Chapter Thirty-One

“Rita, things are popping. This better be good,” Raven said as she walked into the autopsy suite.

“Believe me,” Rita said, “you’re going to want to tongue kiss me after this.”

Raven looked skeptically at Rita. “Why am I here?”

Rita gestured at a body on the autopsy table, a full-grown man with lots of black hair on either side of his bald spot. A blue blanket was neatly folded down to reveal Rita’s baseball stitching closing the Y incision on his chest.

“I don’t have time for another case,” Raven said.

“You need to make time for this. Sit.”

Raven sat. Rita wheeled over to her and shoved the folder of the unfortunate man at her.

“Yours truly over there is Ronnie True, no pun intended. I finished an autopsy on him about an hour ago.”

“Okay,” Raven said. “But I must say that the cogs haven’t quite clicked into place, yet.”

“Someone beat the shit out of him, and left him for dead in his office months ago.”

Raven glanced at the body. “He still looks pretty fresh.”

“Pay attention, sweetie,” Rita said. “A cleaning crew called 911 when they found him. He’s been in a coma ever since. The family just took him off life support yesterday, which is how he finally ended up in my fine establishment.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Just wait, you will.” She tapped the file folder in Raven’s hands. Raven opened it to find a diagram of a male figure. Rita had marked various areas on the arms, legs, torso to note scars and healing injuries. But Rita’s notation of blunt force trauma on True’s forehead claimed all of her attention.

“Are you telling me that a bolt gun made that wound?”

“I’m pretty sure that it did,” Rita said. “Breaker, he had this case, took photos of True’s injuries before they tried to patch him up.”

Rita picked up the iPad on her desk. “Haven’t got a chance to print these yet for the file, but look.” She turned the screen to Raven so she could see it.

“Holy crap on a cracker.”

“That’s not exactly what I said, but it was close.”

“But his throat wasn’t cut,” Raven said, looking back at the body on the table.

“Probably the only thing on him that the perp didn’t beat the shit out of.”

“But I don’t understand,” Raven said.

But the fact was, she understood all too well. The beatdown on Ronnie True indicated that he had made a dangerous enemy, but the injury to his forehead looked eerily similar to the non-penetrating captive bolt gun on the victims in the Sleeping Boy case. She remembered how Stella described the instrument when Raven asked about her process. The weapon she used to stun her animals didn’t penetrate the brain. She preferred it so she could later sell the brain with the other meat. After all, Stella had said, she needed every penny she could get to keep her farm going. If she used anything that would penetrate the brain – a .22 or a penetrating captive bolt gun – the brain would be contaminated, and she could kiss any revenue she might get by selling it goodbye.

“But the boys weren’t beaten like this guy was,” Raven said.

“Nope.”

“And this guy is much older.”

“Yep.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know,” Rita said. “But this is your first case. Not Baptiste.”

“Did you….”

“Who are you talking to, Raven? Of course I did.”

She handed Raven a fat three-ring binder stuffed with documents. On the spine was the name Ronnie True. Underneath that name was Detective DeShawn Breaker.

“This is the casefile Breaker put together,” Rita said. “Likes everything printed out, like Billy Ray. Very tactile fellow. But here’s the flash drive for everything in the binder.”

“Thank you, Rita,” Raven said, standing up. “You’re a lifesaver.”

Rita cocked her head, a crooked smile on her face. “I don’t get that a lot in my line of work, but there is one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Where’s my tongue kiss?”