Chapter 3

"So he figured out you'd been on a date?" Tami Glen, Bashir's forensic autopsy tech, looked up from her keyboard. "Just by your cologne?" She made a face. "Does that mean it was a new death scene? Or did you put on so much it was recognizable over the decomp?"

"Oh, listen to who's funny." Bashir rolled his eyes. "The guy hadn't been dead long. But there was a lot of blood, so…" He hesitated. "Fuck. Maybe I was wearing too much."

Tami snorted. "You are way too easy to troll, Bash."

He shot her a glare. He hated that nickname, and she knew it. That was exactly why she used it. Sighing, he picked up the file he'd started when he'd brought in the decedent last night, and he perused it while he drank his high-octane coffee. At least he hadn't had to stay at the scene quite as long as everyone else.

Everyone… such as Detective Villeray and his fragrance-detecting abilities. And his beautiful eyes. And—

Okay. Enough. Clearly Bashir had just been frustrated last night because his date had gone to shit, and yes, his entire brain had absolutely been set to find-hot- man-and-have-sex-with-him. So, yeah, he'd been distracted as hell after he'd left. In fact, he'd been so damn distracted he'd nearly made several embarrassing clerical errors last night.

Professionalism and muscle memory had saved him, fortunately, and he hadn't done anything that might jeopardize his reputation or the case. And if he wanted to continue on that trajectory, he needed to stop thinking about Detective Villeray and focus on one Gilroy Upworth, who was lying on the table in front of him. He'd gleaned all the information he could get from the exterior of the body. Now it was time to go exploring.

Bashir had just finished photographing, disrobing, cleaning, and photographing the body again when the morgue's main entrance opened. A fast, determined gait clomped in through the vestibule and drove a few colorful Farsi words from his lips that his mother would've slapped his face for, and a second later—

Dr. Andy Boyce strode into the room. At her computer, Tami fidgeted uncomfortably and became very interested in what was on the screen. Bashir kept his expression and posture neutral because that was his best bet for fending off a confrontation. Not a sure thing, though; if Boyce was in a mood—and Christ, this man was always in a fucking mood—a confrontation was unavoidable.

Boyce peered at the body, and his lips twisted in disgust. Not the disgust of someone horrified by a mangled corpse, but that of someone who was fucking annoyed with the whole damned world. Bashir could only imagine how that was the victim's fault, but he was probably about to find out.

"Ah, okay. Now I see why I'm doing four autopsies this morning." Boyce flailed a hand at the body. "Don't want the expert to be indisposed for this one." He folded his arms and cocked his head, smirking at Bashir. "Let me guess— accidental death? Massive blood loss?" He slapped his own forehead. "Good thing you got the call."

Tami's chair squeaked, giving away more fidgeting.

Bashir kept his gaze fixed on his colleague. He tried to think of him that way, too—Boyce was his subordinate, which grated on the man immensely, and asserting that authority and telling him to watch himself was just asking for a battle. The last thing he needed was Boyce picking today to remind everyone he had more than enough money to retire and walking out with his middle fingers held high. As long as there were more bodies in the cooler than Bashir could properly autopsy in a single day, he had to play nice with Boyce. Even when Boyce was butthurt— again —that the more high-profile and "interesting" cases always went to Bashir. Since Bashir was, you know, the goddamned county medical examiner.

He took a deep breath and kept his voice measured. "Tell you what, Andy." He rested his palms on the table, the stainless steel cool through his gloves. "I'll handle those." He nodded toward the cooler drawers. "Then you can take this guy"—he tipped his head toward the man laid out in front of him—"and spend the whole morning separating tiny chunks of shredded tissue and figuring out which piece came from which organ." He snatched a pair of small tweezers off the tray and held them up, hoping his eyes gave away that he was grinning behind his mask. "Sound like a fair trade?"

Boyce scowled, and it wasn't just his resting bitch scowl. Bashir kept grinning; he wouldn't remind Boyce of their places in the morgue's hierarchy, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be a sarcastic asshole. He was all about matching people's energy, after all.

"It's your call," he pressed. "I'd be happy to do the post- mortem on the ninety-eight-year-old nursing home resident who—"

"Fine, fine. You can do that one." Boyce stomped out of the room, shrugging off his jacket as he did. "I need to put on my scrubs."

Before Bashir had even had a chance to roll his eyes and toss the tweezers back in the tray, Tami exhaled audibly. He turned to her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She avoided his gaze as her cheeks turned red, and she stared pointedly at her screen. "Just… hate it when he's in a mood."

Bashir grunted in agreement. He wasn't fond of the guy anyway. When he was in a mood? Ugh. Shame there weren't any other qualified pathologists looking for work in this town, and the city was still salty about the expense of bringing Bashir in from Canada.

"You find us a qualified local applicant," one of the bean counters on high had told him, "and we can talk about hiring someone."

Maybe Bashir needed to see if he'd received any new résumés.

For now, though, he had the victim of a very bizarre murder lying in front of him. He'd just have to deal with Boyce and his attitude a little longer. Fortunately, Boyce always put on headphones while he was working, so at least he'd be off in his own little world, leaving Bashir and Tami to do their jobs.

Bashir picked up the scalpel and got to work.

By the time he'd disassembled the decedent, he had a few answers, but a hell of a lot more questions.

The biggest question blaring in his mind was… what the fuck happened to this guy?

Because the obvious answer wasn't the correct one. He'd had a hunch about that at the scene. Too many things hadn't added up. Now he had confirmation—the chainsaw hadn't killed Upworth.

On first inspection of both the scene and the body, Upworth appeared to have fallen on the chainsaw blade, then thrashed around, flinging blood and viscera everywhere before succumbing to his injuries. One of his hands was mutilated, suggesting he'd attempted to grab the blade at some point.

But those wounds…

There was catastrophic damage to his midsection and upper pelvic area. The liver and spleen were nicked enough to cause severe bleeding, and the chainsaw had lacerated his abdominal aorta and made mincemeat of his femoral artery. Opening up either of those blood vessels would be lethal… if the injuries had occurred premortem.

Bashir rested his gloved hands on the edge of the table and stared at the dissected midsection laid out in front of him. Something wasn't adding up.

From where she perched on a stool taking notes for him, Tami said, "What's wrong? You look confused."

"I am." He shook his head slowly, still skimming his gaze over the mess of lacerations in front of him. The longer he took it all in, the more the picture came together, not that it answered that blaring question. When he peeled off his gloves and pulled open a folder containing photos he'd taken at the scene… same problem.

"It is amazing to watch your mind work." Tami sounded almost giddy. "Seriously, it's like you see things that no one else does."

Bashir huffed a dry laugh behind his mask. She'd said as much before; it was why she never needed to be asked twice to come jot notes for him. He had to admit her enthusiasm broke up the macabre monotony sometimes.

But this time, he wasn't so sure his mind was enough to figure out this puzzle. It was just… weird.

The longer he compared what he knew about the body to what the crime scene photos showed, the less he understood what the fuck had happened to this man. He'd need to advise the detectives to consult with a blood spatter expert, but Bashir knew enough about the subject to read what he was seeing.

Or rather, what he wasn't seeing—arterial spray.

He stared at the picture, and slowly…

The smear across the cabinet. The sliding handprint from the cupboard above the sink to the counter. More smears on the floor.

On top of those were bigger spatters and chunks of gore. And leaves. And glass.

The blood on the branch was all wrong, too. There was a void beyond it where the branch had stopped flying blood; a macabre "shadow" of the branch while blood and tissue clung to the bark and twigs. But on the counter and sink under the branch, there were smears.

The branch hadn't been there when those smears happened.

And one by one, other pieces—metaphorical pieces—fell into place.

The chainsaw was a popular brand that Bashir knew for a fact would stop when someone released the trigger. If there was resistance against the chain—be it wood or human tissue—it would stop instantly. Still plenty of potential to for serious injury, but unless the chainsaw had been sabotaged or possessed by demons, no one was falling on top of the blade and being chewed up to the extent this man had been. That, and between the vibration of the motor and the spinning of the blade, the tool would've likely fallen away from the man unless it was being held in place.

With the chainsaw details rattling around in his mind, Bashir shifted gears to something else that hadn't sat right with him. During the autopsy, he'd found a significant amount of blood in Upworth's abdomen. That in and of itself hadn't been a surprise, given the massive wounds, but the more he thought about where and how it had pooled, and the volume of pooled blood…

He switched to the photos he'd taken of the body turned on his side as well as on his back from both the left and right. Livor mortis had turned Upworth's skin a deep purple wherever blood had pooled. Though he'd been found on his back, there were blanched areas on his left hip as well as one on the left side of his ribs that matched the shape and size of his arm. His upper arm was also white. In the picture with his back to the camera, there was significantly more purple on the left side of his back and down into his left leg.

The postmortem staining didn't lie: this was not a man who'd died on his back. He'd expired on his left side, stayed there for at least half an hour—enough time to let Livor Mortis set in—before someone had moved him onto his back.

Not only that, but if Bashir was right—if he was piecing together the pooled blood and the postmortem staining as correctly as he thought he was—Gilroy Upworth had died from internal bleeding.

Good thing Bashir hadn't sewn him up yet, because this autopsy definitely wasn't over.

He glanced over his shoulder. Boyce was, as predicted, off in his own world—headphones on and music loud enough that the faint, tinny sound was audible from two tables over. He'd already completed two of his postmortems, and now he was working on his third, oblivious to Bashir's conundrum and not offering up any snark or commentary. Miracles never ceased.

Bashir put the photos aside, and as he pulled on a fresh pair of gloves, he turned to Tami. "Call Detective Villeray. Tell him I need to see him and his partner right now ."

Her eyes widened. "You… You really don't think this was an accident?"

Bashir leaned over the body and peered into the open chest cavity. "No, I do not."

By the time Detectives McKay and Villeray arrived, Bashir was alone in the morgue; Boyce was gone and Tami had stepped out to chase down some paperwork. Bashir had sewn up the body and returned it to the morgue drawer, and as it turned out, his fishing expedition to follow his hunch had indeed turned up some more answers.

Unfortunately for the detectives, those answers would only mean more questions for them.

As the pair strolled into the morgue McKay didn't seem pleased to be there. Annoyed and deeply inconvenienced, rather. Villeray, though, seemed curious and earnest. Bashir supposed that was to be expected. McKay had been doing this long enough to know what kinds of freak accidents could kill human beings, and he needed some serious probable cause to think such incidents were worth investigating. Villeray had been on the job longer than the poor kid who'd found Upworth, but he was still new enough that he wasn't as cynical and desensitized as his partner. He'd obviously picked up that something was amiss last night, and his interest in this case was still piqued.

And damn him, Villeray gave Bashir a charming smile, and holy hell, this was neither the time nor the place to be thinking about how attractive this man was. Didn't matter how desperate Bashir was getting these days—he had a job to do.

So he cleared his throat and plastered on a professional expression. "Thanks for coming down here, detectives."

"Yeah. Well. We're here." McKay slid his hands into his jacket pockets and cocked his head in that impatient I'm-humoring-you-but-don't-test-me way of his. "Let me guess—our deceased died as a result of being violently stirred by a chainsaw."

Villeray scowled, cutting his eyes toward his partner, but he said nothing.

Bashir offered a bland smile. "Actually, no." He held out a file folder. "I'm labeling Gilroy Upworth's manner of death as, unequivocally, homicide."

McKay released a long-suffering sigh as he took the folder from Bashir. "We already agreed on that last night, didn't we?"

"We did," Bashir said. "But I'd say it's more than a theory now. And the chainsaw wasn't the murder weapon."

McKay shook his head with disbelief.

Villeray was watching Bashir, too, but he seemed more intrigued and confused than anything else. Deep crevices formed between his dark eyebrows as he asked, "What did you find?"

Bashir took a deep breath and explained everything he'd determined regarding the chainsaw. That was supposed to be their territory—his job was just to glean what he could from the body—but with a bizarre case like this and a clearly skeptical detective? Well, some toes had to be stomped on. He explained how after taking a closer look at Upworth's chainsaw-chewed hands, he'd found what appeared to be defensive wounds on his knuckles.

McKay didn't seem to quite buy that they were defensive wounds. They were obviously so, but he was still fixated on the chainsaw being the cause of all the damage.

When Bashir got into the Livor Mortis, though, he definitely had both cops' attention. And when he explained the actual cause of death…

"Internal bleeding?" McKay asked with cautious interest. "And that couldn't have been from the chainsaw?"

"Uh, Kurt?" Villeray cleared his throat. "If it was caused by the chainsaw, I don't think it would be, uh... internal?"

McKay looked at Bashir for confirmation.

Bashir shrugged. "He's not wrong."

The detective scowled, if not as angrily as Boyce often did. And Bashir thought he saw a little blush on Villeray's cheeks, but he refused to confirm it.

McKay exhaled. "All right, so internal bleeding prior to evisceration—any idea what caused it?"

"As a matter of fact—yes." Bashir picked up a small vial off a tray beside the vacant and cleaned autopsy table. "I found this lodged in his T7 vertebra."

The detectives both stared slack-jawed at the mushroomed .22 caliber bullet inside the vial.

"I couldn't tell you where it went in." Bashir handed the vial to Villeray. "I suspect the entry wound was destroyed. There's also too much damage to the ribs and other bones for me to tell you where the bullet ricocheted on its way through the body. But when I took a closer look at his heart, there was a series of holes that match the round." He furrowed his brow as he watched the men inspecting the bullet in question. "I suspect he took at least two hits. I couldn't tell you where the first was, though."

McKay's skepticism returned.

Villeray's curiosity, however, intensified. "Two? How do you figure?"

"Because the damage done to the heart would've resulted in, at the very least, near instantaneous loss of consciousness. If you take another look at the blood at the crime scene, you'll find there was substantial blood left at the scene before the branch came through the window." Shaking his head, he said, "There's no way he moved around that much and made that much of a mess after the shot to his heart. Most likely, he was dead in seconds, with the blood pooling in his abdominal cavity rather than being ejected through his wounds by his heart or his movements."

McKay didn't seem to be buying it, but Villeray jumped in. "He's right." Turning to his partner, he added, "And there were leaves and broken glass on top of the blood."

The older detective blinked. Then he looked down at the vial in his hand. After a moment, he faced Bashir. "So… are you telling me someone shot Upworth, fought with him, shot him again , and then staged an accidental death by chainsaw?"

Bashir nodded. "Looks like it, yes. My guess is that if you revisit the scene, you'll find at least one bullet of the same caliber. A bullet hole , if not the round itself."

McKay pushed out a breath. "Why in the hell would someone do all that?"

"Well, detective." Bashir smiled. "I do believe that's your job to figure out."