The Last Sister (Columbia River)(50)

He and Ava stood in the autopsy suite. There were four stainless-steel tables, each with a sink at one end. A large hose and nozzle hung over each table, along with strong lights and a scale. Two assistants went about the suite, setting out instruments and getting things organized for the examiner.

On the closest table, Nate Copeland’s corpse silently waited for Dr. Rutledge.

Zander felt like a voyeur; he didn’t want to see the dead man, but it was his duty. The medical examiner had already done the Y incision from chest to groin but hadn’t removed the ribs. Ava fidgeted, and she lifted her shield to wipe her eyes. Usually she had no problem with autopsies, but she’d warned Zander that this one would be tough for her, given that she’d talked to the man the day before. At the Copeland house she’d held it together, but here the explicit details of the young man’s horrible end were laid out under the harsh lights.

A stark contrast to the very alive young deputy she’d interviewed—actually she’d grilled and guilt-tripped—about the Fitch crime scene.

Zander had told her not to feel sorry for doing her job.

“I’d convinced myself that the person he’d been is gone. This body is an empty shell,” Ava whispered. “But then I see that.” She pointed at a tattoo on Copeland’s deltoid. “He’s suddenly very human again.”

Zander understood. The tattoo represented something everlasting that Copeland had selected to carry with him. It symbolized a decision, a love, a permanence.

The tattoo remained, but the person was gone.

Copeland’s skin was pale, but along the edges of his lower back and legs, a dark bruised shade indicated he’d died faceup. Blood followed gravity after the heart stopped, and the livor mortis was in the right places for a man tipped back in a recliner. The dark color would also cover his backside.

The suite door swung open, and Dr. Seth Rutledge walked in, slipping his arms into a gown. An assistant tied the strings at the back as he shook Zander’s and Ava’s hands.

“Good to see the two of you. It’s been a while—I know, I know—that’s a good thing, in your opinion.” Seth focused on Ava. “Victoria said you’re getting married at a winery this summer?”

“Yes.” Her voice shook the littlest bit, and she didn’t expand on wedding descriptions as she usually did when asked about her plans.

Seth paused, but realized he wasn’t going to hear more. Sympathy filled his eyes. “That sounds great.”

“You and Victoria are on the list.” She sounded stronger.

“We better be.” He pulled on a pair of gloves. “Let’s get started.” He shifted into work mode as he neared the table.

Zander spotted something new. “I don’t remember seeing that sign before.” He pointed at a large, elegant plaque high along one wall.

THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE DEATH DELIGHTS IN HELPING THE LIVING.

A bit morbid. Delights as death’s verb felt wrong, but Zander figured it was medical examiner humor.

“Yes. Victoria gave me that for Christmas.”

Zander exchanged a glance with Ava, whose eyes had crinkled again, agreeing it made for an odd gift too, but Seth’s wife was his forensic anthropologist. The two of them worked in grim professions.

“The two of you are a match made in heaven, Seth,” Ava told him.

Seth’s eyes lit up above his mask. “I agree. Now, I’d already done a few things before you called this morning to ask me to wait. The external exam is finished, and you can see I stopped after the Y incision, but I sent fluids to toxicology and had his X-rays done.”

“Which fluids?” asked Ava.

“Blood, bile, urine, and vitreous humor.”

Zander was glad he hadn’t been present to watch Seth stick a needle in Copeland’s eye to draw the fluid. “You can get quick toxicology results?”

“We can for the basic tests since we run them here. Anything outside the norm, I send to another lab.”

“What’s the norm?”

“Alcohol, marijuana, opiates, barbiturates, psychostimulants. We also test for arsenic and heavy metals.” He paused. “We found Nate had the same GHB as in the Fitches.”

Zander and Ava looked at each other. “So this investigation has taken a new turn,” Zander said.

“There’s more than that,” said Seth. “The GSR test on his hand came back very high. Well over a two-thousand-particle count. He definitely fired the weapon, but it was an odd pattern. Part of his hand had virtually no GSR, as if something had been covering it—like another hand.”

Not suicide.

Zander was satisfied to hear that the young deputy hadn’t taken his own life, but the fact that he had been murdered wasn’t an improvement.

“I don’t know if one is better than the other,” muttered Ava, echoing Zander’s thoughts.

“It appears the same person who murdered the Fitches may have murdered Nate.”

“May have,” repeated Ava. “Even with this new evidence, it’s not definite. We need to remember that.”

Zander agreed. “Anything else from the external exam?”

“No abrasions or injuries,” the doctor went on. “Livor mortis matches the photos I saw of his position when he was found in the recliner. He has a tribal-style tattoo on his deltoid and one on his calf. A few scars. The X-rays don’t indicate any past broken bones, which I’ve found to be unusual in males. Usually something has been broken.”