I'd like to apologise to Patricia Cornwell, but I won't...
Grace drove through the cool, crisp, Virginian morning in her SUV. It was always cool and crisp. There didn't seem to be a summer at all and, apart from a couple of snowy days, crisp was pretty much it. She presumed that it was all in the cause of persuading some hapless Hollywood producer to film her escapades.
Grace parked outside the Forensic Science Laboratory. Unlike every other public sector building, this one had copious parking and there was always a space just out front. She checked her demure, professional and brilliant look in the mirror. All present and correct. She walked across the car park, nodding to acquaintances along the way. There was no need to name these people as they'd play no part in the plot. Everyone smiled at her and acknowledged her, for she was brilliant and popular, though possessed by enough self-doubt to make her interesting. Apparently.
In the lab was Dr Macabre, a shadowy and taciturn assistant, who would later turn out to be slightly less loyal than she'd presumed. He handed her the lab coat and they began dissecting the first body of the day. These seemed to arrive with monotonous regularity and, unlike the workload of every other person in the universe, there were no peak periods. Just enough bodies for a story each time, in fact. Odd, that.
As she began her autopsy, Detective Scoffalotti strode in. He ignored the hygiene regulations, contaminating evidence and therefore losing every case on appeal. But, bizarrely, never got disciplined for it. Even more bizarrely, the brilliant and demure Grace never seemed to notice.
"So, what have we got, doc?"
"Why are you so impatient, Scoffalotti? Can't you see I've just started?"
"Yes, doc, but I'm a one-dimensional cop character who naturally expects results. I'll be applying unreasonable pressure, but you'll never have a word with my boss about it or take me to a tribunal for bullying management, so I figured I'd carry on. Besides, you can cope, being brilliant and demure and all."
How true that was, thought Grace, as she worked. But he forgot professional.
[At this point, let's just assume that Grace brilliantly, professionally, and demurely dissected the body. Do we really need eight pages of pseudo-science just to prove that, or to prove that the author once worked in forensic science? No, me neither]
She finished the dissection and scrubbed down. Scoffalotti scoffed doughnuts, from a box marked "Police Characters Only". How she hated the stuffy bureaucracy of this place. She'd have loved a doughnut. Perhaps she'd have to shake them up by having an implausible adventure.
"Well, Scoffalotti, your vic was killed with a nine-inch curved blade, probably of a sort that can be quickly narrowed down to only three outlets in the whole USA. He was stabbed by a six-foot-nine male Caucasian who is left-handed. The perpetrator walks with a stutter and talks with a limp. He'll work in some esoteric field that will require the author to do some impressive research, until the reader discovers Google will tell them that in 28 seconds."
"Thanks doc. That saves me doing any basic detective work like talking to witnesses. They're so hard to write. It sounds like a serial killer. I may have to talk to Doctor Knife, the extremely tall left-handed knife collector who I happen to know. He might be able to give me some kind of tentative hold on the case. And I never realised the dead guy was called Vic. Interesting."
