“Like an embalmer?” Coldmoon asked.
“I’m glad you asked about that. Embalming sometimes uses the femoral vein—not the artery—but the blood is pushed out most frequently by pumping fluid into the aorta. They call it perfusing the body. And then embalming fluid pushes out the water the same way. This, on the other hand, required active suction.”
“Could it be the work of someone with embalming experience?” Coldmoon asked.
“That thought crossed my mind. The same equipment might be modified to suck out the blood instead of pushing in fluids—in this case, by means of a trocar, not an incision and catheter.”
“And the other wounds?” Pendergast asked.
“They’re indicative of a struggle. Those deep lacerations look like they were done with a crude object, possibly a broken knife. The scalp injury is harder to categorize. It looks like something hard and thin was scraped across it with great force, peeling it up almost like you might pare an apple.”
Coldmoon swallowed with some difficulty. He’d had slices of apple on his oatmeal at breakfast.
“Finally, note the missing index finger of the right hand. It was crudely severed from the body—I would say bitten off. As you probably know, it was recently recovered in the square in front of the hotel where he worked.”
Pendergast nodded. “May I see it?”
“I’m sorry, it was sent off to the DNA lab. Dried saliva was found on it.”
“Saliva?” Pendergast repeated. “Excellent. When will the results come in?”
“Forty-eight hours.”
Another nod.
When it gets back, I’ll give you the finger, Coldmoon thought to himself, still fighting the queasiness.
“I’d like to show you something else,” McDuffie said. He nodded to the assistant, who came forward. Together, they gently flipped the body over.
“Note—in addition to the cracked ribs—these deep bruises, symmetrical on both sides of the spine, which contused and tore the paraspinal muscles, particularly the rhomboid major. Most unusual.”
Pendergast examined the marks closely with the magnifying scope. Coldmoon waved off an invitation to look himself.
Next, the M.E. launched into a long list of other medical details noted during the autopsy, including the contents of the stomach, the small amounts of alcohol and THC present in the tissues, and so forth. Much of the rest Coldmoon couldn’t follow, but none of it seemed particularly important.
“Let us move to the second victim,” said Pendergast.
This body, which Coldmoon had already seen in the courtyard behind the Owens-Thomas House, was much fresher looking. He hadn’t been floating in a warm river for half a day—thank God.
“Note,” said McDuffie, “that there’s only one puncture wound. This time, the killer went straight to the femoral artery. Again, the blood was totally drained. We recovered what looks like more saliva, or mucus, around the puncture wound—or perhaps some sort of organic lubricating agent. Again, we’re running DNA and chemical tests on it.”
Pendergast spent a long time examining this puncture wound.
“Note there is some bruising and scraping,” McDuffie said, “but nothing like the first victim. This one seems to have been killed much more efficiently—at least, judging by the few signs of a struggle.” He nodded to his assistant.
This body was flipped over as well. Right away, Coldmoon noted the same symmetrical bruises, equidistant from the spine.
“It looks like the body—both bodies—were gripped in some sort of vise or clamp. With such force, in fact, that the muscles underneath were contused and several ribs cracked.”
Pendergast examined the bruises with the magnifying scope, moving it this way and that. Silence filled the lab. At last he straightened up and looked at the M.E. with a glittering eye. “That is one of the most curious things I’ve ever seen on a cadaver.”
“We’re baffled, too. Both bodies, as you know, were moved. The first was moved from the square to the river, over a distance of more than three miles as the crow flies.”
“Would you say the injuries indicate more than one person was involved in the murder?”
“I would most definitely say so. In both the killing and the transporting. At least two, probably three or maybe more. The second victim,” McDuffie went on, “was also moved, even though at this point we can only speculate about the site of the actual homicide. It almost looks like these marks were made by some sort of machine—an earthmover, forklift, or construction vehicle of some type—that picked up the bodies and carried them. Baffling.”