"Where were you last night between the hours of 12 am and 3 am?" the severe-looking detective asked taking a mouth full of minced meat pie. With the detectives’ thick eyebrows, narrowed eyes, and even narrower widow’s peak, Mara would have been intimidated. If only he didn't speak with his mouth full.
"The Emergency room, Neurology department from eight till two, and then I went home."64Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8q96UOAuVj
"And you're here now? Hard worker. That makes sense, you're young. When you get old, trust me,” the table rattled as his hand smacked against it, “you're not going to be doing that shit. It’s not worth it anymore.”
"Well, we're not usually here on Mondays, we were called in this morning, I assume because of this," she motioned with her hand to the detective.
He nodded aggressively, filo dough flakes and pieces of meat escaped his mouth and decorated his yellow legal pad, "Did you see anything out of the ordinary last night around campus?"
She considered the young Turkish immigrant with Behcet's Syndrome, the old lady who was confident it was the year 1997, and the pregnant woman with atypical presenting signs of multiple sclerosis. But, she was sure that's not what the man meant by out of the ordinary.
"No, I don't think so. Can you be more specific?"
"No, that's all." He said closing his notebook and dusting off the meat crumbs, "Where are you from? I can hear something in your accent."
Mara's cheeks heated. She knew it was coming. They always asked.
The small pudgy woman that had been keeping herself busy rearranging the doctor’s coffee mugs, placed a silver tray with apricot cookies coated in powdered sugar, and little milka chocolate bar squares stacked on top of each other in front of the detective.
He grunted a thank you to the woman and without removing his gaze from the cookies, "Alright, you're done,"
"I can go?" she said tucking in her chair
"Yeah, send the next one in,"
64Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSZpUG72VLq
The smell of the dead assaults whoever enters through the opaque glass doors labeled Obdukcije. Solely the parade of squeaking medical clogs on the freshly mopped tile floor could be heard over the silence as Mara and Ilija followed their professor past the autopsy rooms. Professor Laic's eyes were always half-lidded like she was in the middle of a yawn. Her grey hair had grown out to the edge of her short ponytail that held her once-colored blonde hair. The same scrub rule didn't apply to doctors or professors, they could wear whatever they wanted, Professor Laic wore faded light pink juicy couture sweatpants with her white lab coat.
As soon as they had shut the door to the empty histology lab, Mara broke the silence, "What the hell happened last night?" She remembered a little too late that she should mind her language.
"A body was stolen from us." Professor Laic answered, simply and unfazed deliberately pressing each key of her passcode for the prehistoric Windows computer.
A body was stolen
She felt her skin prickle with excitement.
As a child, Mara considered herself a detective, a sleuth heavily inspired by Nancy Drew books and Scooby doo. She would sneak around the abandoned house at the end of her street, with a self-made sleuthing kit. It was well-equipped with a magnifying glass, a notebook, and a kitchen knife, which looking back, someone should have confiscated. She would investigate the mail piling up at the door and peep through the windows until a sound would startle her sending her darting back home through the overgrown grass. In hindsight, the house was likely occupied by an elderly person who couldn't be bothered to get up and tend to the garden or get their mail more than once a month.
"Was it someone famous?" She said looking at Ilija. He was always the one she would look to because he like an elderly person, actually watched the news. He always knew which politician was in town, what new laws were being passed, and what famous basketball player strolled right past them.
He scrunched his dark brows and shrugged his shoulders.
"No, a normal old man from a nursing home. It was supposed to be just a confirmation of Alzheimer's. I was supposed to work on him this morning.”
"Weird, I wonder why-"
Professor Laic rose from her chair with a groan, pressing a hand against her lower back, "Look over these slides and decide what you think, and then come check them with me and you guys are free to go,"
"Uh, there are security cameras in the building, right? Surely, they caught the culprits." Ilija said.
"Only the front door. I'm not positive they even work," Laic said leaving the room.
"You wanna know what I think?" Mara asked the second the door closed behind Laic. Without waiting for his response, she continued, "I bet it was that creep, you know the one with the neck hair, he always gave me bad vibes."
Ilija laughed, "Excessive hairiness does not make you a body-snatcher. You know it’s actually a sign of higher intelligence.”
"It’s gotta be one of these fucking weirdos that wanted one to play with at home," She thought out loud more than actually planning to say it to Ilija.
"Christ Mara," Ilija said shaking his head as he placed the slide onto the microscope.
"Oh!" she slapped his arm, "And if he's crafty, he'll do exam prep, and he will be rolling in cash! You know people would pay big money for that." 64Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡajqZsqvMIN
Mara recalled how her classmates in the first year, the ones whose parents often worked at the university and had access to such things, would charge fifty to a hundred euros to borrow genuine anatomical skulls they had to prepare for the neuroanatomy section of the exam. Lilja had a plastic one he had purchased for the same amount and was kind enough to let Mara borrow it. The both of them had agreed there was no way taking home someone's skull didn't give some kind of bad karma, so be so flippant with someone's remains. It's strange even in a learning environment, let alone in your bedroom.64Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr7ELWK70op
Ilija turned to her, taking off his glasses. "Tell me, what is wrong with you? Like in your brain?"
She laughed. "What? Me? You gotta be a little messed up to want to do autopsies all day, anyway,"
LIlija rolled his eyes, and looked back at the microscope, marking down the pathologies in each organ section. 64Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG3LUfNNr9h
“I’m surprised police came and so many.” He remarked.64Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpMRucsKzpM
