CHAPTER NINE

Lance listened to Gail and Jeremy as they talked. Jeremy was explaining everything Lance was doing since Lance couldn't talk to the ghosts with Brayden assisting on the autopsy. He was surprised Gail stuck around for her own autopsy, but she seemed to be handling it well and asking a lot of questions.

"Are you sitting in on interviews later?" Brayden asked.

Lance refocused and glanced up at Brayden. "The only one I'm aware of is the Zoom meeting with Detective Burn's sister. I'll be there for that. She's supposed to call in around one."

"Have you met her before?" Brayden asked.

"No, but if she's anything like her sister, she'll be great. Better than that one yesterday who wanted to know if she got the job if she could bring her friends on a tour of the morgue." Lance shook his head. "I've met more strange people in the last few weeks interviewing that I ever cared to."

Brayden laughed. "Yeah, there are some odd people out there."

Lance focused on Gail's body. "See here? This is where her head hit the rock when she landed. It appears she hit feet first, then crumpled, then her head hit the rock. See the difference in the damage to this side of the skull compared to the other side? I'm guessing something or someone hit her on the other side before she hit the ground. Maybe she hit her head on the railing when she jumped, but that would be unlikely." Lance already knew she'd been hit on the head before being taken to the bridge, but he couldn't let on he had that knowledge. He had to play this out like every piece of evidence he found on the body was new information.

"It didn't crack the skull." Brayden looked closer.

"No, but it was bleeding pretty badly. I need to look at the photos we took before we washed the body, but I seem to remember her clothes being covered in blood on this side, where on the other side, the side she hit when she fell, the blood was pooled beneath her head." He was keeping his terminology simple so Gail could understand what he was saying since he couldn't explain directly to her. He'd already warned her he would have to talk as if he assumed this was a suicide until he found evidence it wasn't.

Brayden made a note on the chart they were using to mark injuries. "So, you think she was bleeding before she jumped?"

"It's possible. That along with the broken fingernails and possible skin we collected under her nails makes me suspicious. There is also this bruising on her arms that looks an awful lot like someone grabbed her." He pointed to an area on her upper arm.

"Maybe someone tried to grab her when she jumped and couldn't hold on to her?" Brayden asked.

"Possible. That's pretty shitty of them if they watched her fall and didn't call for help after." Lance reached for the camera to take pictures of her skull. He was desperate to find something that proved she didn't jump.

"Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I thought we'd drop in and say hi." Angus's voice came through the speaker that connected the viewing room to the autopsy room.

Lance glanced up and smiled. "Nice surprise. Good to see you back, Franks."

"Thanks. Even an autopsy is better than sitting in the courthouse all day." Franks looked down. "What you working on?"

"Jane Doe. Found beneath the Fairway Bridge yesterday. A witness saw her falling from the bridge, but I'm not so sure she jumped." Lance was sure Angus had filled Franks in on the case, but he had to continue to play it off as if they didn't know anything since Brayden was there.

"What makes you say that?" Angus asked.

"Broken nails, what appears to have been skin under her nails, and a head injury that doesn't match up with the injuries sustained from the fall. I also noticed her shoes were filled with dirt and dust when we removed them. Not sure how to explain that, but it caught my attention." Lance was sure it was from her being dragged, but again, couldn't comment that.

"She looks young," Franks observed.

"My guess would be mid to late teens." Lance sighed. "Too young, that's for sure." He tried to think of anything else he needed Angus to know, but so far, there wasn't anything he could think of that might help his case.

"You probably already guessed, but I'll be late getting home tonight," Angus told him.

Lance smiled, but it was unseen under his mask. "I figured. Haunt and I will have dinner waiting for you."

"Sounds good. Give me a call later when you get a break. We've got work to do on the Bradly and Bloomquist cases." Angus waved.

Lance waved back. "See you tonight. Glad you're back, Franks. Keep him safe."

"Always." Franks laughed as they left the viewing room.

"Can I go with them?" Gail asked.

Lance couldn't answer but gave a slight nod.

"I'll go with you," Jeremy told her. "Hurry, they won't even know we're with them."

Lance watched the two ghosts float from the room. He took a deep breath and got back to work. He let Brayden do most of the work, learning how to identify common injuries from a long fall. Some causes of death were so common they saw them daily, but others didn't come in as often and were a great chance to teach. This was one of those cases. Brayden would be interning for quite a while, then hopefully, hired on as a new examiner if everything went as planned.

"Is it hard never knowing when Angus will be home or get called out on a case?" Brayden asked as they worked.

"It was at first, but I'm used to it. I get his job can be crazy. I think it helps that our jobs are so closely tied together. I understand what he's doing and often am involved in the same cases. He loves what he does and that's all that matters. It's not every night he gets home late. We go weeks with things being peaceful and calm, but then weeks like this happen. We make it work. Does Christine get called out often?"

"Not unless it's an emergency with one of her patients. From time to time the hospital will call to let her know her patient is there. She'll usually go in if it's an emergency, but most of the time it can wait until the next day. We haven't been together long enough for us to spend a lot of nights together. We talk throughout the week, maybe grab dinner, but it's the weekends when we spend nights together. I hope we get to the point where we're more serious, but we're taking it slow. We're both work focused and that's okay." Brayden shrugged. "I'm in no hurry to get married. I've got work to focus on. Maybe once I have my M.E.'s license and know for sure where I'll be working, I can figure out my next steps."

"I'm hoping your future is here. We need you." Lance didn't want to think about keeping up the pace with only two daytime examiners. As the city grew, so did the death rate.

"Lance?" Carrie stood in the doorway.

"Yeah?" He glanced over at her.

"I have a family calling looking for their daughter who went missing last night. She matches the description of your Jane Doe. How long before you're done in here?"

"I'll be at least another hour, but we got some decent photos you can show them if they want to come in to verify it's her. See if Sam can meet with them or have them come in once we finish up and I can talk to them." He hated this part of the job, but the sooner they verified Gail's identity, the sooner Angus could investigate her death. "Warn them, they may want to have another friend or family member come in to verify. There is some facial trauma we can't hide."

"I'll let them know. Thanks. I'll come back and tell you what they decide." Carrie sighed. "I hate this part of my job."

"You and me both, but I'll be glad if we don't have to add another name to our Jane Doe list. Everyone deserves to be named and claimed." Lance wished Gail had stuck around. She would probably want to be with her parents for this, but Lance had no way of getting hold of Angus to tell him he had the ghosts with him and needed them back here. He couldn't cut out in the middle of an autopsy to make a phone call. Hopefully, they'd be back before her family arrived.

"Almost makes me not want kids when I think of having to possibly someday bury one." Brayden inspected a large bruise on the body's hip.

"I know. I can't even imagine. I hate talking to any family member, but grieving parents are the worst. Thankfully, we don't have to do it often." Lance moved in a bit. "What are you looking at?"

"If she landed on her left side, why do we have this bruise on her right hip? It almost looks like a straight line, as if she got it from bumping into a bar of some kind." Brayden measured the bruise and made a note.

"I agree." Lance met Brayden's gaze. "The more we find, the less suicidal this looks. I have too many questions to write this off as suicide yet." Even if he hadn't already known Gail had been murdered, the appearance of her body would make him question things.

"So, what do we do now?" Brayden asked.

"We hold the body without giving a cause of death for now. Hopefully, once she is identified, we'll get more information that might help us figure out what happened to her. For now, cause of death is undetermined and suspicious unless we find something more as we work." It was the least he could do while Angus looked for stronger evidence.

It took a little over an hour to finish up, then Lance headed into his office. He'd been waiting to get five minutes alone to call Angus. He made sure his door was shut and pulled out his phone as he sank into his chair.

"Hey, what's up?" Angus answered after the first ring.

"Just finished Gail's autopsy. First, Gail and Jeremy should be with you. They left with you at least. Not sure if they've stuck with you. Gail's parents called here and talked to Carrie. Since Gail's description matched our Jane Doe, they are coming in so they can look at photos we have to confirm identity. I figured you'd need to know that," Lance told him.

"Yeah, I just hung up with them. They're nearly hysterical. I made sure they had people with them to drive them there. Mrs. Smith's brother is bringing Mr. Smith in to verify the identity. Once they do, Franks and I will be able to start digging a little deeper. What did the autopsy show?"

"I'm ruling it as undetermined and suspicious. There is head trauma that doesn't fit with suicide and some odd bruising I didn't like. We got what looked to me like skin under her nails, but the lab will have to verify that. But I think it's safe to say your killer may have scratches on him. The clothes are bagged and will go to the lab, but I did find a piece of black material, not very large, that was with the body, but doesn't appear to be part of anything Gail was wearing at the time. Could be the torn shirt she mentioned." Lance unscrewed the lid on his bottle of water. "Bruising on her arm matches with someone being grabbed, at least in my opinion."

"You've seen enough to know. I trust you. Her parents said Gail's work said her car is still in the parking lot and they hadn't seen her since four when she got off work yesterday. Franks and I will run over and see if they have cameras up outside once we get the identity verified."

"There was probably enough bleeding from the first hit on the head that knocked her out that there should be blood evidence in whatever vehicle was used to move her from work to the bridge," Lance informed him.

"Yeah, Franks and I went to the bridge this morning. We found evidence of something, or someone being dragged to the bridge and a few blood drops that we collected for evidence. Once we can, we'll send a team out to get a better look. We're headed to talk to the other two boys now. I'm curious if either of them will bring up the conversation the group had about deaths. I'll give you a call when we get done and see how things are on your end," Angus said.

"Sounds good. Don't forget to eat sometime today too. You'll need the energy. I'll talk to you later. Love you."

"Love you too." Angus ended the call.

Lance sighed and leaned back in his chair, taking a long drink of water. He needed to go out front and find out who was meeting with Gail's family. He hoped it would be Sam, because he didn't want to have to fake not knowing anything about Gail. He was worried he'd something wrong or slip up just once and let on he knew more than he should. No matter who did it, it was going to be a long afternoon. He had a ton of paperwork to do, and now he had to let Carrie and Sam know that Gail's body shouldn't be released just yet. That wouldn't go over well with the family, but it was his medical opinion that something wasn't right. They'd have to deal with it.

He took a minute more to finish his water, then forced himself to get up. The sooner he went out front, the sooner he'd know what was going on. No matter how stressful his day was, he wouldn't have changed places with Angus. He was sure Angus would be drained by the time he got home. All he could do was be there for him. Together, they'd find answers, but like always, never fast enough.