2019-12-02 - Skin Deep

It'd been a straight forward exchange from the M.E. this time around, a simple text of. 'I'm done. You are going to want to see this.' It's all about that creepy body in the zoo they found, and Yule was purposefully vague with any details over the phone. The morgue? It's in the basement of the hopsital, a bit of a dreary place given it's muted colors and the sterile environment. Yule's standing off to one side of the autopsy room, his eyes trailing over a handful of case files that have been pulled out to review while he awaits for the detective to show up. Here, in his realm? He's dressed in a pair of light blue scrubs, his hair bound and tucked beneath a clean cap, and his hands have latex gloves on them already. One body is present on the table, with a sheet pulled up all the way over it, keeping any details concealed from would be prying eyes.

It seemed like everything was coming in finally about the zoo murder. Esme had been pouring over an older case file with similar circumstances when Yule's text came through. It didn't put her at ease. The cop side of her wasn't liking where any of this was going because it didn't make sense. The investigator side of her was more than intrigued and couldn't wait to see where things landed. I'll be there ASAP. Was Esme's response. Then she'd gathered up the case file and her coat and headed over to the hospital. She arrived about fifteen minutes later, one of the orderlies escorting her most of the way. She opened the door and slipped inside, taking a quick scan of the place before her gaze settled on Yule and then the covered body. "Please tell me it all makes sense now and you've got a ton of evidence to lead us right to the killer." She didn't sound optimistic. She set her own case file carefully on his desk so it wouldn't get lost or in the way.

"Wish I could. But, nothing is ever that easy." It's over towards the body that he steps, his fingers curling around the sheet. "This is ours. Natalia Kuznik. She had quite a bit to tell me. But, it really isn't for the faint of heart, Esme, yeah? Just... be prepared." It's more than just a simple matter of concern for the detective, given that look those brown eyes shoot her, it's far more serious, a true caution. And then, he starts to pull down the sheet. From the collarbone down, not a single shred of skin is on the body. The head has stitches on the top portion where he'd cut into the skull to examine the brain. And the torso? It's like one of those diagrams where you can see every muscle, and it's made things a touch tricky. The autopsy cuts go from her shoulder points to beneath breasts until they connect, and then down her abdomen. He's had to get creative to stitch her back up, given the lack of any skin at all to reconnect her. He keeps going, until the sheet is fully removed, all the way down to those skinless feet.

Yule's cautious didn't ease Esme's swirling tensions either. "I've seen a lot..." Though something told her this was going to top even those things. "I'm as prepared as I'll ever be." She took a few steps closer to the table as he started to pull back the blanket. Her eyes widened. A dumbfounded kind of look settling on her features as Natalia's full body was revealed. "...Jesus Christ." She breathed out finally. Up and down those eyes traveled, her brain was having a little difficulty comprehending what she was seeing. Finally, Esme tore her gaze away and looked up to the Medical Examiner. "How..is this even possible?"

"Time and patience. The only reasonable," There is something to that word, that hints at things that are quite possible and so very unreasonably, "Is that she was killed somewhere else, dressed back up, and dumped. Whatever she was carried in pooled up her blood, at least enough of it to explain what we saw at the scene." Though despite those words? Yule doesn't seem overly convinced. "Surgically flayed, everything from the head down. No missing muscle mass. Whatever did this, knew what it was doing. I've put down her official cause of death as blood loss from extreme trauma." The flaying, namely. He lets that sink in a moment, to see if she catches the implications of what that meant for what Natalia had to live through.

"Whoever." That was what Esme held on to initially after Yule explained his take. "Whoever did this." Though, even for the detective who was very much grounded in the reality of things, seemed a bit unsure. Especially after having looked through the case file from the previous incident. Her gaze drifted back down to the woman, voice lowering some as she continued on. "Though only a monster could do something like this." Though Esme wasn't implying literal monsters like Yule may be thinking. She was thinking more along the lines of a human so deranged and psychotic and just plain evil that this was the result. "Wheelbarrow maybe?" Was added as an idle afterthought. For what she could have been carried in.

"Maybe. Would have had to be something inconspicuous at the zoo." Yule murmurs, before he turns around and towards the wall. The lights of the old x-ray board are flipped on, lighting up scans of images of the woman's brain. "She was very much alive when her skin was removed. She was first immobilized with an extremely thin, sharp instrument. Think a sewing needle, though it could be any number of things. It pierced the skull without fracturing it, entered the brain, and stopped as it punctured only the primary motor cortex." Out his pinkie finger of his hand extends, showing a barely seen, faint line on that scan. "It'd have left her unable to move, or scream. But she'd have felt everything, known what was being done."

Surely the zoo had wheelbarrows. Esme made a mental note to put in a call when she got back to the office. She had an internal system in place to separate herself from the job. To not let her emotions get too in the way, no matter what she was faced with. Sometimes that system faltered when there was a particularly awful case being worked. Esme could feel it threatening to falter now. As she couldn't help but try to imagine the horror this poor woman went through. Feeling everything and not being able to do jack shit about it. Esme squeezed her eyes shut tightly for a few second and breathed deep. In. Out.

Eyes opened up and she stepped closer to the x-rays, looking at them a moment. "What a sick fuck. But...a skilled one. How much training do you think someone would have to have? To pull off something like this?"

"Your looking at someone whose been through medical school. Or whose practiced a shit load on other animals. Hunters, skinners. But they'd have to know precisely how to pierce the brain, the right spot, and just how far to go. Anything is possible knowledge wise with the internet these days, but to put it into practice?" Yule's head just shakes, a low breath pushed out, "It's precise. What I don't get is how they got her to stay still long enough to push it into her head. However," He's already on the move, offering a faint and understanding smile to the detective at that shutting of her eyes, and up he goes to pull the sheet, hiding the horror show that is this particular body. "I can tell you that you are dealing with the same perp in multiple cases. I feel confident, after examining the other bodies, that we can link the method together."

Esme relaxed just a touch when Yule covered the body back up, nodding at his take. It was all too...clean. If you minus all the blood from the crime scene. She crossed back to his desk to pick up her case file. "Definitely." She agreed. "This was the most recent. From '03." And right up Esme's alley of an intriguing, unsolved cold case. " She offers it to Yule if he wants to look through it. "I'm going to update the Captain as soon as I can. Maybe try to find these detectives and talk to them. See if they have anything else not noted in the file they might be able to give up." She sighed. "Morgan maybe. I don't know what that Jones guy is on about. Makes it sound like aliens or something."

His hands curl about his gloves to pull them off, first stowing them away in the waste disposal before he picks up that file to start flipping through it. "I looked at the other bodies. The recent ones, yeah? Missing kidneys. Found what the other M.E.'s missed, now that I knew what to look for. They all had a similar wound in their brain to immobilize them." He flips it open, giving a small nod at her plan of attack, finding the reason in it all even as he pours over those notes. "I can dig up the old records, but given this? I doubt if the M.E.'s back then caught the injury to the brain either. Maybe. If they were embalmed, buried, their brains would still be intact enough if we felt we had to exhume to prove a connection." It's a beat of a pause, a small frown curling to the corners of his mouth. "Yeah? Think Jones was off his rocker?" That gets an ever so observant watch from the examiner, seeing how she responds.

"So, they were all immobilized the same way, and all had some some kind of organ removed?" Esme glanced back towards the now covered body. Then up to Yule. "So, what, we have someone going around trying to build their own Frankenstein?" A beat of pause." Were the others skinned like this too?" Her head tilts ever so slightly and her brow raises. "At least a little. Come on, "the other side". What does that even mean? It sounds fantastical to me. Conspiracy theories. Cryptids is one thing - like Big Foot. Nessie. I don't think those are out of the realms of reality. Clever creatures that know better than to reveal themselves to humanity. Hell even Aliens might be real but they sure as shit don't want anything to do with us. Or else we'd have some solid proof already. But Another world? Or maybe he meant the other side as in where ghosts are supposed to live? Yeah, I'm not buying that." See, she wasn't totally against the fantastical, but let's be reasonable here.

"Frankenstein's monster, actually. Frankenstein, was the doctor." It's always those little bit of odd trivia that he seems to drudge up, though it brings no smile to his features this time around. "No. Each time different organs, from the ones I've reviewed. Even looking through your old case here? Eyes. That's different, too." It is that well reasoned logic of disbelief that has Yule's mouth curling into a faint smile finally, a touch of affection creasing that brow as he says, "After we eliminate the impossible? Whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the answer. I'm not saying that a ghost materialized and decided, hey, I want to wear a skin suit for a while," Up his shoulders lift into a faint shrug, "But you remember all the stories in high school, yeah? Someone out there is being very meticulous in what they do. This isn't our average serial killer."

"Hm?" Esme looked towards Yule a touch distractedly. "Oh. Right." About the whole Frankenstein's monster thing. "So we've got eyes, kidneys, a skin suit. Sounds like a person in the making to me." Esme wrinkled her nose up, pulling out her phone to take a few notes. "I mean yeah, but they were just stories right? More or less." There was a beat of pause. "I mean, every story has a grain of truth to it. But-" Esme just shrugged and finished off her note taking. She had been one of the luckier ones, you could say. Never personally witnessing the Weird things that went on. Or being involved in them. "We definitely have some kind of twisted expert on our hands." She sighed. "I'll hit you up before I talk to the Captain, in case you want to present your stuff to him in person. Or I can just add your notes to the file."

That file she brought is closed up after he's had a chance to go through it, stacking it up with another one of the ones on that desk. "Your copy," He explains to her, head dipping into a faint nod. "Yeah. Let me know, and if I'm not knee deep in another body? I'll come and give an update on where things are at, and potential options. Officially," Here is where the M.E. looks her way, pointedly, "Not much more I can do in my role. But, you know." Those brown eyes study her for a long beat, letting those thoughts permeate on the what-if's, already knowing well enough by now like it or not? Her mind will be curious in the possibilities. "Hey," It's a softer note, waiting to catch her full focus, "Once you are wrapped up? If you want some company to talk, you know where to find me."

"But it's been pretty helpful. Insightful." Even if it was technically all he could do in his position. There's a twitch of a smile. "Yeah, I know." Holding his gaze for a moment. But he still wasn't getting her extra sidearm! She slips her phone back into her coat pocket and exhaled softly. Focusing back up on Yule when he took that softer tone. "Yeah. Maybe." Typical cop in not wanting to really talk about things that were eating at her. Even though Yule was slowly whittling her down with that. "This, I think, is one of the strangest cases I've worked so far. The answer is out there. We just have to look in the right places. Like Inspector Clouseau says, a case is like a jigsaw puzzle and we have the jig but not the saw." Straightening up a bit, a wry little look of amusement briefly fleeting over her features. "But, we're going to find the saw. There wasn't anything...similar about the victims were there? Some kind of physical trait that might be attracting the killer to them?"

A warm bit of laughter comes from him when she goes all Inspector Clouseau, a twitch of a smile curling to his features. "I think I need to spend some time expanding the horizons of your netflix watching habits, detective." Comes his murmured touch of mirth, head shaking just a touch. "What, I need to do all your legwork for you, detective? Well, not from what I've noticed. Purely from what I've seen in cases that... well, fuck. There isn't anything /like/ this, but as close as I can come? I wouldn't be surprised if whatever," Yup. There is that word again, "is doing this, isn't picking victims based upon the fact they like the body parts they are harvesting. Eyes because they were pretty. Skin because it caught their attention. You'd normally see the same - or a slowly but clearly evolving - method of murder, but we don't have that. Only making sure they can't move while different parts are taken." A tip of his head comes, watching her, and Yule? Isn't satisfied with that maybe, keeping those brown eyes upon her. "Don't have to talk about this, you know. Don't even have to talk. But if it's not talking? You'd better bring really good takeout with you, else I'm certain to ask questions."

"You're the one up close and personal with the bodies Duchannes." Esme quipped back, nodding along with his words- something of a tell that she was notating it in her head so she could put it down later. Her brow furrowed briefly at that 'whatever' but she didn't challenge it this time. The last thing she wanted was to be getting into a debate about whoever and whatever while a skinless dead girl laid on a table next to them. "Perhaps. Something to keep in mind. It would help if we could find something that could clue us in to what they'll go after next. " The what would lead to the who and all that jazz. Esme nodded again, just once this time. "How late are you working? There might be some greasy diner food and milkshakes in your future."

"Yeah. I'll pull the records on those old case files... if I can find them. 2003? Have to be around here somewhere, yeah?" That draws a small frown to the corners of his mouth, before her question has a soft snort coming from him. "Just tell me where. I'll be there, don't worry. I'd never miss the opportunity for a good milkshake. And the grease? It all makes it go down easier." It's to the side he goes, setting up the cart that will let him wheel her back into the cold storage of the morgue. "Send me a text when you find the Captain. I'll have to update Ari as well," The county coroner, "not looking forward to filling out this report."

"I'll help you look if you come up empty handed." Esme pushed a hand through her hair. This whole case was fuckey, she didn't like it. But, the answers were there. She reminded herself to put in a call to the zoo about that wheelbarrow thing. "If you can't be there, I'll bring it here. Easy enough to do." Esme took a step to the side to let him wheel the body back. "Yep, I'll text you. Good luck with that." Filing the report to Ari. "I'm sure she'll love it every bit as much as we have."

"Just like the Captain will, yeah?" Comes his quip back for what is in store for her, and then the body is slid over to the cart, and with a push she's being wheeled back. "I might just say I didn't find anything then, even if I do." He offers up over his shoulder, flashing a reassuring smile towards the detective. "You know I'll find you if you don't find me," And with that, Yule is off to tend to the corpse.