THE HARBOUR [EDITING]

The Coroner's Office

AUGUST 25, 7 PM.

Detective Bateman and his partner Alice Pines pull into the dimly lit Caper Bay Police Department parking lot and make their way to the forensics building, it's a rather small two-story building made of brick and hardwood. Bateman finds himself comparing it to the much larger forensics building back in Boulder City. For a rich town, almost every professional building is rather small and modest, Bateman thinks, a contract to the residents' fancy cars and extravagant estates.

They make their way through the sliding doors and into the coroner's office, once inside, his partner Alice gags beside him, Bateman has grown quite used to the smell of decomposing bodies. The smell doesn't bother him much. His partner, however, is new to the line of work and still hasn't built up a tolerance.

"Philip!" A pale man chimes in a gruff-throaty voice at the sound of the doors opening.

"I was wondering when you'd get here," he says, walking hastily towards Bateman and Pines. Bateman examines the man thoughtfully, he is a tall, tired-looking man, thin as a whip, with a slight hunchback from years of uncorrected posture. His heavy-looking eyelids painted almost black- evidence of a man with a severely unhealthy sleep and work schedule, Bateman thinks.

"Good morning," Bateman starts, "I'm Detective Bateman-"

"I know who you are," the man cuts in, waving his hands impatiently.

"I've read your files," he continues, "and you must be Ms. Pines,"

"Yes," Alice says, stretching out her hand, "and you are?"

The man stares down at her hand, his eyebrows frowning slightly before shaking it briefly and then quickly taking his hands away.

"Harry Pham," he says, sniffling. Bateman watches as he walks towards an embalming table where the body of whom he assumes is Wesley Moretti lies.

"Come on," Mr. Pham says as he puts on surgical gloves. They walk towards the table and stand so each of them has a clear view of the body.

"His body is pretty badly decomposed from being submerged in water for so long, but, this is what I can tell you" Harry starts, "Multiple puncture wounds on the back, upper arms and neck area. Blunt force trauma to the head, I suspect he fell face first before he was stabbed or hit with a blunt object."

"Stabbed," Alice says, Harry throws her an irritated look and says, "Yes, stabbed,"

"The puncture wounds are clean, indicating a sharp object was used, my guess is a kitchen knife of some sort," he continues, "And over here," he walks around the table, over to where alleged Mr Moretti's head is facing.

"You can see his throat was slit," Harry says a little too enthusiastically, "it was an impressively clean cut, don't you think?" He asks rhetorically, looking up at the two Detectives, who passed each other a questioning glance.

"Can you tell when he died, and what time?" Detective Bateman asks.

"Yes, well, as I said, the body was underwater for a long time, there isn't much to go on!" he rambles, "I suspect he'd been dead three days at most before his body was dumped in the swimming hole," he says.

"So, August 18th or 19th,"

"Yes,"

"And time of death?"

"Ugh, that I have not figured out yet," he says frowning, "but I will, in a couple of hours"

"How many times would you say he was stabbed?" Alice asks.

"Sixteen," he says, and a crooked grin stretches his face muscles, "isn't that curious?" he says.

"How so?"