Just in case the weird vibes she was getting led to deeper investigation.

“What are you going to do with that?” He indicated the cup of stomach contents.

“Will you sieve it for me while I get my sample?”

“Not our standard protocol.”

“Humor me.”

“Fine.” He rummaged around in her tool kit while she got her liver sample, then dumped the stomach contents into the strainer. “Another seed—or whatever they are.”

She joined him, poking through the semi-solid mush with her forceps. There were a total of three oval objects.

“I want a sample of this too. Including all the seeds.”

“You got it.”

While Max attended to that task, she wrote a few notes on the standard autopsy form attached to her clipboard.

When he handed her the sample container for labeling, she motioned toward the table. “You can reset the head block.”

As Max repositioned it from under the woman’s back to behind her head, Grace picked up the saw.

So far, there was nothing to suggest foul play, even though Mavis had been found halfway up the stairs and there’d been signs of a break-in at her home. While the circumstance had prompted the coroner to request an autopsy, a robber hadn’t directly caused her demise.

Max stepped back, and Grace took his place.

Unless an abnormality in the brain suggested otherwise, she’d list the cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia due to atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, assuming the toxicology report came back negative—if the coroner even ordered toxicology. The blocked arteries she’d found in Mavis weren’t uncommon in older folks, and they often went undetected while people were living. In all probability, Russ would classify the manner of death as natural, and that would be the end of the story.

Officially.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t dig deeper, though. Try to determine whether the similarities between the other death she recalled and this one went beyond the inclusion of seedlike objects in the stomach.

A long shot, for sure, as Max had implied. She could invest a ton of effort and end up with nothing to show for it.

But like her two sisters, she was stuck with the justice gene that pushed them to seek answers often shrouded in shadows.

And danger.

His timing couldn’t have been worse.

As soon as the guy in head-to-foot personal protective equipment opened the door, Nate heard the saw.

Grace Reilly was cutting off the top of the skull to examine the brain.

The autopsy wasn’t winding down, as he’d hoped. It was in full swing.

“May I help you?” The man gave him a once-over, keeping a firm grip on the door with a latex-gloved hand.

Nate swallowed and introduced himself. “I told Dr. Reilly I’d stop by this morning.”

“Sorry. I was expecting a uniform.” He pulled the door wide.

“I’m off duty today.”

“That would explain it. I’m Max, her tech. Come on in.”

Nate held back. “I thought you’d be to the paperwork stage by now.”