Take Me Back To Paddington (SERIES)

Chapter 19 - The Post Mortem of Chae R.

I saw Nick walking towards me when he reached the restaurant I asked him to meet me at. My eyes followed his steps as my fingernails were tapping on the table, sitting anxiously for the stuffs he wanted to show me.

"Isaac" He pecked me on the cheek, going for a long hug by the shoulder.

I closed my eyes as I was feeling his discomfort that surprised me. The way his body shuddered in my embrace injecting the fear and worries in my mind, thinking of what were the stuffs that could possibly scare a full grown man.

He had seen hundreds of post mortem results before that contained graphic images in each stage of the procedure. All law enforcement officers must gone through those hard times. But he never got caught by it anymore after the third or fourth time. Because this kind of mental trauma would usually happen to new officers only; shaky body that followed by fever afterwards. It happened to me also in the beginning of my career as a homicide detective.

Baxter could be the least experienced detective in the MIT, but he had been in the team for years already. He wasn't a new recruit anymore.

"Are you alright, Nick?" I asked when he parted the hug, claiming his seat next to me.

Taking his cell phone out, he answered. "Not really"

"Is it that bad?"

"First, it is that bad" He got his phone ready for me to see. "Second, it doesn't make sense"

Cold sweats began to tickle under my skin, wondering what kind of violence that Baxter was talking about no matter how heartbreaking it was to find out about it.

He placed the device on the table for me to take as he leaned his back against the chair, waiting for me to react.

I opened the images that were taken slide by slide, looking very closely at every single one of them.

"That is before they started with external examination" Nick explained.

I nodded, looking at Chae's pictures that were taken before the procedure started. She was laid on the table, wearing the same black, long sleeve shirt when she fell that night. Because nothing on the victim's body could be removed without being photographed and recorded first, including her clothes.

"Wait," I noticed something wasn't right with those pictures. "Where's her necklace? They already removed it?"

"Is it a cross necklace?"

"Yeah, she always wore it"

"You can't see it because she wasn't wearing any necklace"

"No, no no" I shook my head, swiping to the next pictures to look for it. "Chae never took that necklace off"

Nick didn't say anything about that matter.  Instead, he called the waitress to order his brunch while I continued to read the full internal examination report first.

I was actually impressed by how clean and healthy Chae was based on the findings. Her intestines, lungs and other organs were in excellent condition. There wasn't any sign of disease or sickness either. She only had fever few hours before she passed, probably getting it when she was working.

I clicked my tongue, thinking that she didn't even tell me she wasn't feeling good while we were texting.

Stopping at a particular page of the report that had vaginal word printed on it, I took more time in reading everything. Chae's hymen was still intact, and so did her vaginal entrance that indicated no penetration in any way possible.

She was as perfect as a newborn baby, just like the way she wanted herself to be; a chaste woman who wouldn't have sex before marriage.

I jumped back to the external examination report when the internal part already met my satisfaction, having scrambled eggs and pumpkin toast that Nick pushed into my mouth at the same time.