Under the bright light, the eyes of the corpse were slightly open. It was very red, with a heavy redness in the whites like the blood vessels were inflamed. The eyes reminded Arlen of a movie he had watched when he was much younger with dead people, walking and growling for human flesh.
But even in the eerie forensic room with the red eyes, it was not the strangest thing that Arlen had ever seen.
In the middle of the victim's stomach was a red rose.
***
It was a long-stemmed, velvety rose that looked just too perfect to be natural. It had over 30 petals and its color was a deep, rich red with subtle hints of crimson , almost black a the edges.
"The rose was planted premortem."
"You are saying the victim was alive when the killer opened her stomach and put a rose in." There was a calmness in Arlen's voice that fascinated Korra. The first time that the sergeant had seen this, the fifty-something-year-old man had thrown up for more than twenty minutes.
