As the ME was filling out paperwork, he was sitting beside the body, and the techs were taking pictures.
“So broken bones?” the ME asked.
Gene nodded.
“Yeah, badly broken,” he stated.
He was curious, and wanted to start working this as quickly as he could.
“Could the bones have been broken when the body was bashed against the rocks?” Gene asked, pointing not far down the beach by the tropical forest where some sharp rocks were protruding into the water.
The ME was checking out the body.
“If he was bashed against the rocks, there would be more damage to the body on the outside. Now, it appears that it was prior to his death, or he had he fallen off something high, and hit the water flat. That could have shattered some bones if the drop was high enough.”
They all listened as the man spitballed some ideas as to what happened to him.
“What I can see is that he has bruising, so that tells me he had blood flow when he was hit with something. That would be before he was pummeled against the rocks. On top of the bruising, there are marks on him, and they seem to be in some kind of…markings.”
Gene crouched down.
Yeah, he’d seen the markings, and they looked ominous.
“What kind of markings do you think they are?” he asked.
Doctor Crowley tried to smudge some with a gloved finger, and it did come off on his glove, but not easily. They were greasy.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll find out with some testing, he said. “They look like symbols I’ve seen before,” he admitted.
Gene was in work mode.
“Where?”
That was a good question.
“I need to make sure before I give you any information, Agent. I like to secure my sources first.”
No shock there.
Before Gene could say anything, Lucas got the man’s attention.
“If you’re here on vacation, you can return to your fun, and I can run this,” he offered. “Jarrod was a friend. Our office can do this. We can handle it on the DL, and run it through you.”
Oh, Gene only wished.
“I can’t. I’ve got to run this, and you are hands-off from this moment on. I don’t make the rules. You know that. The Director of the FBI does, and it’s not that I don’t think you couldn’t handle it, it’s that our heads would roll if Gabe found out I wasn’t working it.”
Lucas laughed.
“He’s ridiculous. It’s like being babysat full-time. I remember when agents actually got to do their damn jobs.”
On that, they agreed.
He missed those times, too.
Being under a microscope sucked big-time.
Gene reassured him.
