Gene had that feeling again, and it wasn’t a good one. It was the one that made him twitchy as fuck.
“Can we have pictures of the autopsy photos, and the files to go with them?” he asked as he tried not to panic or freak out.
The man nodded.
He went to his computer, typed in a few things, and the printer went off.
“Did they suffer?” Ethan asked, curiously. “I know they had broken bones, and you said no tox on board, but in your professional opinion, was this torture? Or did they die first? You said the water was rough. Could their internal damage be because of that?”
The man shared what he could.
“They were alive through the blunt force trauma, so as a doctor, I’m going to say yes, they suffered—if they were awake. The broken bones have proof of bruising above skin, so that happened while they were alive.”
That sucked for them.
Ben continued.
“If I look at the whole picture, I can see there are ligature marks on their wrists and ankles. That tells me that they fought to get free—so yes, they were awake. My final assessment to your question is that someone made them suffer a great deal before they died. I’d chase the symbols, but do it carefully.”
Gene lifted a brow.
Where had that come from?
“What do you mean?” he asked, already knowing what Corbin had told them from the other ME.
Ben was to the point.
“I looked up some of them, and I tried to go back into the files to see if there was anything similar. It appears to be some sort of branched-off Voodoo that is tied to those marks. There is a whole sect of people on this island that practice it, and they take it very seriously. If you upset them, they will protect the religion.”
That was…ominous.
“And you know this how?” Gene asked.
Ben shared.
“We had a body show up a few months ago. It was some guy, and he turned up on the beach, pinned down with stakes through his hands. When I opened him up, I found a gris-gris back in his belly. No one ever solved it, but I will tell you that it was grisly. He had one particular symbol on him that showed up on the others.”
Ethan was curious.
“Which one?”
He pointed at one, and Ethan got it.
“The evil eye?”
Ben nodded.
“That’s the symbol I mentioned to your partner that looked familiar.”
Oh, this was degrading fast for Gene.
The last thing they wanted to do was tangle with religious nuts, but sometimes, they had no choice. This was looking like it was going to be one of those times.
Unfortunately.
For.
Them.
