Cameron Cruise - The Collector

Whenever he heard someone spouting that crap, Seven always asked if maybe Asians were inherently more intelligent? No? So it’s all about good old-fashioned hard work? Well, there you go.

People made choices. They sacrificed. So quit bitching and just compete, right? God knows Ricky, his brother, hadn’t been the hit of the party scene. That had been Seven’s job in life.

Back in high school, Seven managed to get into enough hot water that his mom had threatened military school. It was a kind of periodic thing, like Easter or Christmas. Military school, Seven. I will do it! Once, she’d even taken him to tour a couple of places. Seven smiled at the memory, because the tactic had actually worked. Suddenly, he was passing all his classes.

But Ricky…it was the sweat of his brow that got him a full-ride scholarship to the college of his choice.

Still, Seven had to admit, the county coroner, Alice Wang, was the poster child for the Asians-are-hard-to-beat argument.

Alice was in her early fifties. She wore glasses and styled her hair in a sensible pageboy—Alice wasn’t spending a ton of time in front of the mirror. She had places to go, people to cut open.

Alice had a gift. Best damn medical examiner he’d ever worked with.

Mimi Tran lay on a metal table with paper draped strategically over her lower body—an attempt at dignity sabotaged by the fact that half her insides were on display and a tag hung from her big toe like a Christmas present.

Your average Joe didn’t know that it was the smells you remembered most from your first autopsy: body odors and the scent of half-digested food. Seven figured Alice and her crew must be used to it. Him, he was breathing through his mouth.

Alice Wang stood over the body of Mimi Tran. With the scalpel, she’d made a Y incision, from shoulder to shoulder and down to the lower abdomen. She’d already removed the breastplate using the circular saw waiting with other instruments next to the body, exposing the internal organs, which had all been weighed. The quickest way to know if there was something wrong was through weight.

Now she was in the process of ladling the stomach contents into a plastic container, like soup. She used tweezers to examine the particulate matter.

Apparently, Mimi Tran had had a light lunch before dying.

“Jellyfish,” Alice said, holding up a rubbery string with the tweezers.

“Not the sort of thing you keep in the fridge from the local deli?” Seven asked.

“I’m guessing not this time,” Alice said, pulling up a small, brown lump with her magic tweezers. “Escargot.”

“Jellyfish and snails?” Erika made a face. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

“This from a woman who has no doubt tickled her palate with the likes of calves’ brains and cow tongue?” Alice asked, making Seven wonder how many stomach contents from the local taqueria Alice had examined.

“Calves’ brains.” Erika stuck out her tongue in disgust. “Mi abuelita made me eat them. But now tongue isn’t half-bad when it’s prepared right.”

“Well, the Vietnamese love their French food,” Alice said. “You’d be surprised how many Vietnamese view the hundred-year French occupation with fondness. Go to any expensive Little Saigon restaurant or club and you’re going to hear French music or see pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe hanging on the walls. Ever been to La Veranda?”

Seven had heard of the place. It had the reputation of being one of the best restaurants in Little Saigon. “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Marble pillars, sparkling fountains…looks like a plantation right out of the colonial past. They serve escargot and frog legs right alongside pickled daikon, nuoc mam and rice paper. But I think what the victim ate was less traditionally prepared, a more innovative kind of fusion.”

“Who knew you were such a foodie, Alice?”

“Everette and I have been members of the same gourmet club for years.”

Seven tried to imagine. Maybe if you studied enough stomach contents, food became a hobby.

“Three hours after eating, ninety-five percent of your stomach contents will end up in the small intestine,” Alice continued. “The process stops at the time of death. Given what I’m seeing here—” she nodded toward the plastic container “—I’d say a power lunch at some chi-chi restaurant just before she died. I’d look for something high-end. That was a real nice St. John she had on.”

“Ah, come on, Alice,” Erika said. “We know you have a closetful of those. Isn’t Everette an anesthesiologist?”

“With three kids to put through college,” Alice reminded her. Then, looking thoughtful, she added, “The victim was a psychic?”

“Well-known, from what people in the area say,” Seven stated.

Alice nodded. “Not that it’s relevant to the cause of death, but I found some unique cell damage in the prefrontal cortex of her brain.”

“You want to dumb that down for my partner, Alice?” Erika said, managing to keep a straight face.

“The prefrontal cortex, that’s the area just behind your forehead. It has the ability to control activity in other parts of the brain. Think of it as a kind of volume-control switch. When I examined the victim’s brain, I saw significant atrophy in the prefrontal cortex. The tissue samples I looked at under the microscope showed axonal damage.”

“English, Alice,” Erika reminded her. “English.”

“Cell damage, necrosis. The victim’s brain had an old injury.”

Seven frowned. “Not that I believe in this stuff, but are you saying she was damaged goods? That she couldn’t have psychic ability because her brain was messed up?”

Alice shook her head. “Quite the opposite. I’m saying our victim might have thought she was psychic because of the damage to her brain. There are studies that show religious beliefs reside in the temporal lobes, the part of the brain near your ears. When a temporal lobe is stimulated, the person can experience a presence associated with God or a spirit, depending on their personal beliefs. Some researchers in the area claim that humans are programmed for spiritual experiences.”

“But in our victim, you said it was the prefrontal cortex that was damaged, not the temporal lobe,” Erika said, confused.

“Exactly,” Alice declared, as if she’d just made her point. “The part that controls activity in the temporal lobe was damaged. It’s a leap, but I wonder, what if the injury in your victim’s brain caused the temporal lobe to become excited, giving her what she thought were psychic experiences?” When Erika and Seven stood in confused silence, Alice added, “There’s a condition called temporal lobe epilepsy. The seizures stimulate the temporal lobe.”

“The part that experiences religion?” Seven asked.

“Correct. During a seizure, the patient experiences smells and sees things that aren’t there—they hallucinate. She was a psychic, right? I wonder if the damage to her brain caused the temporal lobes to become excited, just like those of an epileptic. Your victim could very well believe she was having a psychic occurrence, when in fact she was having seizures.”

Erika looked at Seven. Neither knew what to make of the new information.

“But again, I digress,” Alice said. “You’ll be more interested in the cause of death.”

“That seems pretty obvious,” Erika said.

Alice smiled. Not something you saw every day, the coroner smiling.

“So you would think—the cause of death, exsanguinations. But that’s where it gets interesting.”

Alice leaned over the body, motioning the detectives closer. Like any good M.E., Alice didn’t have any problem with the dead.

She lifted the torso. “Here, she was stabbed from behind. Probably while she was running away, given the angle.” She let the corpse settle back on the table, and glanced up. “We know from the defensive wounds on her hands that she tried to fight off her attacker. And the eyes, they were removed cleanly, using something very sharp. Have you found the murder weapon?”