Secrets Of The Guilty [Nanowrimo 2019]

TWENTY-NINE

Half an hour later she walked hurriedly through the City Morgue, thoroughly disgusted by the smell of disinfectant, carrying a stained takeout bag and a fifty-dollar bill. Eli rubbed at her eyes, and her hand came away with black smudges from the makeup she'd put on yesterday. Though yesterday was only five minutes ago, it still crumbled against her skin.

When she got to the clear doors, Eli stood very still and looked down at the corpse of a middle-aged woman. Her hair stringy and dirt coated spread out around her. Not the same colour as the Judges but to Eli, at that moment, it was close enough to curl her stomach.

Eli brought and hand up and knocked against the small glass window in the centre of the door. She wanted Phillip to look up from his lab before lifting the takeout bag into view through the same little window. He waved her in, disregarding the food and her, for another few minutes.

"I can't give you the information you want." He said firmly, though his eyes jump from the bag in her hands to the desk beside the corpse. His fingers still typing against the screen of his tablet.

Philip never helped her outright. He never handed her things, never pointed and he never gave away secrets. But if she were to guess something or pick something up, he did little to dissuade her.

Especially when she brings him food during a night shift.

"Why not?" She looked at Phillip for answers, for help, but somewhere between her walking in and the smell of the fried food, he'd stopped listening to her. He gestured to the bank of the screen a few feet in front of Eli (farthest from the corpse) and waved his fingers at them.

"It was pulled from the system for a while. The codes are still active. Most of it got scrubbed over."

"Scrubbed over," she parroted, "by who?"

"Doesn't say," Phillip grumbled. He wobbled a bit, over to the food cooling next to a beaker. "Someone with authority I imagine."

"One double cheese, side of onion rings with extra pickles under the meat not the bun," Eli says, crossing the room. Standing clear of the metal tables and sterilized tools. One of the blue jackets is resting against the back of a chair, speckled and drying.

"Anything you can tell me from memory?" Her fingers hovered above the files on the table for a moment as she watched the older medical examiner open the bag. He gives her a small smile pulling his glasses from his red cheeks.

"Alright," he concedes. "Their names were Chloe Gibson and Delilah Barnes." Turning back to the food he continues making a point not to watch Eli sift through the files on the table. "They were found together. Single-shot to the head. Close ranger, minimal bruising, no signs of abuse of trauma before death. Rope brush around there wrists were post mortem, rubbing from floating against the tide. You'll find all of it the files your holding."

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Eli asks him, holding three fingers behind her back.

"Three. Though I admit, there is a mirror just behind you," he tells her. "And you seem to rotate your numbers with every visit."

She shrugged. Eli leaned forward to look at the four profiles while the machines plodded on in the background. Her eyes skimmed the private information that ran beside the cause of death. Everything about the girls on paper was the same except for a few details in the evidence report: Their costume lingerie had been different colours though the fit and cut were the same, their ages were off my a few months, and they were both tall.

Found in the same place as the others. Gemwell docks.

"They didn't leave much before for the police or that detective," Philip says offhandedly, pulling a pair of gloves over his hands.

"Tanner?"

"No, it was a Roughen. Something Roughen. He signed the intake sheet."

Eli's cool eyes flicked up. Roughen. What were the odds? The man who'd been the last person to see Fenton alive, the one who'd arrested him all those nights ago, and the one who was involved with Fenton (and Tanner) years ago at an arrest at the very same docks she was looking into.

Roughen's involvement was starting to become everything Ryan had hoped it would be. Lucky for her at least, since she had another piece of a puzzle that seems to have more pieces then the picture.

"Go on," she said.

"He came in a day or two after that lawyer was found and against to take a look at the body that arrived yesterday. It's.. here yes. A detective Roughen."

Clever. An officer wouldn't be able to have a look at the documents, but a detective would be able too. Eli closed the files and picked up the clipboard Philip offered her. Neat little letters spelled out the officer's name and badge number, which would end up being fake or linked to a different person. If anyone was going to check it.

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"He was only interested in the body. I wanted to have a look like everyone else, except you that it. I told him that I wasn't responsible for it and that it wasn't even in the building."

Eli's chest lifted a little at that. It could still be someone else. Just because they found a body didn't mean it was Amy's, though the coincidence of that was laughable even to her.

"Is she still a Jane doe then?" She leans against the wall, hands crossed. The file folder in one hand. Phone between her fingers. The food opened and half-consumed over a few lab results and pen scratched papers.

The little bounce in Phillips step didn't go unnoticed by Eli, who swipes an onion ring.

"The bodies been in the freezers for as I know. Tests are still pending, that much I can see from here. Everything involved with the Gemwell docks is under lock and key otherwise, apart from printed copies anyway. I keep those keys." He says proudly, pushing his glasses back up his nose. His grey eyebrows pushed up against his smile.

"Gemwell," she said quietly. She folds the files back together before laying it exactly where it was on the table, much too close to the corpse under the sheet. Until something clicked.

Eli gazed around the room at the table, the straps, the machines that hummed but now rested cleaned and disinfected. She let it sink in. Philip must have understood her silence because he stayed quiet. Dotting about the City Morgue, writing scribbled notes and eating cold fries.