“No,” he said. “Again, were there drugs?”
She shook her head.
“No, but that’s not saying he wasn’t drugged. From the formation of bruises, someone was tortured for hours. If he was initially drugged, at the twelve-hour mark, any roofie or chloroform would be out of the victim’s system.”
He considered that as he was looking at the photos on her monitor.
“Anything odd in your findings? This case just screams abnormal to me.”
Will sat there saying nothing, just taking it all in. What was wild for him was Corbin not seeing how the woman was flirting with him.
Unless he was accustomed to it, and was blowing it off.
Well, hell.
He hadn’t considered that.
“Yes, there was,” Nayeliz admitted. “And weirdly enough, we found trace of herbs and sugar in the fabric of his clothes,and in his hair. It was sticky, and didn’t wash away in the ocean water.”
He lifted a brow.
“Herbs and sugar?” Corbin asked.
She nodded.
Yeah, he took a shot at it, considering what he knew about the symbols on his body.
“Ritualistic herbs?”
She pulled up a list of tox and other substances. Then, she pointed.
Apparently, the nails came in handy.
Corbin read along, as she directed his gaze.
“Here’s what I found. Calamus, Cedar, Althea root, and a shit ton of sage. His clothes were permeated with it. If that doesn’t scream ritualistic, I don’t know what does. Add in the symbols on his body, and like I said, it was all weird.”
Corbin was going to have research to do.
That was for sure.
“I looked up the symbols, and what I managed to find was that they can be used in Voodoo or any Afro-Caribbean religion. I don’t know how that will help, since that is pretty common here. It’s called Sanse on the island, and the only reason I’m familiar is my grandmother was a practitioner. She was also batshit insane, so...”
Corbin was making notes.
He needed to be thorough for Gene and Ethan, since he knew they wouldn’t be rechecking his information. That they had faith in him helped Corbin have faith in himself.
“I know I told Detective Figueroa that when I updated him on Jaden Medin’s autopsy. He said he was going to be researching it. It’s a shame what happened to him,” she offered. “I really hope it’s not Sanse. It gets a bad rap here when people misunderstand it.”
Corbin was curious about a few things.
“Does it?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Yes, it’s a very beautiful mix of a few religions. It’s like if Voodoo and Catholicism had a baby. That would be Sanse.”
Interesting.
