After they finished stashing their stuff away, Dean whipped up a couple of local ID's and they piled back into the Impala. The morgue was located within the Southwestern Medical Center – a giant complex made up of St Paul's, Children's, and Parkland Hospitals as well as medical school facilities falling under the domain of the University of Texas. An Internet search had come up empty for the location, and only several phone calls and a lot of smooth talking had revealed the Pathology Administration office's location as being inside Parkland itself, in Division D.
Dean pulled into an empty slot at the visitors parking, and glanced around at the multi storied buildings comprising the complex across the street. Texans really did believe in doing everything big. Site of a medical school or not, the place was huge. He dug out the ID's from his leather jacket pocket and handed Sammy his.
"Ted Turner?" Disgust covered his brother's every word. Dean fought to keep his expression neutral. "Dude, we're trying not to draw attention here." He was about to clip it on, when Dean saw him catch a glimpse of the back. He tried to suppress a grin, knowing what was there, but it was hard going.
Sammy threw him a dirty look. "Why does this have a cat looking like he's sucking on a lemon? You trying to tell me something?"
Dean had to fight not to laugh. "Who me? Never, Sammy. Just something to decorate the badge is all. Though if you'd rather wear it that side out…"
"Hardy har har. You are so not funny."
"Says you." Dean got out of the car, his brother following suit.
Clipping on his own badge, Dean led the way down the parking lot and across the street to the tan, almost overbearing building. Walking on as if they knew their business, they skipped the somewhat crowded hospital registration area and aimed for the hallway in back.
Dean pulled out the piece of paper with convoluted instructions on how to get to where they were going. He glanced somewhat wistfully at the McDonalds inside the hospital down the hall on the left, knowing that an order of warm fries would really hit the spot.
The slightly off white walls and white linoleum floors were typical of every other hospital they'd ever been in.
Dean turned left as they neared an area colored in dark grey with a set of elevator banks. An escalator took them down one floor and they went left again until he spotted the sign for the Pathology Administration office right next to Breast Imaging. He tried to crane his neck to look down that connecting hall, but Sam grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the office before he could get a good look.
The room they entered was small, taken up almost entirely by a well-worn desk. A narrow hallway to the side looked to lead to several other offices and file rooms.
A young woman sat at the desk, busily reading a horror magazine and blowing one of the biggest chewing gum bubbles Dean had ever seen. Impressive.
"Excuse me. Do you work here?" There was the tiniest note of doubt in Sammy's tone.
The magazine landed with a thump on the desk. "Don't I look like I do?"
The white lab coat and name badge said she did, but the purple spiked hair, heavy eyeliner, and gray glittery eye shadow argued otherwise. A darkened brow was raised almost in challenge in their direction. Time to salvage the situation.
Dean stepped up to the desk and turned on the charm. "Love the bindi."
The girl's disapproving gaze left his brother and locked on him. "Really? I wasn't too sure it wasn't a little over the top."
"No, I like it. The whole thing really. Kinda fits the place." If you were a death loving freak. But hey, who was he to deny someone their little pleasures. He let his smile brighten a notch.
Her eyes grew a little wider, and he could see a definite spark of interest starting to glow. He had a feeling that under all that pale makeup she wasn't half bad either. Maybe he would leave another notch or two in Texas before he left.
"How can I help you?" She leaned forward on the desk, the better for him to see the tight bodice beneath the lab coat.
Dean sat himself down on the edge of the desk, not minding one bit. "Well, Ted and I, we're kinda low peons on the totem pole over at the Dallas Morning News. We're supposed to be fact checking some old lady's tea party downtown, but decided to take a detour." He let his volume lower just a tad. "You see, Ted here just moved over from LA, and they had a rash of murders down there a few months ago that sound a whole lot like the ones we've got going on by the Trinity now." He sent a glance back toward his brother, who was nodding, going along with the prearranged tale.
"We were sort of hoping we could get some info on the victims and maybe get a story connecting the two out of it? Give us a leg up on the competition at the paper, if you know what I mean." He leaned over toward her. "We wouldn't mind spreading the wealth a little either, so there would be something in it for you, if you'd help us out." He slipped the hundred he and Sam had agreed on onto the desk and slid it toward her.
Her hand settled over his, her gaze intense. She ran a long black nail playfully over his wrist before retreating with the money tucked beneath her palm. "What do you want to know?"
"You know, I'm not sure whether to be happy you were able to get her to cooperate or disgusted about how easily you manipulated that girl."
Dean threw his brother a grin and pumped his brows up and down for good measure. "It's called skills, Sammy, my man. And you're just totally jealous." He patted the side of his jacket where Clarice had slipped her number and when she'd be off shift all week. Life could be sweet.
"Yeah, jealous…right…" Sam gave him one his patented 'not in this lifetime' looks.
Stepping out from the air conditioned building into the late afternoon Texas heat was like a slap in the face – and it was only spring.
"So what all did we get?" Dean asked him. "I was kind of distracted." It'd been quite impressive watching Clarice look up info on the computer, rattle off facts, show them grisly pictures, all while totally undressing him and promising all sorts of things with her eyes. He had a feeling she might be able to teach him a few things.
Sam pulled out his Motorola Q and scrolled through a few pages of text as they hurried toward the car. "Well, I got all four locations for where the bodies were found. Unfortunately none of the victims have been ID'd yet, so that's one trail we can't follow." He scrolled a little more. "Seems they were dumped naked into the river, and were there long enough for the water and fish to make them pretty much unrecognizable. What few prints they were able to get came up empty on the databases, so most of them don't seem to have had criminal records of any kind. One of them did have the fingertips purposely cut off though, so could be someone the killer knew had prints? Nothing conclusive." He shook his head. "There's a search for dental records pending, but no results yet."
Dean nodded. That wasn't much. "All males?"
"Three of the four were. Two Caucasians, one Mexican, and one African-American. The last was the one with the cut off tips. All of them were different heights, different weights, nothing immediately obvious connecting them. Two of them were clearly malnourished, so they could be street people, but then again…" Sam shrugged.
"What about the bodies? The wounds?"
Sam scrolled some more. "They believe they've found bruising that would correspond with the victim's having been restrained. They speculate the cause of death to be a direct blow to the heart from a sharp blade, though without the actual organ to examine, they can't guarantee that. The same blade looks to have been used to open the cavity and remove the organ, though again they don't have any verified ideas on blade type as the water, fish, and everything else in the river distorted the evidence."
Dean took off his jacket – the afternoon sun beating down on them much too warm. "It's starting to sound like there might not be much supernatural about these murders. And we have squat to use to make sure."
"Looks like." Sam put the Q away. "Figured we could buy a map tonight and mark the spots. Maybe something will jump out at us. If not, we could go check each place in the hopes we see something the cops missed."
Dean nodded, opening the driver's door to the Impala. "Wouldn't be the first time."
He slid inside sweat breaking out on the side of his face from the trapped heat even as the leather seat burned his legs through the cloth of the jeans. He jumped back out of the car. "Holy crap!"
An impish grin lit Sam's face for a second. He'd opened the passenger door but had made no move to get in. "A little hot in there was it?"
It was nice to see the grin, but Dean still wanted to thwap his brother on the side of the head for it anyway. Would have too if Sammy hadn't been standing on the other side of the Impala. "Forgot old cars and the Texas sun don't mix so well."