Free In the Belly of Jonah by Sandra Brannan

Milo killings the cuts were all made in one direction. Streeter spread the pictures of today’s autopsy across his screen, zooming in on the tissue of Jill Brannigan’s midsection. The cuts were in one direction, no sawing motions. The motion was from front to back, as if a hunk of skin, bone, and organs had been forced out of her by a blast of some kind. It reminded Streeter of those horrible images he brought back in his tortured mind after his time in Mogadishu. Jill’s skin hadn’t been singed or burned in any way, and the force of whatever had torn through the tissue was strong enough to nearly cauterize the blood vessels, which staunched the blood flow. As Brandt had said, it truly was as though a giant hand had come down and punched a cookie cutter into Jill Brannigan’s torso.
    Whatever it was, it was strong enough to cut through her spine in two places and her ribs, although what bones she had left in her midsection had been shattered by force. As Streeter studied the photos, what amazed him was the precision. Just as in the de Milo case, the killer was meticulous with each cut, careful not to damage any other part of the victims’ bodies. It made Streeter wonder if the killer was a surgeon, a welder, a butcher, or an expert in some other profession that demanded such precision. But he didn’t want to share his thoughts with Lisa Henry. Not until she had a chance to draw her own conclusions. Then they would talk, compare notes.
    “We have forensics trying to mimic the cut pattern and have been for the past nine months. No knife or saw-blade patterns we’ve tried can replicate the patterns in the de Milo case so far. They’ve even tried blow torches and saw blades,” Streeter answered.
    Henry added, “That means you’ve narrowed down the weapon to something unusual, which is bound to help you locate whoever made the purchase.”
    “If we ever figure out what it is that’s making the unusual cut pattern,”Streeter reminded her. “Look, let me send you these digitals so you can study them tonight. I’ll bring my files up and we can compare notes after we’ve drawn our own conclusions on this thing. I have enough that if you can compile some kind of profile for me by tomorrow night, I can fire a battery of questions your way so we can get this thing hemmed in.”
    “Shouldn’t be too tough since I have my profile from the de Milo case. I want to see if my conclusions for you on that case morph or focus any more clearly after tomorrow,” Henry said.
    “That’s what I was hoping,”Streeter confirmed. “Thanks, kiddo. I’ll see you at Brandt’s around eight.”

    Lisa came through the door and shrugged out of her jacket. “Brrr. I forgot how cold it gets here.”
    “It’s June.”
    “It’s cold.”
    I gave her a look. “You have forgotten, because Laramie is a helluva lot colder than it is here in Fort Collins. Don’t you remember stealing away on the weekends just to mall crawl or movie hop to warm up indoors? We used to think Fort Collins was like some tropical island for us compared to Siberia.”
    “We did have a tendency to exaggerate, didn’t we?” Lisa said, plopping beside me on the couch.
    I put my book down. “Exaggerate, my ass. During the five o’clock news, I saw where the high in Laramie today was fifty degrees compared to seventy here in Fort Collins. Can you imagine how cold it must have been six months ago?”
    Lisa shivered. “I used to schedule my classes according to where the underground tunnels reached and how far away the buildings were from the tunnels.”
    “No wonder you dropped the law dream. That building was a mile away,” I laughed.
    “With no tunnels.”
    Her words trailed and I could see that although she was trying to be relaxed, she was distracted by what she’d learned from her phone call. I wanted to give her the space she needed, but I was dying to know what she meant during our conversation just before she took the call.
    “Lisa, you said