"Cyn?"
She looked up and realized she'd stopped walking. “Yeah, sorry. It's been a while."
Eckhoff grunted. “You're not gonna wuss out on me, are you? Not gonna faint or, God forbid, puke? It'd be embarrassing."
Cyn grinned at him. “Gee, Eckhoff, I didn't know you cared."
"Not for you, Leighton. For me. I'd never live it down if one of my own rookies tossed her lunch over a dead body."
She punched his arm lightly. “Don't you worry, old man. I'll be fine."
He led her through a set of double doors, slapping the flat, metal switch on the wall to open the doors well before they reached them. It was designed for gurneys, so the techs could get the doors open ahead of the corpse.
A wiry blond looked up as they entered, his eyes gliding over Eckhoff and settling on Cyn. He rose from behind his painfully neat desk and removed a pair of reading glasses with one hand while closing the folder he'd been looking through with the other. He seemed too young to need reading glasses, and Cyn wondered if it was an affectation.
"Detective Eckhoff,” he said in a low, whispery voice.
Eckhoff swung his arm, making a quick introduction. “Ian Hartzler, Cynthia Leighton. Ian's the night tech here at the para facility. Used to be downtown, but when they opened this place up, he volunteered."
Cyn studied Hartzler. He was about average height, maybe five-foot-eight, with shoulders that were narrow but square and well-formed. He had wispy blond hair and eyes so pale they nearly blended into the white around them. Those eyes stared at her, almost unblinking. It kind of weirded her out.
"Why?” she asked him.
He raised his pale eyebrows in question.
"Why'd you volunteer? I don't imagine there was exactly a rush for the position."
He smiled, a thin stretching of his lips that bared no teeth. “I am intrigued by the unusual, and vampires are certainly unusual, don't you think?"
Hartzler shot up on the weird meter from kind of to definitely, but Cyn kept that opinion to herself. “Well, they're different; I'll give you that,” she conceded.
Eckhoff made an impatient gesture. “Yeah, okay. Let's get this done before someone shows up."
"Certainly.” Hartzler walked over to a bank of gleaming stainless steel doors, placing his hand on one of the handles before he looked over his shoulder to ask, “You'll want to see all five? In order of death?"
Cyn nodded. It didn't escape her notice that the tech knew exactly which drawer to go to without checking the file or even glancing at the tag on the door itself.
Hartzler gave a satisfied smile, then pulled the door open with a dull thunk of releasing seals. Stepping into the opening, he slid the body out, glanced up at Cyn, as if to make sure she was paying attention, then pulled the pale green sheet back with a flourish. “Patti Hammel,” he said. “Age twenty-two; cause of death, blunt force trauma to the skull."
Cyn frowned. “Blunt force?” She looked at Eckhoff.
"Exsanguination was post mortem."
Cyn's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “Post mortem? But that's almost impossible. He would have had to drain her within what?” She looked at Hartzler. “Ten minutes, maybe?"
He dipped his head slowly, like a small bow of respect, or maybe pleasure that she'd asked him the question. “The heart stops, the body dies and blood begins to clot within five minutes,” he confirmed. “Exsanguination would almost certainly be impossible after fifteen."
Cyn gestured at the body. “May I?” she asked politely.
Hartzler gave her another toothless smile and a nod, before stepping back and making room for Cyn next to the pallid corpse. Hammel's skin, which had probably been pale in life, was all but translucent in death, already dry and paper delicate, collapsing onto the bones beneath. Death was death. Refrigeration could only do so much.
The morgue tech offered a pair of exam gloves which Cyn drew on quickly before tilting the dead girl's head to better expose her neck. Two small, round wounds were visible to the left center of the throat surrounded by a considerable amount of bruising. Cyn wasn't a medical expert of any kind, but even she could see that the attacker had exerted far more force than should have been necessary, which argued against it being a vampire. Dark, bruised fingerprints suggested Hammel had been held in place while the carotid was punctured. Cyn frowned. Something else about those wounds bothered her, but she couldn't quite figure out what it was. She filed it away for later consideration and glanced up to find Hartzler's pale eyes watching her avidly. She straightened and glanced at Eckhoff. “Can I see the file, the autopsy photos?"
Dean regarded her silently, and then nodded in Hartzler's direction. Cyn heard the tech's shuffling feet, and a folder appeared in front of her. She opened it quickly, skimming through vivid color photographs of the many traumas visited upon poor Patti Hammel. It took little imagination to conjure the brutality of her final, terror-filled moments of life.
Cyn closed the folder and said quietly. “Can I see the others now, please?"
Hartzler seemed surprised, but he responded with alacrity, covering Patti Hammel's body and sliding it back into the anonymity of the coroner's refrigerator. Again without referring to notes, he went directly to another door and pulled it open, repeating his actions of only moments earlier.