Rapture in Death

It was a small room, windowless and depressing, lined with equipment, beeping with computers. Some of the tools ranged neat as a surgeon's tray on the counters were barbaric enough to make the weak shudder. Saws, lasers, the glinting blades of scalpels, hoses.

In the center of the room was a table with gutters on the side to catch fluids and run them into sterilized, airtight containers for further analysis. On the table was Fitzhugh, his naked body bearing the scars of the recent insult of a standard Y cut.

Morris was sitting on a rolling stool in front of a monitor, face pushed close to the screen. He wore a white lab coat that fluttered to the floor. It was one of his few affectations, the coat that flapped and swirled like a highwayman's cape whenever he walked down the corridors. His slicked-back hair was snugged into a long ponytail.

Eve knew, since he'd called her in directly rather than passing her off to one of his techs, that it was something unusual.

"Dr. Morris?"

"Hmm. Lieutenant," he began without turning around. "Never seen anything like it. Not in thirty years of exploring the dead." He swung around with a flutter of his lab coat. Beneath it he wore stovepipe pants and a T-shirt in loud, clashing colors. "You're looking well, Lieutenant."

He gave her one of his quick, charming smiles, and her lips curved up in response. "You're looking pretty good, yourself. You lost the beard."

He reached up, rubbed a hand over his stubbly chin. He'd sported a precise goatee until recently. "Didn't suit me. But Christ, I hate to shave. How was the honeymoon?"

Automatically, she tucked her hands in her pockets. "It was good. I've got a pretty full plate right now, Morris. What do you have to show me you couldn't show me on screen?"

"Some things take personal attention." He rode his stool over to the autopsy table until he pulled up with a slight squeal of wheels at Fitzhugh's head. "What do you see?"

She glanced down. "A dead guy."

Morris nodded, as if pleased. "What we would call a normal, everyday dead guy who expired due to excessive blood loss, possibly self-inflicted."

"Possibly?" She leaped on the word.

"From the surface, suicide is the logical conclusion. There were no drugs in his system, very little alcohol, he shows no offensive nor defensive wounds or bruising, the blood settlement was consistent with his position in the tub, he did not drown, the angle of the wrist wounds…"

He bumped closer, picked up one of Fitzhugh's limp, beautifully manicured hands where on the wrist the carved wounds resembled some intricate, ancient language. "They are also very consistent with self-infliction: a right-handed man, reclining slightly." He demonstrated, holding an imaginary blade. "Very quick, very precise slashes to the wrist, severing the artery."

Though she'd already studied the wounds herself, and photographs of them, she stepped closer, looked again. "Why couldn't someone have come up from behind him, leaned over, slashed down at that same angle?"

"It's not beyond the realm of possibility, but if that were the case, I'd expect to see some defensive wounds. If someone snuck into your bath and sliced your wrist, you'd be inclined to become a

"So you're going with self-termination."

"Not so fast. I was prepared to." He tugged on his bottom lip, let it snap back into place. "I ran the standard brain analysis required with any self-termination or suspected self-termination. That's the puzzle here. The real puzzle."

He scooted his stool over to his workstation, gestured over his shoulder for her to follow. "This is his brain," he said, tapping a finger on the organ floating in clear liquid and attached to wire thin cables that fed into the mainframe of his computer. "Abby Normal."

"I beg your pardon."

Morris chuckled, shook his head. "Obviously you don't make time to watch enough classic videos. That's from a takeoff on the Frankenstein myth. What I'm saying is, this brain is abnormal."

"He had brain damage?"

"Damage – well, it seems an extreme word for what I've found. Here, on the screen." He swiveled around, tapped some keys. A close-up view of Fitzhugh's brain flashed on. "Again, on the surface, completely as expected. But we show the cross section." He tapped again, and the brain was sliced neatly in half. "So much went on in this small mass," Morris murmured. '"Thoughts, ideas, music, desires, poetry, anger, hate. People speak of the heart, Lieutenant, but it's the brain that holds all the magic and mystery of the human species. It elevates us, separates us, defines us as individuals. And the secrets of it – well, it's doubtful we'll ever know them all. See here."

Eve leaned closer, trying to see what he indicated with the tap of a finger on the screen. "It looks like a brain to me. Unattractive but necessary."

"Not to worry, I nearly missed it myself. For this imaging," he went on while the monitor whirled with color and shapes, "the tissue appears in blues, pale to dark, the bone white. Blood vessels are red. As you can see, there are no clots or tumors that would indicate neurological disorders in the making. Enhance quadrant B, sections thirty-five to forty, thirty percent."

The screen jumped and a section of the image enlarged. Losing patience, Eve started to shrug, then leaned in. "What is that? It looks like… What? A smudge?"

"It does, doesn't it?" He beamed again, staring at the screen where a faint shadow no bigger than a flyspeck marred the brain. "Almost like a fingerprint, a child's oily finger. But when you enhance again" – he did so with a few brief commands, popping the image closer – "it's more of a tiny burn."

"How would you get a burn inside your brain?"

"Exactly." Obviously fascinated, Morris swiveled toward the brain in question. "I've never seen anything like that tiny pinprick mark. It wasn't caused by a hemorrhage, a small stroke, or an aneurism. I've run all the standard brain imaging programs and can find no known neurological cause for it."

"But it's there."

"Indeed, it is. It could be nothing, no more than a faint abnormality that caused the occasional vague headache or dizziness. It certainly wouldn't be fatal. But it is curious. I've sent for all of Fitzhugh's medical records to see if there were any tests run or any data on this burn."

"Could it cause depression, anxiety?"

"I don't know. It flaws the left frontal lobe of the right cerebral hemisphere. Current medical opinion is that certain aspects, such as personality, are localized in this specific cerebral area. So it does appear in the section of the brain that we now believe receives and deploys suggestions and ideas."

He moved his shoulders. "However, I can't document that this flaw contributed to death. The fact is, Dallas, at the moment, I'm baffled but fascinated. I won't be releasing your case until I find some answers."

A burn in the brain, Eve mused as she uncoded the locks on Fitzhugh's condo. She'd come alone, wanting the emptiness, the silence, to give her own brain time to work. Until she had cleared the scene, Foxx would have other living quarters.

She retraced her steps upstairs, studied the grisly bath again.

A burn in the brain, she thought again. Drugs seemed the most logical answer. If they hadn't showed on tox, it could be it was a new type of drug, one that had yet to be registered.

She walked into the relaxation room. There was nothing there but the expensive toys of a wealthy man who enjoyed his leisure time.

Couldn't sleep, she mused. Came in to relax, had a brandy. Stretched out in the chair, watched some screen. Her lips pursed as she picked up the VR goggles beside the chair. Took a quick trip. Didn't want to use the chamber for it, just kicked back.