Field of Graves by J.T. Ellison

dictating the weight into the microphone clipped to the front of her smock. She handed it to her assistant, who wandered off to busy himself with something. He knew Taylor and was more than a little afraid of her. Sam watched him go, chuckled, then became all business again.
    “Ventricular fibrillation. And something’s hinky with her liver.” She didn’t elaborate.
    “Okay. Wanna expound on that? I don’t know if hinky will stand up in court.”
    Sam’s forehead wrinkled. “That’s the problem. On the surface, I can’t tell you what’s wrong. I sent off the tox screen, so we should get that back quick enough. But they can’t look for anything but the obvious, and the way her organs look...my gut tells me we need to look deeper. I sent a runner with all kinds of samples to Simon’s lab—blood, urine, tissue, the works. I asked them to do a more comprehensive workup than the normal drug and alcohol screen. I’m hoping they can isolate something off the standard panel.”
    “Like what?”
    She waggled her head casually and shrugged, like a child with an important secret. “Oh, I’m thinking poison.”
    “No way. Poison? Cyanide?”
    “Not cyanide, I didn’t get an almond smell when I opened the body. I don’t know what we’re looking for, but I definitely think she ingested something, and it didn’t sit right with her system.”
    “Ingested something like what?”
    Sam gave Taylor a sweet smile. “Honey, that’s what we’re going to find out. Back to business. She was raped repeatedly. Even more bruising and tearing than I’d thought, lots of semen. We’re going to have to wait for the labs on that, too.”
    Taylor’s shoulders knotted up. “How long’s it gonna take?”
    “Well, it won’t be overnight. I’ll try to talk Simon into dropping all his other fascinating cases and handle the toxicology right away, but I can’t promise anything. As far as the semen is concerned, I can send it up to TBI with a push and have them do the rapid DNA, or I can throw it to Simon and ask him to handle it as a personal favor. We haven’t talked in a couple of days though, so he may blow me off.” She busied herself with a scalpel.
    Taylor waited for a more detailed explanation, but seeing none forthcoming, decided not to voice an opinion on the rocky relationship’s latest turn. “I already ran it by Price. It won’t be a problem. Go ahead and give it all to Simon. If you don’t want to call in one of your own, tell him it’s a favor for me, and I’ll owe him one.”
    “Got it.” She gestured toward the computer screen behind her. “The rest is basics. Height, one hundred seventy-six centimeters, weight, forty-seven kilograms. Blond hair, blue eyes. Maybe a little anorexic. No distinguishing characteristics, no tattoos, nothing out of the ordinary. Doesn’t look like she’s had any surgeries except a tonsillectomy.” She looked up, gave a wan smile. “Sorry, Charlie. Right now we’ve got a run-of-the-mill dead girl. Little Shelby didn’t put up much of a fight, nothing under her nails, no defensive wounds. That’s about as exciting as it gets.”
    Taylor sighed. She knew the drill. Nothing else could be done here until they had the lab results back. “Can I give her parents a cause of death?”
    Sam thought quietly for a moment. The parents would want every detail, and there weren’t a lot to give them. She shrugged. “Tell them we’re doing more tests and hope to have an answer for them quickly.”
    “Great, that helps a lot. All right, keep me in the loop on anything you find. And I mean anything. I don’t care how obscure it is. I can deal with Simon if you don’t want to do it yourself.” It was a dig for information, but Sam saw right through it.
    “Yeah, I may do that.”
    Taylor knew discretion was the better part of valor when it came to Sam and Simon. “Okay, then. Play nice with Simon. I think he likes you.” She grinned and walked out of the room.
    Taylor pulled out