Wounds Read Online Free PDF Page A

herself and signing in, she pushed through the doors leading to the autopsy rooms in the back. Each visit she made to the building stirred up a stew of emotions. She always felt a small amount of apprehension, but she had grown used to the grisly sights found in the windowless rooms. Mostly, the ironic resemblance to a hospital teased her. Most people who enter a hospital leave in better shape than when they arrived. Not here. You came in dead and you left just as dead, and with a Y-shaped scar on your chest and detached rib cage.
    No matter how clean the employees kept the facility, there remained a vague, haunting odor that reminded Carmen of cold, uncooked chicken.
    She pushed through the doors that opened to the wide work area. The scene was familiar: a series of stainless steel tables lined one wall; at the head of each sat a sink. Horrible things drained into those basins every day. On each of the tables rested the unclothed form of what had once been a living person. The medical examiner’s office investigated any unusual death. That included suicides, accidental deaths, sudden deaths, communicable disease, and environmentally related deaths. In the end, however, dead remained dead.
    Dr. Norman Shuffler stood next to another ME, scrutinizing each move. Judging by the age difference, the senior Shuffler was guiding the younger man in the fine art of cutting corpses. Her eyes traced the scene and noticed that the nude body of her victim reclined on the nearest table as if patiently waiting his turn. She looked back at Shuffler, who pointed to something inside a woman’s chest.
    â€œHolding court again, Doc?”
    Shuffler shifted his gaze. “Ah, there she is, heartthrob of the SDPD.”
    â€œYeah, right. Heartthrob. That’s me.”
    The ME said something to his protégé, rounded the autopsy table, and approached the lifeless form of Doug Lindsey. Shuffler wore green surgical garb, tennis shoes, and horn-rimmed glasses that looked like a leftover from four decades before. A tuft of white hair crept from beneath the cloth head covering that draped his dome.
    Shuffler ranked high on the scale of Carmen’s favorite people. He had a quick wit and ready smile. His blue eyes reflected a keen intelligence. Not the kind to rush to judgment, he had provided valuable information on many of Carmen’s cases. She considered herself lucky when she drew him as the ME.
    â€œYou don’t give yourself enough credit, Detective. Many men find you attractive.” He stepped to the side of Doug Lindsey’s body and gazed at it.
    â€œNow you sound like my father. Whatcha got?” She moved closer to the metal table. Doug Lindsey seemed anything but serene. His pale skin looked more like rubber than human flesh. Eyes that would never blink again stared at the ceiling. The series of red puncture marks dotted his torso.
    â€œI thought you’d want to see this before I opened him up. Everything is still preliminary, but you will find this interesting.” He reached for a switch and a powerful overhead light came on, bathing the body in white illumination. “Of course, you’ve already noticed the puncture marks. They run from belt line to shoulders and, as you can see, cover his chest and face.”
    â€œDo you think that those wounds are the COD?”
    He shook his head. “I have an early guess about the cause of death, but first I want you to notice the pattern.”
    Carmen leaned over the body, her face just a foot or two away. “They’re uniform.”
    â€œExcellent.” He pushed on one of the small holes near the deceased’s navel. “You’ll notice that the punctures are evenly spaced—about six millimeters between each two punctures—a quarter of an inch. The distance between the rows is about the same. Each wound is nine millimeters deep—call it three-eights of an inch.”
    â€œThere must be a hundred or more holes in this