Autopsy of a Mind

Chapter 19: Smell of Death

The morgue is a curious place. It doesn't exactly smell of death, but the sterility and smell of disinfectant make it ominous and suffocating. I had never been to a morgue before, never having to face the stiff and cold bodies of my deceased family. Neither had I been asked to identify any of the other victims found related to the Elegant Butcher. It was odd to see Mr. Butler so at peace in this place. I wondered how many trips it had taken him to get to this point of indifference, this sense of belonging to a place associated with decadence.

According to Mr. Butler, a corpse as old as this would not fall under the category I had wanted to avoid. He commended nature on its fast pace of decomposition as he led me into the room. To be fair, there was not much left of the corpse for it to be dreadfully unsightly. There was still trace of some soft tissue and muscle, but nothing too gruesome. The medical examiner was removing his gloves when he noticed us.

"You must be the specialist," he said, a faint smile on his lips. Certainly not what I was expecting at the time.

"What is the condition of the newer corpses?" Mr. Butler asked. He wasn't bothered with pleasantries. The good doctor handed him a file. He went over it and then handed it to me as if to make me go through it.

I opened the report and went through the pages. All reservations about not seeing corpses flew out of the window. The graphic photographs of severed limbs and bones peeking out were a somewhat familiar image, but part of a distant memory that I did not want to revisit. I sighed as I read the comments about the bruising of the wrists and ankles and the strikes that dismantled the body. I didn't quite understand the language of the autopsy report but could sense that there were changes in the pattern of killing. I reserved the questions for later when Mr. Butler was free to answer them.

My eyes moved back to the man in question. His face was uncomfortably close to the skeletonized body. He seemed to be moving the limbs around looking for something.

After a few minutes, he looked up and signaled at me to get close. I sighed and walked up to him reluctantly. He motioned to lean closer and then started whispering the information.

"Do you see the location of cutting?" I nodded. "Tell me what you see."

"I don't know what it means," I told him sullenly.

"Just articulate what you see. I'll explain it."

"The bone seems to have irregular indentations," I squinted as I tried to frame my thoughts. "It looks like when you try to cut bread with a dull knife and saw at it, leaving behind an uneven sliced side." I scrunched my brows as I thought about the example.

"Excellent," he encouraged. "Then? What happened to the other corpses?" I revisited the pictures in my mind.

"As time goes on the cuts become cleaner, but then" I trailed off, taking the moment to stare at Mr. Butler. "It's as if he sliced through the limbs in one stroke with a very sharp object like cutting through butter."

"He changed his weapon." Mr. Butler nodded.

"Any other observations?" I shook my head. "Look at all the cuts. They are all different in ridging and angles, but in the more recent corpses the angle of cutting is exactly the same."

"I don't understand," I confessed.

"He did change his weapon. Previously he used butcher knives or similar cutters to chop the limbs, but he got braver and made a machine that could do the same thing in lesser time." Safe to safe I could not picture what he was talking about.

"Like a killing machine?" I tried in a weak voice. He nodded.

"Call Seth Watson," he said in an excited voice.

.

I gave him the phone and watched him rush out of the room as he spoke. The medical examiner who had been silent all along suddenly spoke up.

"Are you his apprentice?" He seemed genuinely interested. He was surprised when I answered negatively. "He took the time to explain the scene even though he had everything figured out. I assumed."

The conversation seemingly ended there and I was quite relieved.

"You're a local? You know Seth Watson,"

"I was his neighbor for some time," I informed him. His curiosity got the better of him.

"We had a lot of reports about the demon girl living in the area. Was that you?" He asked jokingly. I was not amused.

"Demon girl?" I heard Mr. Butler inject as he entered the room. "She might be a little alien, but she doesn't seem to possess the grotesque nature of a demon."

Ironic that he would call me an alien when he was the one with the lack of social skills and a general sense of superiority over the rest of humanity. I'm pretty sure the sour look I gave him conveyed my thoughts perfectly.

"You were living with your aunt for some time, right? I heard your story. Utterly surprised that you can handle being the apprentice."

I kept quiet pretending not to hear the man. Mr. Butler also seemed preoccupied with a piece of paper he had found somewhere and was drawing on it. With my meager understanding of his personality, I was sure he had not heard the words the examiner had spouted.

He looked up after a while and turned the page towards me. I looked at it in disbelief.

"You're saying this is the killing machine?" I pointed at the illustration knowing well that I would receive a sarcastic remark; hence, it was easy to ignore it completely. The machine, though, was fascinating. The main structure consisted of a rectangle frame that had large blades attached to every side. In theory, such a device is dropped on a body would cut through it in one go, producing similar angles of cutting and force.

Yet in theory, it worked. In practice, the killer would have to target victims of similar height and build and do so by estimating their heights so that the plan could work flawlessly.

Before the critique could slip out, I flipped through the autopsy file in my hand and went through each and every one.

All the victims had similar height and build.

Of course, every serial killer has a certain type of person they aim for, then why can they not vet according to body type?

"You've already informed Seth?" I was unsure as to how he would describe this thing over the phone.

"Yes, blades these sizes are monitored heavily and usually have strict importing and transportation regulation so there has to be some receipt or name in there that will help us find the killer."

"That should narrow down the number of suspects considerably, but wouldn't larger producers selling at the market have use for these blades?" I mumbled to myself.

"Yes, but it would be a part-timer or someone that hasn't been promoted recently who should be the killer. Once we get a list, it should be very easy for us to know who it is." I nodded. His correlation made perfect sense.

"Is there any way to identify the first victim?" I asked, suddenly remembering another big lead we had discovered that day.

The examiner shook his head.

"He's got ill-fitting clothes and nothing much on him for identification. I'll see if we can ID him from our missing person's record or biometric imprint." Having expected as much, we moved on to checking the clothes, just to see if we could find anything valuable.

Mr. Butler wanted to go back to the location where the bodies were disposed of. He was hoping that the police would have the information about the identity of the child and the people with permits to buy the parts for the machine.

I had already checked in with Seth and asked about the progress on the investigation, but getting permits for the information took time and we didn't have much of it until the recently abducted kid was killed. I simultaneously hunted for the number of the management team of the farmer's market, hoping to get the contact and registration information on the people selling at the stalls. It was hours of work that I was completing whilst inside the car, while Mr. Butler was strolling around the area, in deep thought.

The man seemed to lack the need for food, and I wasn't very bothered by hunger either, so I kept working and checking up on the different sellers and the information on their employees, especially the ones who came to the market on a regular basis. It was a lot of information and it was easier done when processed in excel files and charts.

We drove back to Mr. Butler's place late that night, the information about the first victim and the blades still not revealed. It was probable that the child's disappearance was unreported, but something about the remnants of the clothes on the body bothered me.

Mr. Butler had said nothing about it and I assumed that it was not important, but I couldn't get it out of my head. After compiling the information, I sent the document to Mr. Butler hoping it would help him somehow.

I heard his footsteps coming towards the guestroom a few minutes after the mail had been sent.

"You found out all of this yourself?" He enquired. He offered no greeting or apology for barging in without knocking on the door. I was leaning against the headboard, going through a book as he walked in. He didn't seem fazed by my appearance, so I didn't put much thought into changing my posture.

"I'm surprised by how much I could find just by being polite." He squinted his eyes.

"I am suspicious that you lied about why you needed the information."

"It would have been difficult if they knew I was searching for a killer. It was easier telling them that I need the information for my dissertation." I smiled. "You'd be surprised by how cooperative people can be when it comes to providing research material for students."

"Mostly because they dream that it would boost their sales and reach," he interjected. I shrugged, having no objection to his opinion.

That's how markets work right? Sell more, make profit. Nothing wrong with that.

"Good job. You never know. It may help us."

Though done with the conversation, he stalled at the door. He wanted to say something else but went against his previous decision. He walked away, leaving me to my devices.

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