Page 63 of Manner of Death
“What do you think he reacted to?”
Bashir shook his head. “I don’t know. Toxicology will probably have to answer that for us.”
“But then what about the strap? I’m guessing you don’t think he got stung by a bee while he was in the middle of hanging himself.”
The irony of such a thing might’ve been funny in that incredibly dark way things were funny to people in their line of work. When the decedent was Sawyer’s partner? Not so much.
He skimmed his gaze over the body, then met hers again. “I think he was dead before the strap ever touched him.”
She blinked. “And you’re calling it a homicide, so… You think someone gave him something to trigger an anaphylactic response, then put the strap on him to make it look like he killed himself?”
“That’s the only way I can explain it.” He gestured at McKay’s neck. “He was probably clawing at his throat because he couldn’t breathe due to the reaction. Then the strap was added postmortem. Aside from the scratch marks, there’s almost no bruising. There’s no Livor Mortis where I’d expect it after something like this, and the blanching on the rest of his body suggests he was moved shortly after he died.” He shook his head. “The skin on his neck is marred from the strap, but those marks and the fingernail scratches didn’t happen at the same time. Just… the more I look, the less this appears to be strangulation, never mind hanging. Definitely not one that happened while the decedent was still conscious.”
Tami pursed her lips. “Seems like a lot of work to cover something up. Any pathologist was going to put the pieces together. Wouldn’t a killer just let the reaction do its thing?”
“I don’t think it’s a cover-up,” Bashir said. “I think it’s a game.”
“A—what?”
He took a deep breath. “One body after another, each with an obvious cause and manner of death… until the autopsy.” He stared at McKay with unfocused eyes, recalling what Sawyer had told him about the theory that the killer was toying with investigators. “This is someone playing a game. It has to be. They enjoy seeing if we can figure out the puzzle.”
“Oh my God.” Her voice came out hollow. “That’s… that’s really fucked up.”
“Yeah,” he said absently. “It is.” Again and again he told himself it wasn’t his job to put the pieces together. Just figure out what killed the person, turn the evidence over to the cops, and let them take it from there. Same as always.
But much like he couldn’t help piecing together what led to a death, he couldn’t help doing the same here.
“If this person gets caught,” Tami said, “they’re looking at capital murder charges. It’s all premeditated. Like, hella premeditated.” She chafed her arms. “What kind of sick fucker does… hell, any of this?”
“The kind of person who will murder the husband of a dying cancer patient and dress it up like a suicide,” Bashir said grimly. “One sick fucker who is absolutely sure they aren’t going to get caught, never mind convicted.”
He’d known for a while now this had to be a serial killer. It was pretty obvious, after all. But there was something viscerally disturbing about getting closer to understanding a person capable of doing shit like this. Not that he knew who it was or understood what was driving them, but he was willing to bet this was a legitimate psychopath and a sadist. Someone who seemed to enjoy toying with the living more than the dead; the deaths had all been relatively quick—even Kurt’s—not the work of someone who enjoyed protracted torture. No, the misery came from the survivors and also—
He jumped as the thought slammed into his mind.
Their killer wasn’t torturing victims and fucking with loved ones. Not as a primary motive, anyway.
They were, as Sawyer had hypothesized, doing this to fuck with investigators.
Specifically…
To fuck with Bashir himself.
The county medical examiner. The only person in a position to find the hidden pieces. The person whose job it was to disassemble the victim and find the needle in the haystack—or the bullet in the spine or the allergen in the detective—and conclude that the cause of death wasn’t what it seemed.
His thoughts whipped through his last few autopsies outside this string of murders. How he’d taken extra time on each. How he’d second-guessed every observation he made and conclusion he drew. How every time he landed on some wild and bizarre cause of death when another had seemed obvious from the start, he doubted and stressed over all his other conclusions.
Had the excessive number of pills really been the cause of death? Or had there been something else lurking somewhere?
Had that elderly man’s heart really given out? Or had one of the many needle punctures in his skin been the means of delivering some obscure, barely detectable poison?
Had that twenty-year-old’s blunt force trauma injuries been from the car that struck him? Or had Bashir missed signs of an assault?
The urge to yank open his files and scrutinize every autopsy he’d ever performed was almost overwhelming. So was the anger, because he was sure this was exactly what the killer was hoping for—to screw with Bashir’s mind.
How the hell did I get on a serial killer’s radar?
His mind was about to go screaming down that road when the morgue’s front door opened. Tami hopped off her perch and helped him cover the body. Even when he was mentally spiraling, the instinct to protect the decedent’s dignity was strong enough to knock him into motion.