Chapter 4
The next morning, the case briefing was held in the small conference room at the forensics center.
Present were Samuel, Winona, Grace, and Richard from the criminal investigation unit.
Richard was fifty-one and had been with the team for over twenty years. Everyone called him Captain Carter.
He was short, his face full of wrinkles. Whenever he stood, he would spread his feet wide apart, looking like an old tree stump firmly rooted to the spot.
He had a thin preliminary report laid out in front of him, but only flipped to the send page.
Samuel flicked on the projector, and a photo of the body popped up on the screen.
He said, "The body drifted downstream and was pulled out on the east side of Riverbend Bridge.
"The water police got the call and handed it over to our department. So far, no missing persons report matches, and nobody has come to identify the body.
"Judging from the injuries, there are no obvious stab or blunt force wounds on the body. Our preliminary assessment points to drowning as the cause of death.
"The facial soft tissue is severely damaged, so visual identification isn't possible. The fingerprints have been lost due to prolonged immersion, so we can't recover any prints. At this point, the only identification methods left are dental comparison and skeletal features."
"When will we get the dental results?" Richard asked.
Winona replied, "I checked in with the database team yesterday afternoon. Turns out the state database for missing persons' dental records is pretty patchy, so they'll have to fill in the gaps by hand. In the best case, we're looking at three to five days."
"Three to five days?" Richard echoed.
"We can't push the database team any harder. Sam, should we run the skeletal comparison in parallel?" Winona asked.
"Yeah. Submit the measurements for the cheekbones and pelvis," Samuel replied.
"Got it." Winona jotted down a couple of lines in her notebook. Her ponytail slipped over her shoulder. She casually swept it back, her gesture effortless and graceful.
Richard glanced at her but didn't say anything. Instead, he reached up with his right hand and gave the thickest vertebra at the back of his neck a couple of squeezes.
That was his way of mulling things over.
"Samuel, how sure are you about drowning being the cause?" he asked.
"That's a preliminary assessment. We'll have to wait for the tissue samples and organ tests to confirm the actual cause of death," Samuel replied.
"Did you check the back of the head?" Richard asked.
Samuel paused. "Yeah, I did. There's some contusion there, but it's most likely from the body hitting something hard on the riverbed after entering the water. The facial injuries were probably caused in the same way."
"Most likely?" Richard echoed.
"After we finish the full set of tests, I'll give you a definite answer. Captain Carter, anything else on your mind?" Samuel asked.
Richard didn't answer right away. He flipped to the last page of the preliminary report and pointed to the entry about the fractured left wrist. "This part here. It's an old fracture, from three to five years back."
"What's wrong?" Samuel asked.
"Nothing. I have a thought, but not confirmed yet," Richard said as he closed the report.
Winona glanced at him and smiled. "Captain Carter, after all these years cracking cases, do you see clues everywhere? Once the dental records come back, we'll know for sure. No need to get all worked up."
Her voice was softer than usual, like a whispering breeze.
Richard didn't respond. He folded the report and slipped it into his own briefcase instead of putting it back onto the table.
After the meeting ended, everyone else started to leave.
Richard made it to the door and shot a glance back at the photo still up on the screen.
He gave the back of his neck another couple of squeezes.
I drifted in the corner of the conference room, staring at that photo.
That was me. It was an overhead shot of my whole body, with my face pixelated. My pale and swollen corpse sprawled on the stainless steel table, like a dead fish hauled out of the water.
Winona said the cause of death was drowning. She spoke in a very natural way, sounding certain and professional.
Of course, she was sure of it because that night, she was the one who drugged my drink, smashed my head against the bridge railing, and shoved me into the river.