SOME LIKE THEM DEAD

He forced himself to detach and look closely at the body. He didn’t know how the coroners and forensic types did it. It wasn’t human or animal nature to want to spend too much time around the dead; but if you wanted to learn their secrets, you had to get up close and personal where the dead could whisper in your ear. Maybe it was easy for the coroners and the others who just processed the meat, but the investigator had to see beyond the meat. He had to bring the bag of flesh and bone back to life. Detachment, apathy, acclimatization were the enemies of victimology. The investigator had to give the corpse a personality. He had to learn its loves, see the world through its eyes, give it back its name, give it breath and tears, and learn its vulnerabilities. Then he had to kill it again, slowly, frame by frame. There were a number of small wounds on the body, horizontal cuts, deep enough to have drawn blood, but not deep enough to have been the cause of death. They were each about an inch long. Forehead, throat, chest, abdomen, and groin area; definitely a pattern in the way the wounds were evenly spaced down the center of the body like the cross stitching on a football. The body and face were blue, but Elliot couldn’t tell whether the cyanosis was from the coolness of the chamber or from the manner of death. On closer examination, small petechial hemorrhages on the cheeks around the eyes indicated strangulation. But there was no trauma to the neck, no bruising, and no ligature marks. Maybe suffocation. He didn’t notice anything in the immediate vicinity that could have been used to suffocate the boy. Ken had mentioned there was evidence of cannibalism. Elliot had noticed it at first glance, but he’d been studiously ignoring it until Sally wandered up from behind, startling him. “Shit,” she said with her customary bluntness, “Looks like we have a biter, huh?” Elliot didn’t answer her. All over the small torso, arms and legs, were clear bite marks. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She said, just to have something to say. She actually had a high tolerance for homicide scenes. “Try not to puke in front of the help.” He said nonchalantly, pointing a thumb at the crime scene technicians. He felt anything but nonchalant. He was sure Sally wasn’t going to be sick, but he thought he might. “You done with your sketch?” He asked. Sally nodded. “What say we go up top for awhile, get some air.” They left the chamber and climbed back up the metal staircase in, each silently internalizing and processing the horror to which they had been called to bear witness.