to her.

"Renee," he said with a stiff smile.

"Dr Macy, please tell me Dr Cavanaugh is not on this case."

"Bug is on the case," Garrett said. "Dr Cavanaugh assisted with the autopsy."

"Her prints were in the room, she shouldn't be on this case at all," Wolcott said.

Garrett looked at her evenly. "As long as I am the head ME, I choose who works on what case," he said.

She glared at him. "Fine. But if I see one misstep, I will be forced to take other actions."

"Fine," Garrett said, glaring right back.

"Let me know if you find anything new. I'm on my way to the precinct right now to talk to the lead detective," Wolcott said as she turned to leave.

"Poor Woody," I muttered under my breath and Bug stifled a laugh. Garrett gave me a dirty look.

Wolcott sailed out of the room and I heaved a relieved sigh. The woman made my skin crawl.

"Jordan, will you please refrain from your commentary while Ms. Wolcott is in the room? I know you two hate each other, but can you knock off the comments while I'm trying to stick up for you?" Garrett said as he sank back into his chair.

"Sorry, Boss," I said, trying to look properly contrite.

Garrett shook his head. "Back to what I was saying, when this gets out people are going to go nuts. There's no solid leads, almost no evidence. When people find out how brutally she was killed...well, the press is going to have a field day with it."

I nodded. Especially because it was a young woman. That's always how it went.

"Bug, Jordan, why don't you see get Nigel to go over the body with some of the more high tech tools. We need to cover our bases and do everything we can."

"Right," I said.

"Okay," Bug replied, nodding.

"Let me know if anything new comes up."

Bug and I nodded and left the room. We were on our way down the hall to find Nigel when Lily popped around a corner. She was wearing a ruffly flowered skirt and a low cut pink sweater. I caught Bug staring at her and he quickly looked away.

"Jordan! I was looking for you! Can I talk to you for a sec?" she said quickly.

I looked over at Bug who shrugged and said, "I'll go find Nige and we can meet up in the autopsy room."

"Alright," I said with a nod. Bug continued down the hall, giving Lily one last surreptitious look out of the corner of his eye as he left.

"What's up Lil?" I asked.

Lily gave me a probing look and led me down the hall to her office. "Jordan, Dr Macy told me that you were friends with Lindsey Carlson," she said as she sat at her desk and motioned me towards a chair.

Oh, I got it now. Lily was going to do her grief counsellor bit with me.

"Yeah, we were friends in high school," I said dismissively, hoping that if I acted nonchalant Lily would drop it.

"Dr Macy said that you had just met up with her again though."

I sighed and sank into a chair. Obviously she wasn't going to drop it. "That's right. We had drinks, talked. It was just once."

Lily nodded. "How are you feeling about everything?" she asked.

"I'm fine," I said lightly. "I just want to catch the guy that did it."

"Do you want to talk about anything?" she asked quietly.

"Nah. I'm fine. I've just got work to do," I said with a little laugh. "You know how it goes."

"Okay," Lily said.

"Right."

We stared at each other for another minute. "So...can I go?" I asked.

Lily sighed and stood up. "Of course. Just remember, I'm here if you need to talk."

"Right," I said again as I stood up. "Thanks," I added awkwardly.

I turned and walked out of Lily's office, leaving Lily shaking her head.

I jogged down the hall and burst into the autopsy room where I found Nigel and Bug going over the body again.

"Hey, whatcha doing?" I asked.

"Hey luv," Nigel said as he looked up. "Just trying to find any trace of fingerprints on her arm. Hoping our perp left something." Nige brushed his long hair out of his eyes and went back to work.

Three hours later we had exhausted Nigel's store of equipment and had found nothing else. Now there was three of us burning with frustration.

"This is not logical," Nigel said. "There is no such thing as a perfect crime. There has to be some kind of evidence."

"I agree," Bug said. "And I hope that the Crime Scene guys find it."

It was late by then so we hurried to clean up and went our separate ways. I found myself sitting at my desk staring into space, the autopsy report spread out on the desk in front of me. There had to be something else. There had to be.

I was still staring at the report when Nigel and Bug came in the room an hour or so later. They were in their street clothes.

"Jordan, luv, we were wondering if you wanted to go get a drink," Nigel said with a grin.

"Nah, thanks though. I just want to go over this stuff some more," I said, waving my hand at the report.

"The case will still be here tomorrow. Have you eaten anything today?" Nigel asked.

"Uh, no ," I replied.

"C'mon. You can come in early tomorrow, but you need to eat something. And a drink probably wouldn't hurt ya either."

I gave Nigel a little smile. "Okay, you talked me into it. I'll meet you at the elevator in a sec."

Nigel and Bug nodded and left. I shrugged out of my scrubs jacket and picked up my purse. I looked at the autopsy report on my desk, at the beaten, blue face of my old high school friend.

"I'll find 'em Lindsey. I won't forget. And he will pay," I whispered as I switched off the light and went to meet Nigel and Bug.

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