The Last Snow Fall

Chapter 5

Monday, 20th March 12:19PM

New York

Dr. Desmond looked upwards from the body as Amir and Drew entered the brightly lit morgue. The morgue was much cleaner and neater than most people expected it to be. The rows of slide in boxes that held bodies were closed firmly. Stainless steel trays and instruments were organized and kept in groups. The robin egg shell blue walls almost made the room feel comfortable if not for the fact that unmistakable heavy feel of death gripped Drew from the moment he stepped inside. He had never held a fascination with the dead. If you did you die and if you’re lucky your body will not end up in a cold, impersonal room in a wall with strangers.

Drew followed Amir to the body Sasha was inspecting “Hey Dr. Desmond you called us?”

She nodded “Yes I did. I’m sorry that the autopsy took so long but there were about three more bodies to get through before Jane Doe so she had to wait.”

“She’s not Jane Doe anymore.” Amir answered “After he talked to her client he led us to the services he used. She worked for a low end escort surface. Her name was Lucy Carson. She was seventeen years of age, a runaway from foster care. She’s originally from Montana, hitched a ride to New York two years ago and hasn’t surfaced since then until now. Her records also state that two months ago she completed a stint in Mercy West’s psych ward when she tried to hang herself. She was a chronic loner. The girls she worked with said that she kept mostly to herself and had a boyfriend she broke up with a month before she tried to kill herself.”

Sasha looked disturbed “Poor girl.”

She folded a white sheet over the body she had been viewing and slid the body back into the wall again. Walking a few paces away she opened another slab and bought out Lucy Carson. Her skin was pale and papery, wearing death’s skeletal mask. The incision marks looked angry against her skin. Sasha rolled the sheet down. The original knife marks had torn Lucy up from the inside. Death had not been kind to her.

“So this is what I discovered when I did her autopsy.” Sasha started “She didn’t have any drugs in her system at the time of the murder except for a small dose of ecstasy which she’d probably taken a day before she had been killed. There were no date rape drugs in her system. I didn’t find any semen however, the deep bruising around her pelvis and thighs do indicate non consensual intercourse. I sent a sample of the spit up to Detective Winters however; it was not a match to anybody in the system. She had seafood right before she died.

“No as for her wounds. I suspect there were two knives used in the act. One was a serrated edge blade while the other was a stainless steel blade. See these cuts here?” Drew and Amir leaned in closer to the knife wound she was pointing out on the victim’s ribs. “The edges of the wound are uneven and wide. I make me think that the serrated edged knife was pushed into her and then moved around to cause her as much pain as possible.”

Amir raised a brow “If your findings are correct that means our killer knew Lucy was going into the alley alone and went in prepared to murder her. This was definitely premeditated.”

“The wounds on her shoulder, below her ribs, hips and thighs was done carefully avoiding major arteries making it possible that Lucy may have had survived had help gotten there in time. However, it seems once he was done with carving her up he used the stainless steel blade and sliced her carotid artery.” Dr. Desmond continued. She then pursed her lips “Yet there is one thing that confused me.”

Drew leaned against the steel wall and watched as she tilted the girl’s head up “You can see an irritated red mark here.” Drew saw the mark on the base of her neck.

“It looks like the killer snatched away a necklace she was wearing.” Drew mused.

“He took a memento.” Amir concluded grimly.