Acrylic Bones

“Well,” the officer said slowly. He let the word sit upon the air for a time, as though waiting for it to fall. “This is ... seriously fucked up.”

“Yeah.” the other officer agreed. “Tell me about it.”

They both wore the beige and red uniform of the STPD, embroidered on the left breast with their name and a badge. One man leans against a tree, his hand on his gun holster. The other stands a few feet away, running one hand through his hair and the other raised to his mouth. He chews mindlessly at the ring on his index finger.

“God fucking damn it.” he whispers. Turning suddenly, he lashes out with one arm. The tree shudders slightly as he strikes it, but the action only leaves his hand bleeding and sore. A single drop of blood falls from his scraped knuckles onto the ground below. “I watched this girl play on the street outside my house after school every day ... I watched her learn to drive ... I got her a job at the LCBO. Kathryn Steward ... she was my daughter's best friend ...” he breathes out slowly, closing his eyes and running both hands through his slicked-back brown hair. “What am I going to tell her?”

“How are we going to tell her parents?” the other asks.

“I should do it.” the first answered, shaking his head slowly. “This whole situation is a wreck. She was working last night! I saw her myself! How could this have happened?!”

The rumbling crackle of gravel popping beneath rubber sounds through the forest, and both men turn towards the road. The vehicle which pulls up is one neither of them expects. The enormous grey SUV is not police-owned, and both men reach instinctively for the weapons around their waist.

“Freeze!” the voice is deep and commanding, and both men stop instantly. The closer lets out a small breath of relief.

Two people exit the vehicle. The first one to step out is a large man, with a thick black beard and heavy-set face. Everything about the man is broad, and he seems to take up even the spacious passenger side of the truck. He is wearing the same uniform as they are; the red-striped beige. They recognize the man instantly. The lines of his dark, weather-worn face and like deep crevasses in his tanned skin. His eyes are dark brown, and strangely kind-looking. Smile lines indent the skin beside his dusky pink lips and chocolate eyes. Everything about the man is large, from his hands like catchers mitts which swing the SUV door closed to the way his uniform bulged around the muscles in his arms. Thom Kitt, the co-founder and Chief of the STPD, is a giant of a man. A strange mix of grandfather and professional bounty hunter.

But as interesting as the man is, the vehicle is more interesting still. It is painted grey, and even in the sunlight it does not shine. As though the metallic surface drinks in the light. Black bars run along the top of the vehicle, like a canoe rack. The front is shielded by metal grating, and the tops of the enormous wheels are covered in black steel plates. The vehicle looked like something out of a war zone – as though it was built to withstand hell and gunfire.

“Dang, Chief!” the closest officer calls out, releasing his grip on his gun and looking up in amazement. “Sweet new ride.”

“Roy!” his companion smacks him in the arm, stone-faced. “This is a murder scene. Have some respect.”

As the second figure steps around the side of the vehicle, both men stop talking. She is average height, with curly brown hair and deeply tanned skin. If she had not been whip thin and built like a dancer, she might have been the Chief's daughter. She ignored them completely, walking behind the approaching man and throwing open the back of the SUV with a casual motion. Then she turns to them, flicking her brown hair over one shoulder and throwing something through the air.

“Catch!” she says, and a the first man reaches up to snatch the object out of the air. Glancing at it, he recognizes investigation tape immediately.

“Put it up.” she says, her voice melodic, but no-nonsense.

Wrapping something around her waist and shoving a few implements into it, she quickly jogs down the hill to meet them. She reaches them at the same time as the Chief, and he quickly raises a hand to introduce her.

“Tack, Miller – this is Dr. Aupota-Grey. She's here to help with the investigations. We've just come from the last scene. Tell us what you've found.”

“Call came in from an 'nonymous number, Chief.” said John Miller, the second man. He was fat, with close-set brown eyes and a bad habit of breathing through his mouth. His ginger hair was slicked sideways, and looked vaguely greasy. “Phone in town, most like. Sounded like a man's voice. Said he found another bod' out this way. Said we shou' come check it out. Good call.”

“It's no sight for ladies, Chief.” said the second, and then realizing what he said, quickly turned to the woman. “No offense meant, of course! I only meant-”

“None taken.” she said calmly, holding up one hand palm-out to silence him. “Don't worry, officer. It's nothing I haven't seen before.”

“Highly doubt that 'un, ma'am. This is royally fu - messed up.”

The doctor smiled slightly. Both officers swallowed at the grin. It was feral, like a wolves, and interested. She could barely contain the almost childish excitement in her dark brown eyes.
“First things first,” the woman said, locking both of their gazes together. Her eyes were like a welder. “What have you two done to the crime scene. I want details. Has the body's condition changed at all since you've arrived? Has anything disturbed the site?”

“Only thing disturbed around here is me, ma'am.” said the first officer, scratching at his chin. “It's ... unheard of.”

The woman nodded slightly, barely a dip of her pointed chin. The motion caused her curly brown hair to swish about her face. She is most certainly pretty, bordering even on beautiful – in a wild, untamable sort of way.

“The tape.” she gestures to the first officer as she strides by him. “Put it up. Chief Kitt and nail biter, you two are with me.”

The two officers exchange glances, the first shrugging slightly. He turns away to begin roping off the investigation area. Behind him, he barely hears his companion whisper, in awe: “How'd she know I bite my nails?”

The first officer smiles slightly, tying the yellow tape around one tree and striding parallel to the road.

“Your cuticles are broken.” he hears the woman say, and then, the next moment, there is the sound of someone throwing up.

“Only a demon...” the police chief gasps, and then bends over again to empty his stomach a second time into the forest. Coughing, he spits into the trees and straightens. “She was only a girl!”

“Not a demon, Thom.” the woman says, crouching close to the ground. Her hands hover just above the bloody leaves as her eyes scan the ground. Almost machine-like, she steps from one place to the next, her eyes not leaving the ground for a moment. “This was something far worse.”
Touching one finger to the ground, she lifts it up to her face and squints into the sun.
“She's been here for just under eighteen hours. Blood has congealed, solidified, and is beginning to powder. She was cut open using a knife, the incision starting just under sternum and ending just above the navel. Wound is just under four inches deep, clean cut through the bone...”
She stands, breathing in quickly and exhaling. The two men watch in amazement as she raises her face to the sky. Golden earrings dangle from each ear, catching the light and turning the sides of her cheeks to a burnt orange.
“This, men, was no ordinary blade. A surgeon scalpel might be able to do it, if you could apply the right pressure. Fillet knife, if it was thick enough. Possibly a power tool, though there would be lacerations through the skin and bone edges ... There's a bunch of possibilities about 'how'. The question is – why.”

“To kill her, obviously?” the Chief said, stepping up beside her. His voice was firm, but it was definitely a question.

“No,” the woman whispered. “She was already dead.”

All three men froze, turning to look at her in stunned, morbid fascination.

“What do you mean, Doctor?” the Chief asks, his voice hesitant.

The woman steps forwards, bending down slightly so that she is resting beside the body. She keeps one knee raised off the grass, just above the bloody ground, and rests her chin on the other. Pointing with one hand, she traces the outline of the body. Her outstretched finger circles the body, and then comes to rest pointing at the chest. The two closer men step forwards for a better view, and the third finishes the tape and hurries over.

“Look at the area above the diaphragm.” she says quietly, tracing the area with her finger. “Just below the sternum. It's an area called the sternal notch. Very small, and very hard to find, but it's there. It's the only area on the chest which is not completely covered by the humanoid skeletal structure. Essentially, it is the 'turn off' switch for the lungs, heart ... any of the xiphoid processes. If you're struck there, it's bad news. You know when you see a sports player get hit in the chest and go down? Probably a shot to the sternal notch. It's like having the wind knocked out of you, but ... permanent.” she turned to the men momentarily and gave them a winning smile. “I studied human biology for a couple years at Princeton.” Then she turned back to the body, her brown eyes narrowing. “If you know what to look for, it's obvious. The skin around the area is red and irritated, and it shows signs of plasma-synaptic erosion.”

“Yeah, I'm lost.” the first officer said, scratching his head slightly. “So ... what does all that mean?”

“It means,” the woman said, rising to her feet and turning to the men, “whoever killed this girl didn't stab her to death. They punctured her chest in that area, most likely with their fingers. They cut her open after she was dead.”

“What kind of monster would do that?” the first officer breathed, shaking his head. “And to what purpose?”

“At first, I thought it would be for the internal organs.” the doctor said, shrugging slightly. “But they're all present and intact. None of them seem to have been removed or damaged in any way. My next thought would be sadistic pleasure, but that doesn't make sense either. The death would have been relatively quick, and ...” she hesitated, “anyways ... it doesn't make any sense. In that situation, the killer would probably have tried to keep the victim alive as long as possible.”
The look on the officers' faces made her nod.
“I know, it's sick. But that's how these people operate. It wasn't a sexually-driven act, either. Nothing below the waist was touched in any way. It's wasn't a random killing – nor most likely an act of vengeance. Both girls were about the same height. Both were dark-haired. Both were good students with paying jobs. Both had good families, and neither seemed to have any known enemies. It's strange, certainly.”

“Doctor,” the first officer swallowed, gesturing to the scene in front of them, “are you missing the message?”

“Engel nicht willkommen.” she said, her German clipped and flawless. “For those less fluent in the beautiful language of German ... Angels not welcome. It's useless babbling.”

“They're wings!” the second officer gasped.

“They're wings.” the doctor confirmed. “They painted wings with her blood. They tried to make her an angel.”

The second officer stumbled away, and the sound of him retching came from the forest behind them. Above them, the sun shines bright and hot. The forest is tinted with yellow and green, only the red-brown blood against the leaves and grass breaking the picturesque scene. Birds chirp far overhead, and some small animal causes the branches around them to sway and bob as they play, chasing one another across the oak boughs. It was almost beautiful.

The woman breathes out lightly, and dusts off her hands.

“Chief, I'm taking this body for research and investigation. I'll come to the station when I have any evidence.”

“If you get even a hint of a clue-” the Chief begins, but she cuts him off with a raised hand.

“I'll come straight to you. I promise.”

He nods, his jaw tightening beneath his wan cheeks. It gives him a dark, almost brutal look.

“I know this looks like a demon's work, Chief Kitt.” the woman said, stepping close to him. Her dark-cinnamon eyes were intense. “But this was anything but. The person who murdered this girl is as human as you or I, and they can be killed like you or I. I swear to you, I will find them – and I will kill them.”

The police chief turned away, his face solemn. “Death,” he murmured, “would be far too kind a mercy.”

The doctor raises her eyes, staring into the open sky. It stared back, blue and endless. It soared across the heavens, bending down to touch the earth somewhere far away. She breathes out, her breath cold between her open lips, and her fingers tighten against her palm.

“Your Angels,” she breathes to herself, “... God, how could you bless a thing such as this? This is not justice. This is not righteous. This is not punishment. This ... this is not Holy.”