So many jaws dropping
1660 Words
“Well,” I breathed as soon as they had left “That wasn’t much information, but it’ll have to do. So let’s go over what we know. Zed was born a dark elf but he and his brother and niece left their colony when Sienna was 5. He was a nice guy but always tend to keep to himself. After moving to the palace, he lost touch with his brother unless it was a special occasion.”
“Like Sienna’s birthday a few months ago” Aria put in.
“Exactly. And according to Ryker, that was the last they’ve seen of him. Now, we know that Zed must have been killed somewhere between 9 and 3 today. That wizard guy, West, said that he saw Flint talking to Zed in the garden around 9 this morning which proved to be correct because Flint told us that he was accusing Zed of stealing some money he had. Although depending on how much money Flint lost, that doesn’t sound like a motive to kill someone with an ax.”
“Yeah,” Hazel agreed, “He must have really done something bad to get that kind of brutal death. Whoever killed him seriously wanted him dead.”
“But the question is- who?” Dale put in “From what we know, Zed seems like a nice guy.”
“But Sienna did say that he used to keep to himself a lot” Aria reminded “Ever heard the expression to not judge a book by its cover? Perhaps Zed may appear all nice on the outside, but deep down, I bet he had some secrets that were most likely the reason he got killed.”
“Everyone has their secrets,” I stated, “But we won’t know what they were until we gather enough evidence.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door as the first elf ranger I knew peeked in.
“Mr. Thomas” he spoke.
“Um, yes?” I replied. Huh, no one’s ever called me Mr. Thomas here before.
“Are you busy at the moment?”
“That depends, do you need anything?”
“You’re studying Criminal Justice in college right now, right? CSI?”
“Yeah.”
“In that case,” he suddenly smirked “You wanna help us do the autopsy? We could use your help with that smart brain of yours.”
“Really?” I remarked astonished.
“Yeah, really?” Hazel also remarked, sounding more astonished than me as I heard Aria hiss at her to shut up.
“But um- I thought elves were more intelligent than humans,” I told the elf “And you guys want my help?”
“Can I be honest with you?” he asked while stepping inside.
“Um...” my eyes suddenly widen “Should I be worried?”
“No,” he chuckled “I just wanted to say when I watched you point out the clues at the crime scene, I was very impressed, I didn’t even notice that clues.”
“Seriously?” my jaw dropped.
“Yeah, seriously?” Hazel’s jaw dropped as well.
Man, Hazel’s really getting surprised right now. I’m liking this.
“Seriously” the elf nodded with a small laugh.
“So, you’re saying that my brain may actually be more intelligent than an elf’s bran?”
“Whoa,” Dale’s eyes widen “If that’s true, that’s scary.”
“I’m not saying that” the elf responded “All I’m saying is that you are very smart, and we could use your help for the autopsy. Help us spot anything out of the ordinary and do some testing.”
“Really?” I felt myself smirking “That involves math and science, my two best subjects.”
“Oh great” Hazel muttered, “He really is a nerd.”
“Yes, I am” I smirked at her “I’m a nerd and I’m proud of it. So suck it up.”
Dale gave a snicker as Hazel glared at him. Haha, suck it up, Hazel. If I wasn’t a nerd, I wouldn’t be where I am right now.
“So what do you say?” the elf asked me.
“Of course I’ll help” I smiled.
“Alright then,” Aria said, “You go ahead and cut up a body and do whatever nerds do with science while we’ll go ahead and interview anyone who knew Zed.”
“Excellent. We’ll meet up in the throne room once we’re all done.”
After leaving the classroom, I followed the elf ranger down the hall while everyone else went their separate ways.
“My name’s Cian, by the way” he suddenly said to me.
“Nice to meet you, Cian” I greeted with a smile “So what have you done to the body so far?”
“We’ve already cut open the body, but we haven’t taken anything out yet. We’re hoping you might help us spot something that could help with this case.”
“Sure thing.”
But the moment we walked into the lab, I once again nearly felt myself puke as I froze in front of Zed’s body that had been cut open on the torso with the flaps of skin hanging off the insides that were showing through. I could see his ribcage and his organs, all so b****y and... and... I don’t even know what other words to use. I sucked in my guts to prevent myself from vomiting as I threw my hand over my mouth. I even caught a glimpse of my ring that had turned brown.
“You alright?” Cian asked me.
“I’m fine” I gulped as I tried to steady myself “It just might take a while for me to get used to seeing all of this.”
“It’s okay,” I encouraged while patting my shoulder “We’ve all been there. On my first day, I actually threw up on the corpse.”
“No way” my jaw dropped.
“Yep,” he nodded embarrassedly.
“Oh, that’s bad” I cringed.
“You’re telling me. They didn’t want me back till like a month later. But now I’m used to it and I haven’t barfed since. And now I hope you don’t.”
“Same” I breathed while turning to the body “Well, let’s do this.”
We walked over to the body as I stared right in Zed’s face. Man, he looked so pale and dull. We’re all gonna look like that one day, I just hope it won’t be too soon.
“It was kind of hard to cut him open with all the gashes in the way.” Cian reported, “We had to be very careful.”
“I can see that” I observed, “And you did a good job. Damn, I’ve never seen so much blood in my life. Do elves have more blood than humans?”
“We do actually. And because of that, we have the ability to survive most accidents.”
“Lucky” I grunted, “Us humans are so fragile.”
“Don’t worry, just keep training and you’ll be like us one day.”
“Yeah,” I doubted with a smirk “One day.”
Putting that thought to the side, I began to examine the body for anything out of the ordinary.
“See anything?” Cian asked.
“Just blood and guts” I reported, “Lots of it.”
I then turned my eyes to his arm where I gently held it up to study the scars. But as I did so, I suddenly noticed something that caught my attention. There was something odd about these scars. I went over to his other arm and check the scars there, sure enough, there was something different about them.
“No way” I gasped once I realized it “Why didn’t I notice this before?”
“What is it?”
“Look at these scars, notice anything different about them than the ones on his torso?”
I held the arm to him as he studied the scars.
“They look... thin,” he noticed.
“Exactly,” I declared “The ones on Zed’s torso are a bit thicker. Not only that, but the scars on his arms also don’t go in too deep. Also...”
I began to feel around his arm, “His arm doesn’t feel broken.”
I went over to his other arm and did the same thing.
“And neither does this one.”
“That’s strange,” Cian remarked with confusion, “If he was trying to block the ax with his arms, surely the blade would’ve done some serious damage to his arms. It should’ve been strong enough to break his bones.”
“The blade of Dale’s ax couldn’t have made these scars, they also appear kinda small. Do you have a ruler?”
He handed me a small wooden ruler as I measured some of the scars.
“Most of them are about 3 to 4 inches” I stated, “The blade of Dale’s ax is obviously longer than that these scars. I don’t even think they were done by an ax.”
“If I had to guess,” Cian spoke while examing the other arm “It looks like they were done by a knife, a pocketknife most likely.”
“Agree.”
Well, things really just got strange.
“What if someone tried to kill him with a knife,” Cian spoke, “But failed at that. So he or she decided to use the ax to finish the job?”
“That’s a possibility. But we can’t be certain. Let’s just empty him out to see if we can find anything else.”
After putting on some rubber gloves, we got to work of removing the organs from the body. And boy was that a dirty job. I did almost puke at certain points so I had to look away while Cian did most of the work.
“You’re doing fine, Jesse” he encouraged with a smile “We’re almost done.”
I don’t know how long it took, but we managed to remove all of the organs. And thankfully, I kept my guts in. And once everything was removed, that’s when we got to the forensic science part of this, which would have to be my favorite part because you probably know that science is one of my best subjects, especially Chemistry.
With our gloves and safety goggles on, we got to work on testing any substance we could obtain from the body from what his last meal was to where the fatal blow was. I didn’t know how long it had taken, but as I was testing some samples from the blood through the microscope, I spotted something that wasn’t ordinary.
“Hey, Cian” I called as he joined my side “Take a look at this.”
He looked through the lenses to examine the samples.
“These are samples of Zed’s blood” I explained, “Notice anything strange?”
“Yeah,” I responded “It doesn’t seem to be filled with healthy blood cells. All I can see is-”
He stopped as he backed away from the microscope, his face showing shock as he nervously bit his lip.
“Carbon monoxide” he muttered.
“Exactly” I stated.
“So, if there were high levels of carbon monoxide found in his blood, then that must mean...”
“He was dead before he got the ax.”
- Writer
