On the Plain of Good and Evil

Morgues and medical examiner offices are unforgiving places. Corpses tell many stories, yet they hold back many secrets. It was an uncommonly vicious manner of death, cutting with some type of sharp-edged instrument, perhaps a surgical knife or a box-cutter. Kent did not know for sure. What he did know was that the cause of death was exsanguination. The mode of death was undoubtedly homicide. No sane person, even one committing suicide, would voluntarily hack his or her face to shreds. And it was definitely a female, the nude body laying on the cold metal gurney confirming that simple fact. But the face, what was left of it, was simply not a face anymore, and certainly of no help in aiding the identification process. But the unblemished tattoo adorning the upper left arm was the only clue that Kent needed to solve the mystery of whom was laid out in front of him like a slab of raw meat.

“Shirley? You sure?” asked Brenda Mae.

Kent nodded, as he walked around the gurney of death. Around her waist was a series of tattoos, a glimpse of which Kent had observed crawling out of her jeans on their first encounter. More snakes, seven of them, and all similar to the large serpent domiciled on her left upper arm, and appearing just as menacing.

“Had a thing for snakes, it appears,” said the morgue worker.

His name was Brent Salvy and Kent had worked with him before on numerous cases. Salvy had seen the dregs of every kind of murder the City of Chicago had to offer, but this one seemed to have caught him off-guard.

“Ever seen anything like this before?” asked Kent.

“Not like this. The face is missing.”

“Right. The guy who did this definitely knew her. This is not something the mailman does between deliveries. There’s a connection here between victim and offender.”

“How do you know it’s a he?” asked Salvy.

“Women don’t do this kind of shit. It’s not in their genes,” chimed in Brenda Mae, taking a step back from the corpse, and massaging her chin like Aladdin would his lamp, as if attempting to conjure up a logical explanation for the carnage that lay in front of her.

“Yeah, definitely knew each other,” said Kent. “Victimology, plain and simple.”

“You got the ticket on this one?” asked Salvy.

“Nah, next one in the box is Benter. But we’ll be assisting.”

“Is Benter still working with that degenerate, Dawkins?” asked Salvy.

Kent wasn’t listening. He was walking around the corpse taking photographs of Shirley’s other tattoos with his smart phone.

“You don’t mind, do you?” asked Kent.

“As long as they don’t show up in the Saturday evening edition of the Sun-Times,” said Salvy.

“Just for future reference,” said Brenda Mae, winking at Kent. “He’s a connoisseur of the macabre.”

Somehow gallows humor always seemed to eke its way out of unfortunate scenarios, and this one, Kent surmised, was more than unfortunate. It was downright sadistic, the real work of a true sociopath bent on violent behavior, but there was no sexual assault indicated, no semen found, or vaginal lacerations indicated, just haphazard and unrelenting slashing of a young woman’s face. A perpetrator bent on hatred, but hatred of what?

Kent gently rolled Shirley over, searching for more tattoos. None were found, just the one on her arm, and the seven around her waist. Now all he had to do was sort it all out, and focus on the so-called boyfriend who, according to Shirley, was the impetus behind her body illustrations. And then give all that information to Benter and his partner and hope for the best.

“Thanks,” said Kent, nodding to Brenda Mae. “We’ll be in touch.”

Brenda stopped short, and turned abruptly around, facing Salvy.

“You’ll probably find Quaaludes in her system, or some other type of downer when the toxicology report comes back,” she said.

“How so?” asked Salvy.

“There’s no defense wounds on her hands or arms. She didn’t fight back. She was unconscious when the blitz attack happened. Date rape, or a variation thereof, take your pick,” she said.

“Bill Cosby shit?” asked Salvy.

“Kind of, but no laughter,” said Brenda Mae.