Facilis Descensus Averno [REWRITING]

2. Causes of Death

A/N: This chapter was available as a one-week early access content on my Patreon (patreon.com/angelthefunone). All Patrons also have access to exclusive and behind-the-scenes content, such as excerpts to works-in-progress and commentaries, that I don't post anywhere else, so if you're interested in some extra goodies, head on over to and check it out. Other than that, thank you so much for the continued support and I hope you enjoy this chapter!

-----

"The kidneys are missing."

"The what?"

"The kidneys are missing. Who are you?"

Bishop smiled as she followed Wang's glare towards Gilliam—the FBI agent, the man in the suit—as he was closing the door to the morgue, eyes drilling into the back of his suit jacket. The man didn't even realize he was being stared at until he turned around to face the two women, noticed both pairs of eyes fixated on him, frowning in apparent discomfort.

"Special Agent Joel Gilliam, of the FBI." He moved forward and offered a hand to the otherwise kind doctor, but all she did was stare at the hand for two solid seconds before she lifted a single latex-gloved hand—powder blue stained with dried vermillion. Noticing the glove and the blood, Gilliam quietly retracted his hand away and made a small, acknowledging nod. "It's a pleasure, doctor—"

"Jane Wang," the woman replied with a deadpan voice, glancing briefly over to Bishop before her eyes turned back to Gilliam. "Head medical examiner. Since when is the FBI involved in this case?"

"Since he came to the station this morning," Bishop quickly replied, peering over at Gilliam just to see the deepening frown on his face before turning back to smile at her friend and colleague, "and tried to take over the entire case. Luckily, the chief made an agreement with the feds for a joint investigation instead, so here we are."

A sigh came from beside her. "Considering we'll be working together from now on," he said, "I would appreciate it if you didn't talk about me as though I'm not in this room, detective."

Bishop didn't even bother turning to look at him. "Dr. Wang, the bodies?"

"Oh, yes." Wang quietly clapped her hands together and led the other two towards the closest autopsy table, where one of the seven bodies laid, the overall figure indicating it was an adult, draped in a large white cloth long enough that it was hanging over the sides of the table. Bishop knew Wang wasn't able to get through all seven bodies by the time they arrived at the morgue later that afternoon—she didn't expect her colleague to finish them all within a span of just a few hours—but she did call the police department to inform them she was done with the patriarchs of both families. That was more than enough, Bishop thought, because there could be something from either body that she hoped would give them some lead about the case.

Wang stood at the other side of the table opposite to the two investigators, looked towards both of them with a nod before she uncovered half of the cloth covering the first corpse. Bishop immediately recognized him to be John Smith, from the family with the stitches. She could tell Wang was done performing the autopsy on the man—his skin was clean of blood, and there was a large Y-shaped incision across his chest that had been stitched closed to spare the two investigators from the sight of the man's insides. The stitches were, Bishop quickly noticed, very much cleaner than the ones in his abdomen, but as Wang uncovered the corpse down to said area, she noticed Wang had removed the initial stitches and replaced them with her own professional handiwork.

"John Smith's cause of death was not, in fact, severe blood loss," Wang stated, barely able to hide the intrigue in her voice. "He died of a cardiac arrest."