3B - "Body of Evidence"

[Roanoke]

While Roanoke waits his turn to look over the grisly fire scene photos he removes his backpack. He sets it down on the floor and, on a whim, open one of the smaller outer pockets. Much to his surprise he finds inside his old copy of Cujo by Stephen King.

He states loud enough for the others to hear, "I haven't read this book since high school." More to himself he mutters, "I never did find out what happened to it. Until now."

With that, Roanoke opens the book to the first page and he immediately becomes absorbed in the story. His eyes seem to consume the words on the pages with the same unquenchable enthusiasm as a teenage boy who is getting his first look at a nudie mag. Still, though, Roanoke remains aware of his surroundings.

[Roanoke]

As Roanoke continues to read his book with an almost fathomless voracity, his thumb flicks the yet-to-be-read-again pages with a gentle ruffle.

Soon after he starts the page ruffling, Roanoke notices three triangular shapes of green beginning to appear at the top of the book. The shapes all have 100's on them.

Roanoke keeps the book to his face like a hand of cards and, with great care, he opens it. Inside, he finds that the book has been hollowed out and filled with at least one hundred $100 bills.

Roanoke is hit with two emotions back-to-back: disappointment, at not being able to finish reading his book; and confusion, at how the money got there in the first place. The book he had thought to be his seems to have belonged to someone else.

Roanoke looks up to see his teammates, who seem occupied with other things; Bluemojo still looking a little evergreenish and Hollowpoint pouring over the photos. Keeping the two emotions from surfacing on his face, Roanoke moves to extract the money from the book and put it into his jacket without his teammates seeing.

[The Dispatcher]

Doctor Everitt picks up a clip board and looks at it's contents.

She then goes about the grisly work of cutting a "Y" incision across the burned skin. Blisters pop, leaking fluid as her scalpel cuts across the uper dermis. She then pins back the flaps of skin exposing the inner organs and rib-cage.

[Roanoke]

Roanoke watches as Dr. Everitt cuts the Y-incision across the charred mid-section of Dr. Hadley. The dissonant slicing of surgical steel on burned flesh creates an overwhelming cacophony in his ears. The sound is somehow akin to the harshness of a serrated knife relentlessly cutting through cardboard.

Roanoke's face is a crash course study in agony. His eyes snap shut, brow furrows, jaws clamps tight; muscles tense. He swallows, then opens his eyes wide. The look on his face is one of agonized helplessness.

His eyes have taken on an almost obsidian hue due to the ceiling light reflecting their slightly glazed-over state. Roanoke takes a deep breath, exhales raggedly and tries to maintain some semblance of control.

[The Dispatcher]

"Are your friends going to be alright?" Dr. Everett asks Roanoke's direction, then "Hey, there's a trash can over there." she motions to the rear right of the room, next to a filing cabinet.

"If any of you wanna see something of interest step closer and take a look."

[Roanoke]

Roanoke meets Dr. Everitt's gaze and replies, "Yeah. They should be fine. They're just a little taciturn around stiffs. Have you found anything of particular interest?"

Roanoke moves closer to the newly exposed chest cavity of Dr. Hadley's body for a better view.

[The Dispatcher]

"Well here's something of interest..." Dr. Everette says to Roanoke pointing towards the lungs with her freshly used scalpel.

"Hadley was a smoker in life, though he claimed to have been quitting this past week. Now if he was to have died after falling asleep in a room that would soon be an inferno, these lungs would have large amounts of soot in them. These, as you can see don't even seem to have trace ammounts. Just the regular gunk one would expect from a smoker like Hadley."

[Roanoke]

Roanoke's stomach does a mild whirligig-type spin that thankfully only lasts for a moment or two. In their almost unconscious desire to look away from the grotesque, shell-of-a-man form lying on the examination table, his eyes make a sweep of Dr. Hadley's shoulders and neck region. Upon a closer examination, Roanoke spots something peculiar on Dr. Hadley's neck.

Roanoke replies to Dr. Everitt's statement by offering his concurrence. "I agree," he says, pointing to the laceration on Dr. Hadley's neck. "It's just as I expected. Someone seems to have had it in for him after all."

[The Dispatcher]

Dr. Everitt looks down at the wound.

“Must have missed that due to combination from poor lighting and the charred coagulation of blood around that area.” She says almost as if it was intended for herself.

“Lacerated jugular vein on the right hand side. Perforated larynx. Collected pockets of hematoma... caramelized it seems due to the heat."

She stands back from the table, and removes her bloody gloves.

“Yes, this was murder." she speaks towards Bluemojo and Hollowpoint's position. "See that area in the second zone of the neck? Slashing wound. The killer would have made that coming up from behind Hadley.”

She drops the gloves into the trash can. The comes back to Roanoke. She adjusts her blackframed glasses, and nods approvingly to him. "Good eyes... Mister...?" she trails, looking for a name.

[Roanoke]

Roanoke appears to be beside himself. With embarrassment evident in his voice, he stammers, "I...I'm so sorry. Where're my manners? I'm Ryan Black.” He puts his hand forward to shake Dr. Everitt’s hand. “Though,” he adds, as a polite smile briefly softens the features of his infallibly gruff face, “it'd probably be better, if for simplicity sake, you referred to me by my callsign, Roanoke."

[The Dispatcher]

"Certainly, Roanoke." she answers. She turns back to the corpse.

"Would that be enough for you gentlemen, or would you prefer if I did a complete autopsy at this time. Just to let you know, the latter will have us here for a few hours."

She with her rubber gloves still on, she awaits the men's answer.

[The Dispatcher]

Bluemojo removes his glasses, and rubs his eyes-- this action seems to take longer than one would expect. The man's expressed exhaustion taking it's toll.

Hollowpoint still looked green around the gills. He handed the file to Roanoke. "Look, Dr. Everett was it? This is a bit much to have thrown at a person all at once. Can you put him back on ice? If we need to have you poke around more, we'll let you know--"

With that both Hollowpoint and Bluemojo turn to leave the room.

[Roanoke]

Roanoke stares after Hollowpoint and Bluemojo and asks, "Where're you guys off to? You going to investigate a lead you conferred about amongst yourselves telepathically?"

Roanoke smiles for a brief spat, but it soon evaporates when he realizes that neither of his teammates is returning his sarcasm. Man, Roanoke thinks to himself, This whole autopsy thing must've affected them a whole lot worse than they expected if they're not even their usual sarcastic selves.

After a few moments pause, he adds, "No matter. I think we've found out all we needed to know here, anyway. Lemme know if you find out any more clues, OK?"

Roanoke then turns his attention back to Dr. Everitt once more and replies, "Thank you for your assistance, Dr. Everitt. Now, if you don't mind, I think I'll be taking my leave as well. I'm gonna see how some of my other teammates are faring. If we require any further assistance, we know where to find you. Thanks again." With that, Roanoke leaves the autopsy room.

[The Dispatcher]

Roanoke watches as his two silent companions head back down the hall that they had come up originally, heading back towards the elevator.

He takes his bearings.

The carved hallways seldon reach beyond 15 feet in width, and this particular location is no different.

The hall shoots down the the south. A crossing hallway is only aproximately 50 feet away, down that direction. The southern passage continues past, and appears to open up into another cavern room another 50 feet beyond the cross-hall.

To the East leads back to the large cavern room that contained crates, and to Roanoke's recollection a large freight elevator-- in addition to the other elevator, for use by the facility's personnel.

[Roanoke]

Roanoke watches his companions walking back down the hallway from whence they came, their footfalls diminishing slowly to a whispering echo. "This is just great," Roanoke mutters to himself, seething with sarcasm, "Those weak-stomached simpletons! We split up into groups to get this mission done, and now they decide they're too grossed-out by an autopsy to go on?!"

In his state of frustrated and helpless aggravation, he concludes that it's no use getting pissed over their ineptness. After all, there's nothing for it. Who knows, he thinks to himself, maybe eventually they'll come around and actually become productive team members. Now, wouldn't that be something to see?

Roanoke surveys the scene to take his mind off things. The eastern hallway leads back to where his companions are now heading. Off to the south is a hallway that intersects with the east-west passage, some fifty or so feet away. And about another fifty feet beyond that intersection is another cavernous room.

At that moment, an idea seems to occur to Roanoke. He reaches into the left breast pocket of his trenchcoat and removes his multi-function PDA. After turning it on, he replies, "Here's hoping it'll actually work in this God forsaken facility. Might as well see what my other teammates are up to. Guess I'll start with Halo." With that, Roanoke types up a message, sends it to Halo's frequency and awaits her response.