The office of the chief medical examiner is at 401 E Street SW, three blocks south of the Mall and within sight of the Capitol. We ride in Stellabotte’s patrol car, a non-AV (Autonomous Vehicle) that he drives himself, way cooler than our NYPD self-drivers.

The forensic pathologist from Metro D.C. is Dr. Ernestine Carter. She performs the autopsy. Two detectives from Metro are in attendance, along with Stellabotte from Georgetown. Two doctors and an administrator of OCME attend initially, the former pair departing twenty minutes into the examination, called by other duties.

Our own Digital Crime Scene Reconstruction chief, Jesse Uribe, is also an ME, meaning he’s a medical doctor. I met him this morning for the first time. He and Manning go back years, apparently. Manning clearly likes him, which is strange to see. I’ve never seen Manning like anybody.

Uribe is Manning’s age, about fifty. He collected me and Manning at Union Station this morning, driving his ’29 Buick Enclave, another non-AV, coming from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he was on vacation with his family.

The body of the murder victim, Michael A. Justman, lies under the lights on the stainless steel examination table. Dr. Uribe has requested of Dr. Carter that she perform a specific incision and peel-back on the area between the eyebrows. She has agreed.

I’ve got two recorders going, phone and lapel, while taking pencil notes feverishly. Dr. Carter will also, after she finishes the initial incision, examine the “strap muscles” of the neck to determine if cause of death is strangulation, as it was on U.S. Victim #1, Nathan Davis, and the two parallel cases in Russia. An autopsy tech, operating a bone saw, will make a perimeter cut around the skull. This, Dr. Carter explains, will cause drainage of the blood from above the subject’s neck, so that the lower areas to be examined can be seen cleanly.

As she works, Dr. Carter dictates notes into a mike suspended from a ceiling pod. Uribe leans in at her left shoulder. Over his eyes he wears a DOM, a digital optical maximizer, which looks like a tiny pair of binoculars affixed to an eyeglass frame. Dr. Carter wears her own DOM. Hers delivers a magnified 3-D image to a TV screen above the examination table. She makes the cut between the eyebrows and peels back the skin. All of us except Uribe are craning our necks at the screen.

URIBE

(looking through his own DOM)

There it is.

DETECTIVE STELLABOTTE

What?

URIBE

Just like on New York.

Uribe indicates on the screen a dime-sized contusion between the decedent’s eyes. The area stands out prominently from the surrounding tissue, looking exactly like the letters “LV.” It’s as clear as a brand on a Texas steer. The mark, Dr. Carter dictates in her notes, is a “subdural capillary hematoma.” Ruptured blood vessels.

MANNING

“LV.”

URIBE

Bigger than shit.