A POUND OF FLESH

A DROP OF BLOOD - part 2

“How is she doing?”  Ron sidles into the uncomfortable plastic hospital chair next to Emma.  Her hair is unkempt, clothes wrinkled; catatonic with the only movement her foot tracing the lines of the tiles on the floor.  The once pristine white grout, now a tacky grey from heavy foot traffic, the only indication of its original color displayed in small smatterings across the tiled hallway.

Slouched over, Emma lets out a heavy sigh before responding.  “She made it through surgery but they had to induce a coma.  An officer already came by to take her stuff to the lab, they shredded it pretty bad getting it off her.”

Ron watches the defeated young woman intently.  For a split second he let the negative thought of having asked this much of her come to the forefront.  

“We should get back to Church St, I just came to see how things were going here.  I tried to call but you didn’t answer your cell.  The techs have been all over the area for a few hours now.  I was already down there and talked to the witnesses, they were pretty shook up but we might get something on their phone.  Of course, if you need to get some shut eye, I completely understand.  Mick is meeting me there anyways.”

Emma palmed the dead phone in her pocket pondering what other items of importance she had not responded too.  She was doing everything she knew she should not. 

“No,” Emma stood resolved, “I need to come.  Figure out what I missed.”

Ron wants to tell her not to be so hard on herself, but it felt cliché.  After giving the head nurse at the station his business card, they make their way to his car in the parking structure.

***

Emma stands to the side and watches as the technicians finish up on the scene.  Curiosity gets the better of her as she looks into the back of the van which houses several evidence bags.   A young man, barely over twenty sits in the back cataloging them into the make shift workstation. 

“That's pretty handy,” Emma peers over his shoulder at the computer screen as he scans the bar code and types in corresponding data when it pops up on the screen.

“It's not too bad.”  He puts the bag down and continues onto the next.  He has little use for her as he continues his work.  Emma looks over the contents, searching for something to jump out at her.  There is nothing distinct.

“Emma,” Ron clears his voice.  He had snuck up behind her when she had been distracted.    She pushes herself off the back of the van and follows him on their traverse to the back of the cathedral.  Not much had been said between them on the drive over from the hospital, and they continue the trend as they walk to the back alley. 

The team has set up a system of portable lights that cast out the shadows.  The gray brick of the old cathedral takes on a different appearance.  The stone lets off tiny rays of sparkles from the glass mixed into the brick.    To their rear was the neighboring parking lot and directly in front of them is the crimson spray of Catharine's essence dried on the wall.  Going towards the front of the church are small stained splotches growing in size as the distance increases.  Her woven thread of life, showing the path Catharine had gone before she collapsed. 

Todd and Mick stand off to the side drinking coffee as they chatt, giving Ron and Emma space to look everything over before they approach.  

A woman, named Laurie, walks over and introduces herself as the supervisor, pointing to the small group of people still working the scene.   Todd and Mick walk over as she gives the small group of investigators some preliminary findings. 

“He parked his car in that lot,” Laurie points to the neighboring parking lot.  “It has access from the side street.  We have already asked for the security footage, but apparently the system has not been functional for a few years.   A few of the other places around here have some systems, so we will go from there.  He dragged her along there, and slit her throat here.”  There is little blood to be seen on the ground, the majority being the dried splatter on the wall. 

“Something must have happened,” Ron mutters under his breath.  Emma agrees.

If what they knew about their killer was to be true, this was to have been the apex - a drastic augmentation in violence before his closing argument.  Emma wracked her brain as she thought out the implications – what did this mean?

“We might have some good news.”  Laurie interrupted the worst case scenarios whirling around in Emma's head.

“What's that?”

“That blood is Catharine's.  But you see that droplet right there?” 

The flashlight darts to a single minute drop.  One that you would never notice at a cursory glance. 

“It does not match with the blood pattern from the throat slash.  You see the spray there and there.” 

She points up the gray brick of the Church alleyway. 

“That isn't hers.  We think it belongs to our killer.”

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