That didn’t sit well with Gene, but he wasn’t going to bust balls ten minutes in.
That was tomorrow Gene’s problem.
“Who called the cops?” Gene asked, as now there were people starting to congregate from the resort to see what was going on there on the beach.
Lucas was honest.
“We have to notify them. There’s a dead body. I spoke to the one detective there, and they offered to block the scene. They wanted the case, but it’s a Fed, so…”
Yeah, he understood that.
Gene was hella curious why the local agents were so willing to pass off cases to the local police. Was it because the homicide captain was a ballbuster?
Tomorrow, he’d have to find out.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be visiting them tomorrow to see if they have any similar cases. I’ll introduce myself then.”
Lucas glanced at his watch.
“See you tomorrow in the office then,” he said. “If you need my help, let me know. Like I said, any or all of us are willing to jump in if you need us. I’m going back to working the cases on my desk,” he offered. “Night shift doesn’t stop,” he joked.
No, it didn’t.
Again, he’d keep his offer in the back of his mind.
As Lucas handed Gene the laptop, he nodded and headed away.
Then, surprisingly, the ME broke down and gave him a few breadcrumbs to get him started.
“I’m going to put TOD at late Friday into early Saturday morning,” Ben admitted, tucking away his liver probe. “He doesn’t have skin slippage, but there is some bloat. I’ll get positive ID even after the tattoo ID, and go from there. I’ll send it over to Gabe once I do in my report.”
He was curious.
“Did you know him personally?” Gene asked Ben.
He nodded.
“Yeah, but not really well. He handled the homicide cases here, but like I said, we don’t get a lot of them.”
“How many are we talking?” Corbin asked, finally getting serious.
The man seemed to be adding them up in his head.
“This month, I’ve done nine autopsies,” he offered. “The month is already half over. So maybe every other day. The office isn’t huge. There are few feds working out of it. The police tend to carry the weight unless they need help.”
Yeah, so they had both mentioned.
“I appreciate the TOD,” he said. “At least we have a ballpark on when he went into the water.”
That they did.
They also knew that the man submitted a report sometime Friday night. Now, they had to figure out when he met his maker.
As he and Corbin moved away from the ME, so that they could talk, he kept his voice low.
“Tomorrow, I need you and Will to take a little trip to the police station. Introduce yourself, and tell them you’re helping the FBI with this case.”
Corbin could do that.
