An Apple for Zoë ~ The Forsaken Read Online Free Page B

attendant, entered through the double swinging doors pushing a stainless steel table, which carried the body of the old man from mortuary's closet. His body was still dressed, face gray, eyes puffed shut. The tip of a swollen blackened tongue emerged between his lips and was held in place by tightly clenched teeth frozen in a final bite. The barbed wire still wrapped around his wrists binding them together behind his back, with the knotted cord buried deep inside his neck flesh.  
    Stevens pushed the steel table alongside the autopsy slab, where water was already running through a small rubber hose in order to continuously take the blood away as the autopsy progressed.  
    "Sure glad I skipped lunch on this one," said Stevens.
    "Wish I could say the same," said James.
    In all the years James had been a detective, Stevens had always been the morgue attendant. He was a man who just seemed suited for the job. There wasn't anything wrong or weird about him; he just looked like he belonged here with his jet-black hair combed straight back and held in place due to an abundance of hair oil.
    "Still using that Vitalis, Wayne?"
    "You kidding? Nothing compares, of course you can't really find the old stuff anymore. Now all they want to sell you is mousse or gel. Who wants that crap?" said Stevens as he began to put on his autopsy gown. It was a garment that had most certainly seen more than its fair share of use. As James watched Stevens go through his ritual of dressing and gloving up, he mused to himself the only thing Stevens was missing was a hump on his back as he eagerly awaited Dr. Frankenstein's arrival. It was a terrible thought and he tried to push it from his mind as quickly as it had entered by changing the subject.  
    "Oh Wayne, I heard CSI found a wallet in the alleyway behind the funeral home for this victim. Do you have it?"
    Stevens responded immediately, "Oh yeah, hang on they should have put it the evidence bag, it'll be in my office."
    James felt a glimmer of hope as he watched Stevens leave the room. James was now alone with one of the victims. It was an odd, creepy feeling to be the only one in the room with a dead body. A feeling he had experienced more times than he cared to remember. Walking over to the old man, James looked at him closely for the first time. The details were so much clearer in the light of the morgue then in the small tiny closet of a mortuary. A heavy sadness came over him as he looked at the barbed wire wrapped around the frail wrists.  
    "Who the hell does something like this to a defenseless old man? Someone's grandfather is laying here the victim of senseless hate.   There is no God!" said James angrily.
      But then remembered what Kirkland said and thought to himself. Could this be the man in the window that famous night forty two years earlier? James examined the face. He tried to imagine a crew cut and horned-rimmed glasses. It just didn't seem to fit. In his gut, he felt this was not the guy he ran into that night. But how is he connected to Amanda Carlyle , James wondered?   His attention was diverted from the thought as Stevens returned with a manila envelope marked evidence John Doe #5623/10/23/10. As James took the envelope he glanced at the numbers and shook his head. Can this city really have already had that many coroner's cases?  
    James didn't even want to speculate how many of those cases were homicides. He began to open the envelope and hesitated for a moment.  
    "Wayne, CSI dust any of this yet?"
    Stevens looked up from his routine of measuring the height of the victim with a household tape measurer.  
    "I don't know Tom. Better put some gloves on. Plenty, in the big cabinet behind you," said Stevens as he hooked the end of the tape to the old man's shoe, dragging the other end to the top of his head. James' mind wandered into a lost fog as he watched Stevens. For a moment he seemed to forget where he was and what he was doing. "Oh, right."  
    James then opened