Mike smiled as they pulled into an open spot along Marshall's Beach and he recognized Edgar Randolph as the ME on duty. The short and stout man in his mid-forties circled the body, taking pictures from every angle in the dim light. His white lab coat showing beneath the gray wool jacket reflected the overhead beam from the nearby street lamp, as the busy man kneeled down, seemingly intrigued by something he'd found on the body.
Mike got out of the car, glancing over at Steve who'd stopped to button up his beige overcoat.
"Is it me or is it getting colder out?", the young Inspector asked, his breath rising in the crystal-clear night above the ocean.
"Humidity is getting worse. Might be a dreary morning coming."
They walked over to the crime scene side by side, the cold sand permeating Mike's dress shoes and freezing his toes.
His trained eyes reviewed the scene long before Edgar ever glanced up. Sprawled out right on the shore of Marshall's Beach, the body was still covered in seaweed and seemed to have gotten washed up recently. Sand had begun to form around the right side of their stiff, threatening to bury it with each wave crashing onto the beach.
Severely bloated and with its facial features nearly unrecognizable, it didn't take long for the strong odor of decomposition to fill the otherwise frigid air. Mike noted a pair of worn out denim jeans and a dark blue dress shirt with frayed edges, where the elements had weathered it.
"Morning Mike, Stephen…oh, and Merry Christmas."
The ME never looked up as he greeted them, his gloved fingers picking on their victim's shirt collar. Edgar's short brown hair was thrown back and forth in the strong breeze and a freshly trimmed beard decorated his round face, undoubtedly to keep him warm.
"Somehow I knew you two would be running the holiday shift again. They ever let you go home?"
"Not as long as there're still murders in this city.", Mike countered mantra-like and crouched down across from the ME, "And Merry Christmas to you as well, Ed. Any idea on what we're dealing with here?"
Steve had stayed a couple feet back, digging out his black notepad and ready to scribble down any findings they could gather this early into their newest case. The fabric of his light gray dress pants whipped violently in the wind with every ice-cold gust that came off the ocean, his eyes squinted to keep his hair from drifting into them.
"Well, my first thought was a holiday hopper.", the ME explained, causing Mike to cringe at hearing the demeaning term for a bridge jumper the second time this morning, "Body is that of a Caucasian male, early thirties I'd say, two-hundred pounds, death occurred two, maybe two-and a half weeks ago and I am fairly certain he spent almost the entire time in the water. At this advanced state of decomp, I am going to have to run some tests in the lab to narrow things down. He was definitely dead before he hit the water. There's some scavenging activity that will make ID'ing him a bit harder too, but we're going to try and get that through his dental records. Let's hope that will do, because there's not much flesh left on his fingers for prints…"
When Edgar saw Mike reach for the jean pockets of their victim but hesitating when the flesh below felt rubbery; he quickly retrieved another set of latex gloves out of his case, before handing them to the seasoned Lieutenant.
"Here, better be safe than sorry."
Nodding at the ME in gratitude, Mike fought his way into the defiant gloves and checked all the pockets for any ID but found none.
"You said that at first you thought this was a jumper but that you found out he was dead before he hit the water? Did you discover anything that lead you to change your mind?", Steve asked from a couple feet away, a light quiver in his voice from shaking in the cold wind.
"Yeah, I did. Come and take a look at this, fellas."
Waiting until Steve joined them, Edgar undid their body's dress shirt, proceeding painstakingly slow as he unbuttoned it one button at a time. Despite the wide array of colors and bloated shape of their victim's torso, Mike could make out the distinctive Y-pattern of a surgical incision across his chest, that looked like it had been sewn shut recently.
Behind him, Steve drew in a deep breath and he could sense the young Inspector's eyes going back and forth between the two men.
"What do you make of that, Ed?", Mike asked intrigued and touched the skin near one of the incision marks, surprised by its flexibility after all this time in the water.
The ME shrugged faintly, letting his eyes drift over the body before he shook his head.
"It could be some sick joke, Mike, especially around Christmas. I'd check with the local medical colleges, see if they are missing a body from their morgue. Maybe some idiot students were playing a prank and it got out of hand. Or maybe he came from a funeral home."
"Mhm."
Mike scratched his freshly shaved chin, unable to shake off the unease that was beginning to spread inside his gut about the body in front of them.
"Ed, you think this is a homicide?"
The ME paused, looking up at both detectives, before biting his lip.
"Well guys, I am gonna be honest with you, at this point, I am 99% sure this is a prank. But the Coroner inside me says something different."
"And what is that…", Steve pried and crouched down next to Mike.
"I'll be able to tell you once I have all the results of the autopsy in six to seven hours, depending on who all is on staff down in the lab. It might be a bit longer if I come across anything out of the norm…All I can tell you is that I have a weird gut feeling about this one and I want to check out a couple different avenues. In the meantime, you two should get some rest. Or buy gifts for each other. Or decorate a tree or do something cheerful. You're both a pitiful sight."