Read Charred for Free Online Page A

interesting, how?” Jason glanced around the white, cold walls and then narrowed his gaze back on the other man. Really, this place gave him the creeps. “What did you find?”
    Reubens shook his head. “Not much. I can tell you the victim is female, give an approximate age—it’s in my notations—but I really have no idea how she died. There is no obvious trauma. If I had to speculate, she was decomposing before she was set on fire. There are traces of some sort of substance on what skin is left, but I assume the fire department will determine the accelerant and that is probably what it is. She must have been thoroughly dosed with it from the consistent nature of the burns. In short she went up in flames and very quickly. I know for certain she was dead before the fire started, or at least not breathing. No smoke damage to her lungs.”
    “No manner of death?”
    Reubens cocked his head to the side. “No one ends up on a coffee table in front of a fireplace without some pretty iffy individuals being involved. I’ll put suspicious circumstances in the opinion when I have it written up.”
    “Iffy? That’s a scientific term, right?”
    The doctor laughed and rubbed his jaw. “What do you prefer? Unsavory? Makes me sound like my grandmother.”
    Jason tried again. “No blunt-force trauma or…”
    “Sorry to disappoint. Like I said, I can’t tell you how she died, just that beyond a shadow of a doubt, she’s dead.”
    Fuck .
    “You aren’t disappointing me.” Jason wasn’t an asshole, or didn’t think he was—MacIntosh might disagree—he just needed a lead. “I don’t want people out there killing other people any more than you do, but I was sort of hoping you were going to give me something . Anything helpful?”
    “I do my best, but this one wasn’t easy. My job is to give you information.” Reubens dropped the clipboard onto the table with an audible clatter. “Given the circumstances I could guess at manner of death, but we don’t do that here, or at least I don’t. So, cause of death unknown, but it wasn’t the fire, and manner of death can be labeled suspicious, but I am not comfortable saying it was homicide with any degree of certainty. There’s no evidence to prove it.”
    Son of a bitch . He’d been hoping they’d get something definitive from the autopsy.
    “The body was posed.” Jason would just as soon not argue the point, write up the report, and be on his way, but that image unfortunately stuck in his head. “You say the victim was already dead … how in the fuck—er, sorry, but how can’t it be murder?”
    “It could be.” Dr. Reubens slightly spread his hands. “I’m not saying it isn’t. I’m saying when this person”—he pointed to a drawer in the wall—“was set on fire she was already not breathing and I can’t tell if she died of natural causes or someone, for instance, stuck a pillow over her face, a method that, by the way, leaves hardly any trace, especially if you incinerate the remains.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind, just in case I want to get rid of someone. Okay, well, approximate age?”
    “Past puberty. Height and my guess at her weight are right here.” He handed over a single sheet of paper. “When you have an idea who she is, dental records will have to be utilized. No one could possibly recognize her. Toxicology might help, but those results will take a few days.”
    That was the ugly truth. He’d have nightmares about that blackened corpse and that macabre, grinning faceless skull. He’d seen gunshot victims, stabbings, even a couple of hangings, which were no picnic, but this one was horrific. If he were at all interested in making a horror film, he would definitely include that scene where he walked into the dripping room and saw that particular corpse. Death wasn’t ever pretty, but this one had been really bad. The intertwined clawlike fingers missing every bit of flesh would simply not leave his conscious thoughts.
    Let it go