[MD2, 2:40Pm, County morgue]
Patrica finished her cursory exam of Ann’s body, thinking over the meaning of the marks and compiling a list of toxins that could be responsible. If she could reduce the number of possibilities, it would reduce the time it would take to come up with an answer.
Meanwhile, Flynn was pondering all of this, but in particular, the wound on Brian’s back. That just didn’t make sense. "Are you sure that Brian was shot," he asked. "I was in the room. There was no sound of a gunshot, no smell of gun powder."
Patrica frowned and took another look at the wound. It appeared to be from a small caliber weapon. There were no powder burns, so it was apparently fired from a distance. But it did appear to be a gunshot wound. "What do you think," she asked the pathologist, who had been preparing to begin the internal exam of Brian’s body.
"Sure looks like a gunshot," he said. "But we’ll know more once we get inside."
Patrica nodded her agreement and glanced at Flynn, who was looking decidedly green already, and the autopsy itself hadn’t even started yet.
"You’re sure you want to stay around for this," she asked.
Flynn nodded and retreated to the side of the room, where he could see what was going on without getting too good a view.
Ten minutes into the autopsy, Flynn saw Patrica frown. "This is really odd," she muttered. The pathologist made an affirmative sound.
"What," Flynn asked.
"There’s no bullet, although the wound barely penetrated the epidermis. Its only about three-quarters of an inch deep."
"And look at the discoloration of the tissue," the pathologist added.
"Yes, I noticed that."
"Bruising," Flynn asked.
"There is some bruising," Patrica said. "It appears that this wound was made at least two to three hours before his death. But there’s something else, too. It appears that whatever toxin he was given was introduced into his body through this wound."
"But if there’s no bullet, what caused the wound?"
"I don’t know. My best guess is that it was some sort of pellet that dissolved in his body."
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