“Implants register 01:14.” Raya cocked her head. “Body temp, lividity, and rigor support that.”

“Any clue as to who might have done it?” Kalico asked.

“Not much.” Raya shifted, reached for her scalpel. “The killer was right-handed, strong. There’s some evidence on the victim’s fingernails that he scratched, flailed. We’ve got fibers from under his nails. Cheng’s got them in the lab. My guess? They’ll turn out to be something utilitarian and common like duralon. But Corporate manufacture, definitely not local.”

Raya glanced uncertainly at the IG. “You want the big surprise?”

“And that is?” Kalico asked.

“The guy was drugged. Polyphysorate fentanine. That’s a surgical anesthetic. We use it here when we have it in stock. From the amount in the blood, it wasn’t enough to knock him out, but it would have really slowed him down. Inhibited his reflexes. Probably affected his cognitive abilities.”

Kalico sighed. “Any of your supply missing?”

Raya had that hard-eyed look. “We haven’t had any in stock for the past year and three months since we used the last on Artie Manfoid’s knee surgery after he fell off his bulldozer.”

Kalico shot a look at Soukup. “So someone brought it down from Turalon?”

“Had to be,” Raya told her. “That’s not to say that someone couldn’t have nipped a couple doses from the hospital a couple of years back, put them on ice, just waiting for the day a high and mighty Grunnel set foot in Port Authority, and thawed them out so they could slip it into his drink and kill him, but Occam’s razor says it came down with one of the Turalon shuttles. My meds aren’t scheduled until later this afternoon.”

“That’s pretty conclusive. Narrows the list of suspects considerably.” Kalico crossed her arms.

“Can I start my autopsy?” Raya asked.

Kalico glanced at Soukup. “IG? You have any comments or concerns?”

“Not at this time.”

“Then, you may begin, Raya. I would ask that the IG accommodate us and allow the First to step close. If ever there was a need for a rock-solid record, this will be it.”

At a nod from the IG, the First stepped up beside the table.

Raya gave him a wary look, then bent, starting her Y incision.

It didn’t take long before Kalico decided that autopsies weren’t going to qualify as one of her favorite pastimes.

As ribs were cut and Chad Grunnel’s face was peeled back over his forehead, she made herself concentrate on what Raya had said: The guy had been partially drugged with pharma from Turalon, fought weakly, while he was strangled by a right-handed assailant. And then left behind the foundry.

Could be anyone, she realized.

Even—she glanced sidelong to where Soukup stood—the IG.

Chapter 33

  33