A man walked in with clipboard in hand. He wore scrubs and had surgical booties over his sneakers. His dark hair was cropped short. With a square jaw, taut muscles and intense blue eyes, Val couldn’t tell if he was intimidating or attractive. Or both. He appeared to be in his mid-forties. Without question he had a commanding appearance. The staff snapped to attention. Howie explained that this was Dr. Blythe. Val watched him as he went over to each of the three bodies from the hospital and for two of them, stated the names and causes of death. “No post-mortem needed. These can go.”

“They don’t need an autopsy?” Val asked Howie.

“It’s not required in all circumstances. Just because someone ends up here doesn’t mean they need to be opened up, especially if we already know their cause of death.”

Val continued to watch Dr. Blythe as he inspected each corpse. The person with the EKG tabs as well as those in the body bags would need an autopsy and he cleared those to begin.

“The one at the end of the hall is yours,” Howie said, pointing to the one on its own. “Our job is just to take X-rays of the decedent’s teeth.”

“What’s she doing over there?” Val asked, pointing to the photographer on the stepladder.

“She’s documenting the clothing worn by that victim.” Howie motioned towards the gurney closest to them. A dead teenager lay on top. “From that height she gets all of the items in the proper orientation for the photograph.”

“What happened to him?”

“He was killed in a gang fight. Poor boy was only sixteen.” Howie shook his head in regret then grabbed the gurney and wheeled it over to a steel table, finally transferring the teenager’s body onto it. “This kid’s one of my cases. I picked him up off the pavement last evening as he lay dead outside the house where he lived with his grandmother. She was inconsolable when I took him away.”

Two doctors were standing around the table, waiting to get to work. Howie introduced them as medical residents, Dr. Chen and Dr. Phelps. They said polite hellos. “Val, I have to get a couple of signatures before we start. Why don’t you hang out here until I come back.”

Val nodded without looking in Howie’s direction. She couldn’t keep her gaze off the face of the victim. She thought of his grandmother and the pain of loss, of family that now only existed as memories. Jesus, he was just a kid. What a waste of such a young life. In his chest was a small hole. Dr. Chen began to describe this as the entrance wound.

The victim was rolled to expose his back. There was no exit wound.