In Death 30 - Fantasy in Death

Broken concrete, rocks, something of that order.”
    He glanced back at Eve. “I’m sorry. Where was she found again?”
    “Here.” Eve brought the image back on-screen, watched Morris frown.
    “A smooth surface. She didn’t incur those injuries by taking a tumble on that floor.”
    “Could she have been moved, and dumped here?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t see how she would have lived through it. Look at the blood pool. She certainly would have bled profusely at the point of impact. Moving her would mean more blood loss. Added to this? No, I don’t see how that could be.”
    He took a drink from the tube, frowned again. “This is annoying. I feel I’ve let you down. Let me go through the scans and data again.”
    “No, you haven’t let me down. Your findings mesh with mine.”
    “Do they?” He angled away from the screen, taking another sip as he looked at Eve. “Are we going to explain to each other how this twenty-nine-year-old female managed to fall onto a smooth surface and incur injuries consistent with a fall of—I’d say—at least twenty feet onto a rough and uneven one?”
    “Sure. After I get someone to explain it to me.”
    “Well, I love a mystery. Still, I hope she lives so she can tell you herself. It’s rare, if ever, you and I consult over someone with a pulse. Tell me more about her.”
    “She’s one of the partners of my last victim.”
    “Ah. The head job. Holo-room.” He gestured to the screen. “And this would be a holo-room as well.”
    “It would. Hers. In her apartment, which was secured. She was, by the evidence on-scene, playing the same game, though it may have been another scenario, as the first vic.”
    “Consistency is often an advantage. Burns? Does she have internal burns at the site of the injuries?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Let me look at the scans again, enhanced. If we can get a strong enough picture, I might find them. I wasn’t looking before.”
    “Help yourself. It used to be you had to do everything on a comp by hand, right? Fingers on keyboard only. No voice commands, no smart screens.”
    “When I was a medical student we keyboarded nearly everything, and had only just begun to use palm scans routinely for diagnostics. Holo wasn’t yet considered reliable or cost-effective for teaching or diagnostics. I remember as a boy we—ah, look here. Do you see this?”
    She moved closer to the screen. “What am I supposed to see?”
    “Along the leg fracture—the shadows? Dots really. So small, so faint. But there.”
    “Burns.”
    “I’ll give you five to ten. See, yes, see, there all over her. Every point of impact, every wound, difficult to separate as she’s so badly damaged. This, here, yes, here, on this shoulder wound, they show more clearly.”
    “Where he cut her.”
    “I agree it could very well be a knife wound. Or, like your previous victim, a sword. I’d want to see it in the flesh, so to speak, take measurements, do an analysis, but from a visual like this, a sharp blade. And the burns—those minute internal singes. Fascinating.”
    “She’d have been armed, too. But she wouldn’t have known it.”
    “Sorry? How would she not know?”
    Eve shrugged, her eyes on the scan. “Just a whacked theory I’m working on.”
    The door opened. “Dallas. Oh, hey, Morris. Ah, you’re a little early,” Peabody said to him. “The vic’s coming out of surgery. The doctor’s coming out in a minute to give us the picture.”
    “I need to shut down here, then I’m on my way.”
    “I’m interested in your theory, whacked or not,” Morris said when the door closed. “When you’re ready to share.”
    “I need to run it by another expert. You’ve made it seem a little less whacked.”
    “Always happy to help.” He glanced at the screen before Eve shut down. “I hope I don’t have the pleasure of meeting her.”
    “The human body stays pretty much the same, right? Technology changes and science advances. This one? She started out tough, so that’s her advantage. Now it’s up to technology and science to pull it out.”
    “Not just the body, but the spirit. Technology and science don’t hold a candle to the human spirit. If hers is strong enough, she may stay not dead yet.”

20
     
     
     
    T he partners paced now, wearing a groove in opposite sides of the room. If she’d gone by visual alone, she’d have concluded both were utterly exhausted, holding on by those thin threads of hope, faith, and