Read A Life of Death: Episodes 9 - 12 for Free Online Page B

conditions, some only partially present. “Jack and Jill are from Deir el-Medina, just outside the Valley of the Kings.”
    “So which one’s been giving you problems?” I asked while Jessie snooped around the room.
    Dr. Mayna’s head snapped up when Jessie reached into a box. “Please, do not touch, Mr. Arturo!”
    Jessie’s hand leaped from the box as though it had been slapped. He nodded and moved on, slowly meandering through the maze of tables.
    “Well, we’re not going to get anywhere if I can’t touch it,” I whispered, somehow feeling as though it were necessary. The atmosphere was oppressive, almost as though by stepping into the room I’d set foot on the consecrated ground of a graveyard.
    She massaged a crick out of her neck and shrugged her shoulders as though trying to work out the stress of such an idea. “If you have to,” she said with hesitance, “but be careful. Don’t pick anything up.”
    Dr. Kamal watched, seeming curious both about the rooms, which he evidently hadn’t seen yet, and what I might do.
    Having touched the bodies of victims and the remains of bones before, I doubted anything would come of this. However, looking down at Jack’s skeletal remains, the bones appeared to have darkened with time and sent a deeper chill through me. The top of Jack’s skull was crushed in, as though with a pick or ax. The fractures and damage were typical of trauma to the head. Looking at the victim so long after the accident was less messy than what I was used to, and it seemed clear what had happened. “So what can you tell me about Jack?”
    Dr. Mayna quirked her head. “I thought that’s what you were going to tell us.”
    I turned to stare at her, but she just returned it without emotion. “Well, first off I’d say that you’re right; Jack was murdered.”
    “A vision?” she asked with audible skepticism.
    “No,” I said, shaking my head. “You can see from the stress fractures in the skull that the impact was while he was living, or at least before his body had deteriorated. If it had happened later, his entire skull would have been more brittle and collapsed under the pressure.”
    “Why murder, though? Couldn’t it have been a rock or something large that fell on Jack’s head?” she asked, still showing no emotion, but circling the table like a vulture.
    “No. Something large wouldn’t have pierced the skull in such a way. It would have crushed it. The murder weapon was sharp, like a small ax or pick.”
    “I see.” She continued to walk, but lowered her chin to her chest and crossed her arms as though in thought, but again her tone lacked any of the concern or conviction she’d held when we spoke over the last forty-five minutes.
    “But you already knew that,” I added.
    She stopped to glare at me. “Yes, Mr. Drummond, we did. Like you, I’m well trained to analyze crime scenes and the results of murder. I understand you know your business as a police officer—”
    “Detective,” I interjected.
    She harrumphed and glared at me as though I were an intruder moving in on her turf, which I guess I was, but it was at her request. “You know your business, Mr. Detective,” she continued, “but we both know that isn’t why I asked you to come back here.”
    I nodded. “You’re right.”
    “Are you pulling my chain? Are you even a detective, or just some actor wasting our precious time because you got the urge to look at dead bodies after watching the History channel one too many times?”
    “Now look here!” I demanded, raising my voice, but keeping it quiet enough not to disturb the researchers in the other rooms. I pulled a few photos of the serial killer’s victims out of my overcoat pocket and slapped the most recent onto the brushed-metal surface of the table. They were of the last four charred bodies we’d recovered. “Don’t you dare confuse me with some amateur out to get his thrills. The shit I endure is nothing like your neat laboratory. What I