The Metropolitan Municipality Nursery in İnciraltı awoke with the first light of morning to a heavy scent of pine, wet earth, and fertilizer. As Izmir started the new day with the whispers of yesterday’s murder leaking into the newspapers, Yekta had already settled into his ordinary shift in the cool morning frost.
The skin flakes the forensics experts would find under the nails of that porcelain-skinned woman meant Yekta’s DNA. There was no way to destroy, erase, or wash it away
“Brother Yekta, I’m pouring tea, do you want some?”. Twenty-two years old, freshly back from military service, and having started the job just three months ago, he was a naive, chatty, and energetic young man. The steam rising from the slim-waisted tea glass in Cem’s hand mixed with the cold morning air. “Let me take care of these dried acacia branches so Master Rıza doesn’t come and yell at us first thing in the morning.”. Nearing his sixties, with a potbelly, he was an irritable man who had spent his life dealing with park and garden tenders. “The trees along the presidential route still need to be pruned, stop slacking off!
Yekta merely nodded. No one would look for a killer inside a worker getting chewed out by his boss. As the tool’s chain spun with a savage roar, he locked his eyes on a dried, thick, and stubborn acacia branch. No one was looking at him. When the engine’s scream reached a deafening level, he slightly narrowed his eyes and deliberately plunged the saw into that thick branch at the most incorrect, most dangerous angle.
The out-of-control saw flew backward like a wild beast.
The pain was a blinding whiteness. The saw’s teeth had shredded the thin nail scratches left by the woman in seconds, turning the epidermis into a bloody, jagged, and hideous gash.
Yekta dropped to his knees in agony.
“Help!” Yekta screamed.
“Brother Yekta!” The hose in Cem’s hand dropped to the ground. Master Rıza threw his phone away and came running.
From the outside, he was a poor worker in shock who had narrowly escaped death. His perfect flaw had been covered up by yet another perfect brutality. Detective Aylin was examining the wound on the neck of the porcelain-skinned woman lying on the steel table.
The heavy iron door of the morgue opened. Carrying the exhaustion of years on his shoulders, he was a meticulous but visionless man who literally worshipped science. With his belly spilling over his belt, his suit perpetually wrinkled, and terrified to death of the press and bureaucracy, Selim was the flesh-and-bone embodiment of the “close the case immediately” mentality. “Call it a mugging, a drug gang, a pervert, give me something
“The laboratory results came in, Chief,” said Dr. Koray, looking over his tired glasses as he dropped the file onto the steel table
Aylin lifted her head from the bloody curve on the woman’s neck
“That transparent, amber-colored layer covering the wound on the victim’s neck... It’s not a blood clot or a chemical solvent used to clean a crime scene.”. “It’s a literal mixture of pine resin, beeswax, and plant-based antifungal oils.”. “What does that mean, man, speak plain Turkish!”. “It is applied so that cut branches don’t get exposed to air, rot, or get infected
The silence of the morgue practically solidified under the weight of this morbid detail. “Just what we needed. What, is the killer a gardener?
“No!” said Aylin, her voice echoing off the steel walls of the morgue. “This man is not a gardener or a park worker. He severed the jugular in a single stroke, in a millimeter-perfect curve. He is as professional as a surgeon
“Then what is this paste doing on the corpse, Aylin?” Selim asked wearily. She glared at the frozen resin on the wound with hatred. He wants us to waste time chasing after gardeners, hoers, and ordinary men who deal with dirt. While we search for a needle in that haystack, he will probably be sipping his coffee in a sterile office, a luxury clinic, or his studio, laughing at our stupidity.”. “I only look at the science, Aylin. Furthermore, we found skin tissue under the victim’s nails, but it’s highly deformed
Aylin sharply threw her leather jacket over her shoulders. Because the man we’re up against isn’t stupid enough to leave DNA. I’m not going to waste this case on ordinary laborers.”. Her intellect had created her biggest blind spot. The ER doctor was putting crude, thick black stitches into the horrific chainsaw gash on Yekta’s neck. Master Rıza, on the other hand, was pacing back and forth in the corridor, arguing with the hospital security. “You got off cheap, lucky man,” the doctor said. You don’t joke around with a chainsaw.”. His voice carried only the exhaustion of a worker in pain. There was no trace left of those thin, aesthetic, and deadly nail scratches the woman had left. From the outside, he was an unfortunate, injured worker.
When Cem walked in, his eyes were welling up
Yekta turned to the young boy and put on his warm, fatherly smile. It was just a work accident. Those branches can’t take us down.”. He was certain now; neither those nail scratches nor that paste could give him away.56Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYncP3FfSuz
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