Death Marks (The Symbolist) Read Online Free PDF Page A

yearning covered in cobwebs. She needed this guy, if only from a distance.
    Mahoney turned to her, pointing to a bowl of wrapped sweets, he said, 'Take one of those peppermints and suck down hard on it.' Looking at Redd, he waved a hand at the female victim, 'Raped her, poor wee soul. I'll be sending off samples for traces of DNA.'
    'Then we might just have a lead?'
    'There's something important here ye should see.'
    Redd stepped sideways for Dove to come alongside him. 'You're doing fine Dove. This is the worst it can get.'
    Mahoney grinned. 'It's not the gore that will get to ye; it's the smell, but these are fresh.'
    Fighting the urge to run, she nodded, watching Mahoney place a kidney on the tray. Gently prodding it open, he said, ' Again, same scorings, but there's some kind of pattern. Come and see; same on all four of them.' He grunted, taking some heavy-duty paper from a roll. 'I'm going to flatten it against this, that way ye'll have a better idea.'
    Seeing a pattern of three sticks jutting from a centre point, like the spokes of a wheel, Redd muttered, ' What the hell is going on?'
    Mahoney glowered, 'Ye are faced with the darkest heart of man and the divil's is climbing out.'
    Redd shook his head. 'Bloody strange.'
    Turning to the mutilated remains, Mahoney said, 'I would estimate the female to be about five feet three inches, the male five feet ten inches. The left side of his body is thicker, stronger, so he was left-handed.' Crossing over to another stainless steel table, he brought back a bowl filled with two lumps of darkened flesh. 'The stomach contents may be of some help to ye.'
    Dove swallowed bile, reaching for another peppermint.
    Mahoney poked at one of the quivering organs. 'I found the remains of a salad in both - with potatoes and salmon, no meat or dairy products. More importantly, I think ye may have a lead here; I also found some greens, could be opiates. I'm sending them off to the toxicologist along with other body fluids.'
    'Opiates?'
    'I'm thinking cannabis, but ye can't chew cannabis, it doesn't have any effect that way.'
    'So when d'you think time of death occurred?'
    'Approximately three o'clock in the morning. When I examined the relatives in situ at one thirty PM, lividity was fixed, and rigor full. The body temperature at the scene was 80 degrees Fahrenheit. There was some insect activity - signs of eggs and hatchings. Now hatching takes a few hours, so I would estimate both victims died at approximately 3.00 am.'
    Redd frowned, 'So how long does it take for everything to leave the stomach?'
    Mahoney rubbed his chin, it varies, but ye can say from maybe one to three hours. '
    Redd muttered, ' They ate after midnight? Strange.' He looked over to the bones scattered on the steel table. 'Have you got any ideas about the bones found by the bodies?'
    'Bleached they are, but from the texture, they're hundreds of years old - completely separate from the two young victims. It will take several days for the lab to work it out. We've got a mixture of male and female bones here.'
    Dove said, 'How can you tell, which is which?'
    Mahoney frowned. 'Now there's no mean rule for the size of male and female skeletons. Ye see, some males can have a smaller skeleton than a female. If ye have a female who's had good nutrition and manual exercise, she could be larger than a male who's led a sedentary life and poor diet. But, ye can in some circumstances, tell the differences in certain areas. See here, the humerus is often bigger in a male, as is the lower bone on the thumb side, and the femur.'
    Dove whipped out her notepad, scribbling down the information. She'd taken many courses in her career, but forensics was not her forte.
    Mahoney said, ' These pelvic bones can also help ye identify the sex. The female pelvis is wider than the male. Ye'll see the sciatic notch is broader as well.'
    Feeling the phone vibrate in his pocket, Redd took it out to see the Station number. Clicking it on, he listened, his