Smoke and Glory

•9•

It's been 2 weeks since the last killings and the entirety of New York is afraid and waiting for the next body, the hysteria like a ticking time bomb waiting for the right fuse to light it up and cause mass panic through the state, and I admit I too am fearful and paranoid, every time the phone rings I fear it's either going to be detective griffin or another officer telling me of the discovery of another body and that I need to get to the scene right away or that it's going to be the killer with some twisted message that sends paranoia through my veins. This killer makes no sense though, commander Greg Davis was poisoned by 80ml of cyanide which is 30ml above the lethal dose for an average healthy adult and I believe commander Davis was one of those, and he was very active so his lethal dose would have been slighted higher at around 54-57ml but 80ml was still far to much cyanide for the body to handle. I sit at my desk in the morgue thinking about all of this having just finished the autopsy of 25 year old Louise Semmiel, a training mechanic who was found dead at her home last night and had been killed by blunt force trauma to the back of the head and the neck breaking a few of the cervical vertebrae. I use the laptop on my desk and open a word document and I start to type up the autopsy report using the notes from my notebook to write in each and every detail before passing it along to the police in order to help them figure out more for this case. I lift up a file looking for another one when I see the newspaper has been placed on my desk and I quickly have a look while I try to figure out how to phrase a sentence in the way a non doctor would understand, and I smile upon reading the byline, Annie Gustin, my friend and the title reads, the city remains fearful but the body count remains the same, and I don't have time to read the article as the words form perfectly In my head and I quickly type them down in the box that is marked cause of death and other information that relates to this. Cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of the head causing the skull to break and the object used had a blunt end and was used again upon death to break the C-3 and c-2 vertebrae and the criminal did leave fingerprints highlighted by lumenol but we have yet to examine them. I type into the box and I watch as each word I type appear and I smile upon reading it back and seeing that it makes sense and also supplies a bit of hope of catching the killer, we just need to have the fingerprints run in the database to see if this is a criminal who is already on record and if not then we are back to square one so it could just be another false hope but it is still some hope so maybe that's better. I start spinning around in the spiny chair as I think to myself for a minute once again about my current situation. Part of me has a love and a feeling towards detective Nola griffin and I know now that she feels the same upon the kiss we shared 2 weeks ago and planned to never mention again, but then I love hope and I am engaged to her but I'm not fully committed and I don't know if it's right to still be with her and take such a massive step In life unless both of us are completely sure of it, which I'm not but I love her so much and I want to marry her, I think. I think I want to marry her I mean I love her right? But then part of me wants detective griffin and that feels wrong but good but Hope is my life, my fiancée and i love her with every fibre of my being and she's everything a person like me could want to marry and I want so badly to marry her but at the same time, I'm struggling with the fact that secretly and hiddenly I like Detective Nola Griffin. My thoughts are interrupted by the sudden ringing of the phone and I'm so distracted by my thoughts I don't think about looking at the caller ID and I answer it. "Hello this is Doctor Lucy Snow who is it?" I ask into the phone staring out of the large window that Is at the back of my office while still spinning in the chair not really aware of the phone call I'm on. "Good luck" the voice says once again, the monotone subtlety highlighted once more as the voice declares this message and then hangs up leaving me In shock. It has been 2 weeks since I got a call from the voice and it was a sort of shock to hear it again, i hadn't forgotten it, for it was a voice I would never be able to forget or even get out of my head but the new sentence frightened me. Good luck. What could that mean? But I know what's coming next, a call from detective griffin should come in a minute, just when the city was starting to breathe a sigh of relief that maybe these killings were over or a hope that they would come to a longer stop or that maybe they wouldn't happen again for a long time so that the officers in the state wouldn't have to live in constant fear of being killed next. Of being victim 4. I'm debating calling Detective griffin and I try to weigh out the pros and cons of doing it, because it wasn't a threatening message but I think that she should know that I got another one, but I don't know. I go onto my phone and scroll down to her contact and just as I am about to press the call button I get an incoming call from her and I quickly press the green button as I hold it to my ear. "We've found another body, we think it could be the same killer but we have no idea who it is, the body is really badly decayed," she says and I now know what the killer meant by good luck, he meant good luck identifying who the body is, and from the previous killings I assume it's someone related to the police, but it could be a captain, a commander or even a chief, and they could have died in a number of ways, there is no way of knowing until I see the body. "Alright and I think it's the same killer because he just called me again" I say as I hear detective griffin yelling at a few people beyond the phone, "what did he say?" She asks a small sense of awkwardness remains between us because of the kiss but we are trying to ignore it and act as if it didn't occur and in some ways I find myself not wanting to, finding it hard because I don't want to forget about it. "He said good luck" I say subtly, "good luck, what does that even mean?" She asks in return, "I think it means good luck identifying the body" I say before realising that she is at the sight of a body and that I need to get over there immediately before someone disturbs the body by going some place where they shouldn't and touching something they shouldn't. "That would make sense you need to get down here and check it out we are at Central Park and the press are already mounting up, everyone is interested and everyone is terrified get down here quickly thanks doc" she says referring to me in her professional yet jokey fashion by calling me Doc, "on my way" I say as I hang up the call and grab my black medical bag that's looking rather ware and tare and it's a reminder that I  really do need to get a new one in order to not have an event where the bag breaks and everything falls out because that would be irritating and embarrassing. I run out of the morgue and I clamber into my midnight blue Porsche and I start the ignition and begin the drive to Central park where the moment I enter I'm suddenly greeted with hundreds of microphones and cameras, "Doctor snow is this really the 4th victim?" One reporter asks, "is it true can you really not identify them" another one pipes in, shoving their microphone in my face desperate for an answer that they can plaster all along the front page of there paper and watch as the money rolls in, "what is the cause of death is it known" another asks despite the fact it's rather clear I haven't even gotten into the crime scene yet and I watch as the yellow tape draws nearer and I quickly duck under it leaving the press out still desperately yelling questions at me, but by now they should know I don't want to reply and I don't plan on replying or giving away any information. I see detective griffin standing By a blue sheet of which the body rests under and I smile when I see her and she smiles back as we each try to ignore the small bit of awkwardness that rests between us but I ignore it as I start talking. "Let's see the body then" I say as she reaches down and turns up the blue plastic sheet and I see the decaying body, the scent of rotting flesh only increases each time a ray of sun lands on it as the sun burns brightly in the sky, and the scent doesn't even begin to justify what has happened to the body. The skin barley there, all of it rotting away, flies all around feasting of the flesh and the bones that are showing through the lack of skin. I look for sighs of trauma struggling to find any expect a entrance hole in the frontal lobe of the skull and a exit hole out of the back, but there are no identifying features except for a police badge that rests around there belt and trousers which are the only piece of clothing the body still has on. "Okay" I begin with, getting ready to tell detective griffin these new facts, "the body is badly decomposed which means it's been dead for around 9-16 days maybe longer, rigamortis has set in in every muscle and the body temperature is very cold, they haven't been in the park long clearly or else we would have found it earlier but there is no evidence that they were held against their will or kidnapped, and we can assume they are police due to the badge that sits on the trousers which are the only item of clothing left on the body the location for the shoes and top remains unknown and the killer could have kept them, in a keep sake ritualistic way, but other then the gunshot wound I can see no other obvious sighs on trauma but I will need to remove the trousers but I will do that back at the morgue in order not to loose valuable evidence" I say and detective griffin once again writes down everything I say so that, when required, I can refer to that sheet in order to write up the autopsy report and maybe get better luck at identifying the victim. I have a quick look for any evidence that may get lost during transportation to the morgue but I can't find anything, no loose fibres, no loose hair and all the blood is dried and it almost appears to have been cleaned off by the lack of it surrounding the gunshot wound in the head, and this now appears to be the killers amo. He's done many things starting with burning a captain, he then broke the vertebras of a chief, and poisoned a commander and in the 2nd two cases he shot them in the head after death In order to hide the calling card, the 10 of diamonds and it just begs the question, why not shoot the first victim? Why not leave a calling card on the body of captain Quill, why not shoot him too, claim the victim as his own, maybe to make it seem like an accident? Maybe to see if he was up for killing again. Or maybe he just didn't get around to doing it, the moment someone sees anything on fire there reaction is to instantly call the fire department who especially in New York City gets there incredibly quickly, followed closely by police; maybe he was afraid of being caught, or afraid that he wouldn't be able to kill more people or maybe he was afraid that if he went in he wouldn't be able to get out and that he too would suffer a incredibly painful death in the fire he started. But I guess until we find him or figure out who he is we aren't going to get any answers. I watch as 3 paramedics carefully lift the body onto a stretcher and walk through the crowd of reporters each one desperately trying to get a small glimpse and photo of the dead body that remains covered in the blue plastic cover trying to contain the body within, as the crowd gets noisier and noisier desperate to know the facts behind the death so they can plaster it all over there front page and I watch as the body is placed in the ambulance and the 3 paramedics all climb and in and the ambulance drives away the sunlight reflecting off the reflective strips that say ambulance, and I watch again as they drive off to my place of work and I know I need to go and get back into my car and drive after them but first I need to talk to detective griffin, "so that's all we got about the body I really think we do need good luck in able to identify who they are, the killer was right," she says as I nod my head staring at the ground where the body was previous laying. "We need to try and find the t shirt or shoes, that could help us narrow down the search for his identity" I say still looking at the floor desperate for a piece of metal that could potentially be a name badge to be lighten up in the sun so we may actually get a chance to identity the victim and just not leave him with the name of number 4. But nothing appears and I too now understand the good luck wish, we really do need it, "yeah my team will explore every area of the park and leave no stone unturned and I hope that we should be able to find something that belongs to our John Doe" she says and I nod my head still glancing on the floor before finally giving up and looking at detective griffin, "yeah and I'll go the morgue and start the examination call me if you find anything and come by the morgue in like 4 hours for the results if that's okay" I say and she nods her head as I wave before walking away, shimmying through the crowd of reports who are shoving there microphones and camera in my face again, desperate for a exclusive, one I won't be giving them as I walk outside the crowd trying to ignore them as I climb into my car and start the not too long drive to the morgue. It always seems more alive during the day, I notice as I pull in the mostly full car park and gently park my car in my space and I climb out and when I walk in the whole place is filled with people the receptionist smiles as she greets me, "good morning Doctor Snow" she says as I smile and wave back at her eyeing the clock in the wall to see the time is 11:37 and that it is still morning. I walk into the lift and press button 4 since I'm heading to my office and I smile upon seeing 2 other doctors in the lift and one of the weapons experts we have on floor 6 to analyse the weapons used during attacks. "Morning Doctor snow, pleasant day isn't it" one of them says to me as the lift doors close and the lift starts to move, "yes very nice day thank you Doctor Grant" I say smiling at him as he exits the lift on floor 1 and the doors reclose. "Sorry to hear about the discovery of the next body Doctor snow" says the other doctor, "yeah we so far have had no luck identifying them but hopefully the autopsy will reveal more Doctor Ember and well done on the solve for the Dilante case that was an incredible breakthrough" I say complimenting her on a case that even I was struggling to figure out but that she ended up finding a clever lead that no one else had been able to see, "thanks Doctor snow have a nice day" she says as she exits floor 3 and I wait in silence till the doors open on floor 4 and I walk over to my office where I once again get into the blue scrubs and get ready to do the autopsy, I look at the photos on my desk while tying up the bow on the back and I smile at the one of me and Mia hugging one another and I'm excited upon remembering that I will later on be calling sam to find out when he is available to come down regardless now of this killer I want to see Mia, Sam and ezra so bad that I don't really care anymore if I end up having to get called out for a case. I then check my phone and see the message, 'body delivered in the suite now' it reads and I walk out of my office and down into the suite where the unidentified body lays on the table ready for me to begin the examination.