Chapter 8

"You, Jen. She could be you."

Justin's words came to haunt Jenna later that night as she stared down at the small face of the eighteen year old girl. They'd found out a lot about the poor beauty in the past couple of hours. Her car, full of half the girl's life, was also carrying a few missing pieces of the puzzle. Stephanie was a note taker. She had notes about everything from scheduling time to do her laundry to a late night meeting with someone she called D. The meeting was scheduled in the back parking lot of the warehouse where her car had been found.

"Now if we only had some idea who D could be," she mused out loud.

"Oh, come on Jenna. You know we never get the easy ones, those go to the slackers and the kiss asses." He rubbed his hand down her arm, feeling the chill on the skin bared by the tee shirt she'd managed to pull out of her locker to go with the jeans she had unearthed. The morgue was cold, purposefully kept that way to put a temporary hold on decomposition and smell. Even so, the scent of death lingered above the heavy duty air cleaners that ran 24/7.

The morgue always gave Jenna the creeps, the black vinyl bags on top of gurneys lining the walls of the hallways made her think of horror flicks she had watched as a kid where the dead always sat up and walked. That thought sent another shudder through her slim frame.

"Yeah, but just once I'd like to have a bloody knife with a good set of latents on it and a scumbag of an ex husband to match them to." She pulled away from him and walked around the metal table their victim was laid out upon, her eyes taking in every detail of every wound. She studied the pattern, the slight curve upward at the end of every wound stroke, the different areas that were given the most heavy cuts. Now that she was laying here, the blood and gore cleaned from her body, she didn't quite look real. But the wounds were real. He had left the genitals and the breasts alone, preferring to use his hands from the looks of the bruises.

"Look at the size of those hand prints," Jenna said suddenly, startling Justin.

Justin stepped up to the side of the table, staring at the girl's naked breasts. He brought his own hand up, cupping his hand about an inch from the girl's skin.

"Okay, now I know I've seen it all."

The voice startled Justin who started violently, dropped his hand behind his back and quickly stepped away from the metal table. He turned and saw the coroner, a man who was known for his sarcastic sense of humor and irreverent attitude. "Jenna was just..." He clamped his mouth shut, knowing anything he said would make the situation worse for him.

Doctor Bill Rumny was a dark haired man who was just starting to show gray at the temples. He wore wire rimmed glasses and was tall and thin, preferring sleek Italian suits to the usual scrubs worn by most of his assistants. He took off the expensive jacket now and hung it carefully over the hangar he kept just for such a purpose, pulling on a smock to cover the pale striped dress shirt and silk tie before coming to look at the body.

"Justin, what you and Jenna do on your off time is your own business, but no kinky stuff with my stiffs, okay?" He laughed as Justin turned bright red. And then he turned to the body. "Yeah, that guy had big mitts. Those bruises are something." He put his own hand, now safely covered in a latex glove, over the top of the bruises, his fingers not quite meeting the ends of them. "He had to really squeeze to get bruises that deep and formed in that short amount of time."

Jenna stepped closer, her mouth still twitching from trying not to laugh at Justin's face as he watched Doctor Rumny manhandle their victim. "So what killed her doc?"

"The head wound wasn't serious enough to do anything but make her dizzy. None of these wounds are deep enough to kill right away, even the ones that exposed her intestines. So without doing any further work on her, off the cuff, I'd say it was blood loss. He sliced enough so she bled to death." He bent over to study the gaping wounds on the girl's abdomen. "I'd say your weapon was a very long, very sharp single edged knife with a slight curve on the end, see the upward slant?" He pointed it out for Jenna, standing back a bit for her to get a good look.

"Now, mind you, this is just preliminary and I haven't had a chance to become better acquainted with Miss Lawrence yet. If I were to hazard a guess..."

"Please Doc. Your guess is better than mine at any point." Jenna did the obligatory ego stroke knowing Justin was still too red faced to be able to handle it.

"Okay. The head wound was the first shot, first blow to incapacitate. It didn't knock her out but made her dizzy and disoriented. After that, I'd say he stripped her and raped her. Pretty brutally too, considering the damage that I can see. First swipe of the knife happened after the rape, which gave the bruises time to form. Then they came fast and furious while she tried to get away. Finally, she lost too much blood and passed out. See this..." He pointed to a spot under her arm where a small slice could be seen. "Hit her brachial artery. He had to know what he was doing. Hit that, she bleeds out in just a few minutes time."

Jenna backed away from the table, shaking her head. They had a brutal killer who had intimate knowledge of the human body. "Thanks doc," she slipped off her gloves with a snap and wadded them up. "Can you get us copy of your reports, preliminary and final as soon as possible?"

"For you, Jenna girl, anything. My lab is wide open for you." He grinned, showing off too white teeth.

She smiled back and started to leave, listening to Justin grumble and the clanking of tools as Doctor Rumny began to work. The door was just shutting behind them when she heard the first whirring noises of the bone saw begin to cut. She shuddered again.

"Ick. I just couldn't do that job."

"But his lab is open wide to you anytime," Justin countered, his tone sarcastic. "He means his pants are open wide to you anytime. Dirty old man."

She flashed her badge at the guard at the gate and he buzzed them out, new procedures since a rash of organ stealing had been going on in the building. After clearing the gate, she turned and glared at Justin. "You seem awfully interested in any man who is interested in me all of a sudden. First Ethan, and now Doc Rumny. You got a problem with me dating, Justin?" She poked a finger into his chest to emphasize her point.

He rubbed his chest and glared down at the diminutive beauty. "Nah, you date who you want to. I don't got a say in your life. I'm just your partner."

"Oh, don't you just your partner me." She turned and stomped towards the door, seeing the interested look in the guard and the older woman behind the glassed receptionist desk's faces. She threw them open and stepped out into the fresh air, made to smell even cleaner coming from the smell of death they had just been in. She got to his car, a late model Monte Carlo, and slammed her hands down on the roof.

Justin threw her a murderous look, checking his paint job for scratches and the body for dents, then glared at her. "Okay, if you're mad at me, you take it out on me. You can pick up a baseball bat and whale the hell out of me, but don't ever touch my car like that again."

She glared right back. "I don't give you problems when you want to take out Marcie, even though I know you can do better, don't start in on me and my dates."

"Fine." He popped the lock on his door and climbed in, hitting the door locks for her side as well.

"Fine," she sat in the seat, slammed the door shut and clicked the seat belt into place.

He drove at a break neck speed the few blocks back to the precinct, pulling into his parking spot and hitting his brakes at the last possible minute, knowing how much she hated when he drove like that.

They sat there for a second, staring at the brick wall in front of them without speaking.

"I'm so..."

"List..."

They both spoke at the same time. Justin smiled, his mustache crinkling around his firm lips. "Me first?" he offered.

"Yeah."

"I had no right to get antsy about your date with the doc. I just don't want to see you get all hot about some guy and have him mess with you." He reached out and tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear.

"Apology accepted." Jenna said and then sat back and smiled.

"Well, don't you have something to say to me?" He let his big hand slide down and rest on her shoulder.

"Such as?" She gave him her most innocent expression of confusion.

"Jenna," he growled.

"Okay, geesh. You can be such a child some days." He growled again, his hand tightening just slightly on her shoulder. "Okay, damn. I'm sorry I beat up on your precious piece of junk car."

"Piece of junk!" The outrage on his rugged face had her breaking into peals of laughter, unable to contain it anymore. She put her hand on top of his and squeezed as he started spouting curses at her.

"Okay!" she chuckled. "It's not a piece of junk. It's the sexiest he-man car any man could possibly be lucky enough to have. And you are a God when you drive it."

"Better," but he sent her a glare anyway, which was softened by a smile he couldn't contain anymore either.

"So what have you got against Ethan anyway?" she asked as he started to get out of the car.

"Do we have to go there?"

"Huh? What do you mean? You have to have a reason for not wanting me to go out with him." She tipped her head to the side, her green eyes quizzical under their thick lashes.

"No," he shook his head at her and grabbed the latch, "this is a heart attack question." He started out the door of his car again.

"A what?" Jenna grabbed his arm and yanked him back.

"A heart attack question." He sighed heavily and sank back down in the seat reluctantly. "It's a question where I'm better off having a heart attack than answering because either way, I'm in for it."

Jenna laughed, especially since Justin actually looked as if he would prefer be struck down dead than get into this conversation. "All right. You're off the hook. But we still need to get over to Stephanie's apartment and check it out." She folded her hands in her lap and waited for him to start the car back up.

He drove at a much more sedate pace through almost nonexistent traffic and to the quad of apartment buildings five stories tall that overlooked a huge shopping center. It was one of those places that claimed "One stop shopping". Most of the apartments were dark considering it was a week night and close to midnight. Justin pulled up in front of the right set of apartments and turned off his car.

"God, I hate this part of the job."

"Yeah." She stared out the front window at the lit doorway. "We might as well get at it."

Jenna climbed out of the car, slamming the door tight and hearing the werp sound as Justin locked it and turned on his car alarm. She stood at the door and looked at the buttons sitting next to it. A small slip of paper with the hand written name R. Matthews was taped next to the button for 3B. She looked at Justin and then pressed the button, holding it down for a second longer than she probably should have but it was late and R. Matthews could be asleep.

Three seconds later, a very loud male voice burst from the speaker at them.

"God dammit! What?"

Jenna looked up at Justin who just shrugged, being the big man that he was and waved his hand towards the button. "Ladies first."

"Thanks so damn much, Justin." She pushed the button and spoke into the receiver. "Mr. Matthews, this is Detective Jenna Donovan and my partner Detective Justin Swope. Does a Stephanie Lawrence live here?" She let go of the button and muttered under her breath, "Detective chicken shit is more like it."

"What's she done now?" the voice asked rudely.

"She does live here then, sir?"

"Yeah. What's she done?" he asked again.

"May we come up sir?" Jenna was polite but firm. They needed to get into that apartment.

"Listen, I got work in the morning and..."

"We promise to keep this as brief as we can sir, but we need to come up and talk to you."

Finally, after what seemed minutes but had to have been only seconds, the buzzer on the door sounded and the lock clicked open. Justin grabbed the door and held it for Jenna and then they trudged up the roughly carpeted stairs. The hallway on the third floor smelled like cabbage and onions and as they passed by apartment A, they could hear the thin noises of someone's TV playing inside.

"I always wondered what these places looked like," Justin said staring at the shoddy carpet and dingily painted walls as he raised his hand to knock on apartment B. His fist landed once and the door was pulled open quickly, startling both of them so that Jenna took a step back, her hand automatically going to her shoulder rig and the grip of her 9 mm.

The man who opened the door was rough and unkempt, his hair standing up in tufts around his head. Ryan Matthews was standing there in a pair of pajama bottoms and a tee shirt, both of which were stained with brown splotches as if he'd dropped a cup of coffee on them and never bothered to clean it up. He stared at the pair of them, taking a quick look and then coming back for a second longer perusal of Jenna's lovely face and body.

The look in his eyes made Jenna wish she had pulled her 9 on him.

"Mr. Matthews? Sir, we need to come in and speak to you." Jenna held open her badge to identify herself without being asked seeing Justin do the same thing. The man turned and led the way through an apartment that held all the cheer and appeal of a boy's dorm in college. And smelled almost as bad. Socks lay on the floor, dirty dishes sitting next to an ancient recliner in the corner, a plethora of sports magazines were sprawled haphazardly over a lopsided coffee table. Jenna took a cautious seat on a creaky, sagging couch cushion when it was offered and Justin perched gingerly beside her.