All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [15]
Her first dose of reality wasn’t long in coming. Driving her squad car through downtown, keeping an eye out for trouble on Second Avenue, she received a message on her endlessly ringing computer screen that a stabbing had been called in from the projects. Taking off with lights flashing and siren blaring, she arrived to see a young black man sprawled on the ground in a grungy doorway. He was surrounded by wailing family and friends who were trying to stop the copious amounts of blood pouring from a gaping wound in his stomach. In desperation, they were trying to shove his intestines back into the yawning hole. It made no difference. He bled out at her feet. The EMTs arrived moments later, but too late to stop Taylor from losing a large part of her innocence on a dark street deep in the worst projects in town. She finished processing the crime scene and headed back to the station, and once in the locker room she noticed that the man’s blood covered her boots. She could never describe the overwhelming emotion she felt then, but she quickly learned to put her feelings aside.
She nearly laughed at the memory of that young girl, shocked by a little blood on her shoes. She’d seen plenty since, enough to weaken the idealistic view she’d had as a rookie officer. Now, at thirty-five, she was the youngest female lieutenant on the force, headed a crack team of homicide detectives, and had seen more than enough blood, some of it from her own gun, some of it hers. Yes, the idealism was well and truly gone now.
She pulled up in front of the Forensic Medical Building on Gass Street, secure in the knowledge that she knew who she was, and was relatively happy with that person. Relatively.
Baldwin had suggested she apply to the Academy, go through the rigors to become an FBI agent, but she’d turned him down cold. She belonged to Nashville.
Dr. Sam Loughley, medical examiner and Taylor’s best friend, was sewing closed the Y incision on Jessica Porter’s limp chest as Taylor rolled into the autopsy suite.
“Wow, you were quick. Didn’t know you would be done already.”
Sam looked up and smiled through her plastic shield. “I’m not early, you’re late. It’s seven-thirty already. Tim, could you finish up here for me?”
“Sure, Doc, no problem.” Sam handed off the tools to her assistant and walked toward the decontamination room, pulling off her smock and gloves as she went. Taylor followed dutifully.
It was only after Sam was cleaned up, they both had a cup of tea and were ensconced in Sam’s office, that she would comment on the autopsy.
“She didn’t take a terrible amount of abuse.”
“I don’t know, Sam, being strangled and having her hands cut off seems a bit excessive, don’t you think?”
Sam nodded. “Well, of course it is. I just meant that she wasn’t horribly abused, beaten or anything. The hands were done postmortem. The strangulation was manual, there was no evidence of rape. It wasn’t as bad as some I’ve seen. She wasn’t torn up, just had the characteristic bruising and tearing I’d associate with rough consensual sex. He used a lubricated condom, and I didn’t retrieve anything that would qualify for DNA. I’ve taken all the samples and sent them to be run. Dr. John Baldwin, FBI agent extraordinaire, called early and told me to send all the trace and the blood work to the FBI lab. It’ll go quicker that way.”
Despite all efforts to the contrary, Nashville didn’t have their own forensics laboratory to process elements from their crime scenes. Baldwin had just saved them both a major headache.
“So do you have