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A familiar guilt had her palms dampening inside the gloves. “Dr. Hayden will be consulting on our investigation,” Ethan said, jolting her from her thoughts. “She joins us from Raiker Forensics in theStates.”
Dr. Conrad’s brows rose at the mention of the company. “Welcome, Dr. Hayden. I’ve heard of your employer, of course. I had the pleasure of attending a symposium where a medical examiner from your agency was a speaker. Carstens, I believe his name was. It was quite illuminating. Are you in the medical field, aswell?”
She shook her head. “My areas of expertise are forensic entomology and forensic psychology. But you’re correct, Finn Carstens is verygifted.”
“With two specialties to your credit, something tells me you’re just as talented.” He indicated the tall brown-haired woman standing beside him. “Reese Wilcox is one of our technicians. She’s taking care of the photo log for this autopsy.” He turned back toward the gurney. “Let’s get to the subject that brings you here, shall we? We have before us a male, likely early to mid-forties, in relatively good health. He ate approximately four hours before death, a cheeseburger, fries and beer. He’s minus his appendix and he’s suffered a few broken bones over the years, most notably three ribs, his nose and his lefthumerus.”
“We got a hit from the Regional Automated Fingerprint Identification Access System a couple of hours ago,” Ethan inserted. “Our victim is Felix Harold Simard, last known address in Montreal.” They had no idea yet what had brought the man to Nova Scotia, but Ethan had a request in for all transportation manifests into the province for the last two weeks. “I spoke to the detective who arrested him fourteen years ago. Simard was suspected of making and distributing snuff movies, where the female leads ended up violently murdered in the film. They weren’t able to get him on that, but his use of underage girls in his porn films netted him a seven-year stretch in Archambault.” He glanced at Alexa. “Detective Brighton also shared his aliases and knownacquaintances.”
Dr. Conrad jotted the name on a form attached to a clipboard. “I assume family members have beennotified?”
Ethan inclined hishead.
Alexa’s gaze dropped to study the hands of the corpse. Big. Raw-boned with scarred knuckles. Simard might have worked in some sort of manual labor. Or had seen his share offights.
“No signs of sexualassault?”
Dr. Conrad shook his head. In an aside Ethan told Alexa, “That’s been true of all the victims, male andfemale.”
She recalled reading that in the case summary on the plane ride. As a rule, she found sexual deviants less complicated to profile. Offenders like the one in this case were more challenging because the underlying motivation could be more difficult to naildown.
“Lacerations are visible on his wrists and ankles.” The ME pointed to the areas inturn.
“He was restrained,” shemurmured.
“Definitely. By handcuffs or zip ties would be my guess, fastened tightly enough to cut into the skin. There are no defensive wounds, but he did suffer a contusion to the back of his head, severe enough that he might have lost consciousness. Although tests will confirm it, it appears his hands and fingers were thoroughly doused with bleach.” Conrad lifted one of the victim’s hands. The nails were cut painfullyshort.
“Oxygen bleach was used on the rest of the victims. What about his toxscreen?”
Conrad’s brows drew together at Ethan’s question. Clearly, he was tiring of his narration being interrupted. “It will be several days before those results are in. There was, however, an injection site found on the left side of his neck.” The man lightly touched the area on the corpse. Alexa saw the two Mounties exchange a glance. The investigative summary had included the two most recent homicides in New Brunswick less than two weeks ago. The killer preyed primarily on men, but there had been some female victims, as well. All had suffered a blitzkrieg style of attack, had Scopolamine in their systems and cause of death—although undetermined—was thought to be asphyxiation. Her gaze fell to the stitching on the lips. The most chilling similarity in thecases.
“Traces of adhesive were found on his cheeks, and a few fibers in his mouth,” the ME went on. “Likely he was gagged and his mouth taped shut prior to death. His death would have been agonizing—his eyes were removed while he was still alive. From the progress of the clotting properties, it appears that happened hours after the contusion on hishead.”
“The ME on scene thought the instrument used for that might have been a sharpened melonballer.”
Alexa’s normally strong stomach did a quick flip at Ethan’s comment. Conrad pursed his lips for a moment, then nodded. “It’d be brutal, but effective. The muscles holding the eyeball in place needed to be severed, and the thinnest bones of the skull are right behind the eye socket. That said, they’re strong enough to withstand a scalpel or ice pick…but look foryourselves.”
She leaned forward simultaneously with the two men flanking her, thankful she’d remembered to dab Vicks VapoRub beneath her nostrils before entering the room. “See the uniform-sized holes through the eye sockets?” Conrad asked. “There are no repeated or tentative wounds. Just one hole, uniform in width, straight through to thebrain.”
“A drill.” Nyle sounded as queasy as Alexa felt. “But he was dead by then, right? The removal of the eyeballs killedhim?”
“No, indeed.” Conrad straightened from his position over the body. “There’s actually very little blood loss associated with enucleation—removal of the eyes. Most of that comes from the irritation to the eyelids. I opened the skull first. You can review the pictures if you care to. The cause of death was likely the long bit drill. It was used—for lack of a better phrase—to scramble the victim’sbrain.”
Nothing in the files she’d reviewed on the plane had prepared her for such savagery. A glance at Nyle and Ethan’s faces told her that this was a new detail. At least Nyle’s shock was easily discerned. Ethan’s expression was closed. Inscrutable. With a jolt, she was reminded that as well as she’d known him as a teen, the man was a stranger to her. The thought shook her more than it shouldhave.
“So…” She struggled to reroute her wayward thoughts, “the offender hasn’t used this technique before.” Ethan shook his head at her words, his gaze still trained on the victim’s empty eye sockets. It could mean the perpetrator was escalating, she mused. Or that the victim represented something personal to the suspect. This kind of brutality went hand in hand with rage, which could be fueled by revenge. Greed. Jealousy. But she was having a hard time reconciling what had been done to this victim with the suspect’s pastattacks.
The ME took a small pair of scissors from the tray at his side. “I left this part until your arrival.” He bent over to delicately cut the stitches seaming the corpse’s lips. As if enjoying their rapt attention, he prolonged the act by pulling delicately at each freed stitch, laying the threads on a sterile cloth lining the tray to be examined later. The tech shot pictures of his actions. “Be sure and leave your email address. I’ll send you the tentative report and photo log as soon as the toxicology results are back.” He reached for a pair of forceps and pried open themouth.
She leaned forward in anticipation as Conrad used a small penlight to peer into the cavity, his nose nearly touching the corpse’s chin as he peered inside the mouth. “Reese, I’ll want some pictures ofthis.”
Nyle stepped aside so the tech could move closer to snap photos as the medical examiner gently extracted something from the mouth of the victim and set it on a second sterilized cloth on the tray beside thegurney.
“Anisoptera.” Alexa stared at the dragonfly the ME extracted from the mouth of the victim. It was lifeless, its wings a brilliant blue with delicate shadings of green and violet. “MayI?”
At Conrad’s nod, she rounded the gurney and, lifting the paper with the insect in her gloved hands, crossed to the magnifying glass sitting on the nearby counter. She peered closely at the item. “Rhyothemis fuliginosa,” she murmured. The vivid colored markings and the transparent tips on the front wings matched the photos in the file she’d read today. The terminal appendages identified it as male. According to the case summary, an identical insect had been left with each of the previousvictims.
“You specialize indragonflies?”