((One, I apologize for my prolonged laziness in putting up another chapter for this story. I have been at work on my novel. Two, the line button on the edit page is not working, so I'm placing my comments within double parenthesis.))
There is a new actor in my theater today. A man who usually doesn't act because he knows that he can't. Today, he thinks he can. Eric appears at my autopsy table, his skin glazed lightly with perspiration looking like a kid who's spent the afternoon tracking a lost puppy. I try not to take notice but it just breaks my heart to know that something is wrong and I could be helping.
"Eric, what's wrong?" I address bluntly. There would be no way to skirt the issue with me. I had children of my own and I was used to evasive answers.
A small smile appeared on Delko. "I think I see dead people." he jokes. Just like Eric. To turn his personal troubles into a farce.
"I'm not sure I follow. You're looking at one now." I gesture to the body on the autopsy table in front of me.
It's nothing." he assures, chuckling a bit to himself.
I show no signs of mirth. "What ever you say, honey."
"So what's up with Mr. Gendron?" he sends the conversation in a different direction.
Mr. Gendron, my newest tenant, had been the owner of a country store in Miami Dade County right on the water; a surfer shack some might call it. He ended up in a tree, his head twisted around backwards and a gunshot through his chin and out the top of his head. Would have been classified a suicide if not for the palm tree and the twisted head. Destiny Shore, the name of the 'surfer shack', was a shambles, clearly the original crime scene. No murder weapon had been found. According to Calleigh's on scene analysis of the bullet casing, it looked like a 9 millimeter; standard police issue gun.
"Cause of death, gunshot to the head. Straight through the mandible, tearing through the temporal and parietal lobes of the brain, severing the central and lateral sulcus and finally exiting here," I tip the head forward so that Eric could see where I am pointing, "directly through the sagittal suture."
"Whoever's responsible has got one hell of an aim." Eric remarks, his dark eyes examining the wound tract. "Did you recover a bullet?"
"No. It was a through-and-through. My guess is that it's still at the crime scene."
I watch his expression soften. I can't understand what for though. I have a feeling though that whatever it was, it has nothing to do with our case. His features harden just as I reach down to grab some evidence that I had collected from the cadaver. "I've got skin under the fingernails, suggesting a struggle." I hand him the small envelope.
"Great. I'll get this to the lab. See if the epithelials can tell us anything about our killer." he states.
"Also got something from his clothes." I hold out a small silvery object for him.
"A key?" he asks. "Do you have any idea what it might be for?"
"Not my area, Eric. What I can tell you is that it doesn't look like a key for a vehicle. Maybe a safety deposit box or something like that."
He glances up at me, his face suddenly now void of his earlier weakness. "Thanks, Alexx. I'll go see if H has any thoughts on it." With that, he leaves, not casting another look back.
I sigh and move to my autopsy tools, preparing to wash them. Eric has not acted like this recently, just today. The confusion seems to slip into my brain further and further; like Mr. Gendron's bullet perhaps. I caught something in his eyes that I hadn't seen since the day of Timmy's funeral.
A weight inside of me grows more heavy at the reminiscence of that horrible day. When I glance at my table, I can almost still picture him there; once a proud and youthful man now devoid of life. Horatio had struggled every day since then to come to grips with why he had not saved him. I could see it every time we spoke.
The clang of a tool on the tiled floor breaks my attention. My head snaps to the wheel tray on my right to find that a scalpel has fallen. My brows furrow. "How did that happen?" I ask myself, moving over to pick it up. The metal handle feels warm surprisingly. I hadn't used that set of tools yet.
Curtains separating the window to the outside billow. A gasp comes from me before I can keep it in. "Hello?" I call. "Eric?"
No voice responds. There are no windows in the autopsy theater, so it is safe to assume that there is no wind either. So... how could the curtains be moving?
"Alexx..." My entire body freezes as a voice hits my ears. I am shaking no matter how I try to stop. I know that voice, I knew that voice. But it cannot belong to who I think it does; because he is gone. Perhaps I am going crazy just like my husband suspects. I do after all talk to the dead; rarely do I expect them to speak back.
"Timmy?" I ask carefully, scanning the room from where I stand.
The squeak of the door to the viewing area surprises me from behind and I leap forward, a gasp escaping from me instead of a scream that I felt lingering in my throat.
When I turn, Yelina Salas is watching me with prominent eyes. "Are you alright?" she questions me in her thickly accented tone. "I didn't think you were one to be jumpy. You are after all in the company of dead people everyday."
"I'm okay. I just wasn't expecting you, that's all." I say with a warm smile. "You didn't have to sneak around. I wasn't doing anything too important."
Yelina frowns. "I wasn't sneaking around."
Now it is my turn to be bewildered. "You weren't?"
"No. I came by to tell you that Horatio is calling a team meeting. He'd like you to be there." She studies me as if I have morphed into a chicken. "Are you positive you are alright?"
I somehow find the strength to nod. "I'll be fine."
She leaves, casting me one more suspicious look over her shoulder.
What could that have been? Probably just my imagination. But something deep inside of me had a feeling that someone else had been in that room... and if not in body... then in spirit?
Removing my apron, I catch on a piece of paper lying on Mr. Gendron's body. I had not set anything there. I had not written anything. And I didn't see Yelina or Eric put anything there either. Cautiously, I approach and pick it up.
Shakespeare knows who did it.
I read it again, as if that would clarify anything. Shakespeare? William Shakespeare? A poet from England who was long dead. Knows who? Knows who did what?
Puzzled, I stuff the note into my pocket and begin out the doors to Horatio's office. Perhaps he can shed some light on this strange message...
((TBC...))