Detective Crawford

16

A black Hyundai Toussaint drove up to a small building with a hospital next to it.

"It's a very convenient city. If someone dies, they'll send the bodies straight to the autopsy," Megan said.

Getting out of the car and entering the building, they found themselves in a dark room called a hallway. After walking a short distance, they saw a door with light shining through it, despite the cloudy weather. Entering the bright room, a cold, dead stench hit their noses. In the middle of the room, two men were waiting for them, sleeping on chairs next to each other. One of them was Anderson, and the other was the same age as the first, with dark short hair that hadn't turned gray and a lean, tall build. He was Howard, one of the best local medical examiners. Megan looked at the table with one eye, where her niece lay pale. Nausea crept up her throat.

"Good morning!" Alex shouted loudly, across the room.

Howard was the first to open his eyes.

"Oh my God, why did you have to yell like that?" The man stretched and got up from his chair vigorously. "Next time I see you sleeping, I'll yell right in your ear and I won't be sorry. "Anderson, get up!" Howard walked over to Anderson and took him by the shoulders and began to shake him.

"I'm getting up, I'm getting up!" Anderson responded sleepily to the shaking. Taking his hands away from the man, Howard walked over to Stella's dead body.

"So, we had a sleepless night last night. We tried to do everything as quickly and carefully as possible. The body is ready for burial or cremation. It's up to you to decide."

"Okay," Megan said, "I'll talk to Whitney today.

Anderson stood up sleepily from his chair and walked over to the autopsy table, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

"Can I buy you some coffee?" asked Alex.

"No thanks, Anderson is just used to sleeping late." Howard put his hands at his sides and began to tell them what they had found. "So, Stella died of strangulation. There are blue bruises on her neck. She was being strangled by strong, male hands." Howard pulled Stella's hair away from her neck to show the full picture. Megan, standing back, decided to come closer to her niece, even though the lump in her throat was growing larger and larger and her nausea was getting worse.

There were indeed huge bruises on Stella's neck. The killer had strangled the poor girl with great cruelty.

"After strangling the girl, he brought a shovel from somewhere and buried her at the entrance to the park. It is strange that no one noticed what this man was doing. After all, even though it was night, people like Stella must have been wandering around the park. Or, people might have been returning from work through the park.

"By the way, we found where the shovel was stolen from," Anderson interjected. "There's a garden shop near the park, and that's where the shovel was stolen from. The grandmother who worked there forgot to close her shop, and the man took advantage of that moment. But the grandmother doesn't remember most of it, her granddaughter used to close the shop before that day, and she was gone today, so she trusted her grandmother."

"Didn't anyone else see a man carrying a shovel through the park and no one was interested?" asked Megan.

"Probably not. Everyone is busy doing their own thing now, and they are absorbed in their own thoughts and problems. Maybe they thought the man was crazy and didn't interfere because you don't want to deal with crazy people."

"And no one saw the dead girl lying in the back of the park?" asked Megan, confused.

"Maybe it wasn't so crowded that day. And judging by the soil we confiscated from under Stella's fingernails, it had been raining."