Free CHIMERAS (Track Presius) by E.E. Giorgi Page A

vaporized from his face. “Wow. Do you ever get it in a tub, Track?”
    I shrugged. “Something like this I believe you only get once, Doc.”
    I glimpsed a coy smile escape Diane’s lips. It made up for the smirk sprawled on Ellis’s lipless mouth. He squeezed my shoulder, kneeled by Tamara Tarantino, and flopped his bag on the floor. “Very funny, Track. I meant the fun part, not the bullet. Jeez. My tub’s too small.”
    Peter the photographer stood behind the coroner with his lens poised. “And my wife’s too large,” he said, tittering at his own joke.
    Ellis rolled the body on her back. Tamara’s face was a mask of dried blood. Ellis wiped the clots off her face, and then examined the shot wound. The bullet had drilled a hole across her right temple. “Hmm. Somebody wanted her dead, that’s for sure. You pop somebody in the head like that, you don’t give them the time to blink.”
    Tamara hadn’t blinked. Her eyes—two glassy wells of black—were sprung open. Despite the smears of blood and the rigor mortis, her face looked much younger than her actual forty-eight years of age.
    “The husband got the same treatment. What’s your guess on the TOD?”
    “With the usual disclaimer, Track: nothing confirmed until the autopsy report. And we’re talking dry stiff right here. The soaked stiff is a whole different matter, but hopefully we can assume they were killed at the same time.”
    “I don’t think he would’ve entertained his wife’s killer in the tub while waiting for his turn.” In fact, the picture was clear: husband goes down first, one round straight to the forehead. Wife turns to watch him get whacked and gets the second round to the temple. Wise killer: always do the man first. Good shooter, too.
    Ellis palpated the body’s face, neck, and shoulders. “Dilated pupils. Jaw and neck pretty rigid. Upper torso just starting to set.” He brandished a pair of tweezers, stuck them into the woman’s nostrils, and fished out a lump of what looked like rice grains.
    “Unhatched diptera eggs,” Ellis explained, storing the precious find in a small jar.
    Smile , I thought, as the photographer’s flash went off.
    Ellis proceeded to spread open the bathrobe and exposed the victim’s chest, blemished by purple patches of livor mortis. He made a one-inch-long incision below the ribcage, then carefully inserted a long thermometer probe, which he maneuvered until the tip touched the liver.
    “Hmm. Internal body temperature of eighty-point-eight. Assuming the room’s temperature is at the usual seventy-two, say her body temperature decreased one-point-five degrees per hour starting from ninety-eight-point-six—what do you get?”
    “She died almost twelve hours ago.” I looked at the watch. It was eleven-forty, so around the same time the night before.
    “Thank you, Track,” Ellis said. “I hate to do that kind of math off the top of my head.”
     
    *  *  *
     
    I sat on the living room couch, opened the laptop, and pressed play. The quality of the video was grainy, with the borders obscured, and the halo of a streetlight drawing a visual cone in the middle. The perp had destroyed the CC camera at the door but overlooked the one by the property gate. I watched it, started over, and watched it again. Tarantino’s car appeared on the screen at ten seventeen p.m., waited for the gate to open, and then careened out of view. Thirty-eight minutes later, Huxley’s car pulled into the frame. Positioned behind it, the camera gave me a make and model (2003 Ford Focus, green), but not a face on the driver. A hand appeared from the window and pressed the intercom, the wind the only witness of that conversation. The light above the gate started flashing, and the entrance slowly opened. I rewound, froze the frame, and zoomed in. Something glistened on the hand. Could be a ring . A small watch on the wrist, round, feminine. Was it really Huxley behind the wheel? Couldn’t tell from this shot. The only