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That's often all it took. Just start up that Stryker saw, and within seconds of hearing the blade whine, even the biggest and toughest of the newbies hit the floor. Before the saw's blade even touched the body, the thought of what was to come was usually enough to turn legs to jello.

Kay Scarpetta looked up from the body that lay stretched out on the table between them and caught Marino's eyes. They shared an "another one bites the dust" look before Marino bent down and hoisted yet another young detective-in-training to his feet. It was the rare one who ever made it through their first autopsy on their feet.

Scarpetta returned to the body in front of her while Marino propped the young detective on a chair in the corner. The chair was a fixture in the autopsy room. This fainting thing was so routine and with the chair set just so in the corner, the dazed could remain there safely leaning where the walls met until he recovered sufficiently to hold himself up.

"I noticed the neck, Doc" Marino said upon returning to the table.

Without looking up, Scarpetta said, "Hey, you can be the M.E. and I'll sit on my ass in the coffee shop and eat the donuts, okay?"

"Sarcasm becomes you, Doc. Anyone ever tell you that you're a beautiful broad when you're being snide?", Marino said.

Neither of them meant anything by the banter. Their twenty year friendship, a bond formed over some pretty tough, extremely grim circumstances, made them confident in the other's friendship. The coarse talk was a way of dealing with it. Humor often is.

"I noticed the ligature marks on the neck too" Scarpetta began again, this time more seriously. "Some capos cause finish damage when used carelessly, but they never make it actually dead."

"Yeah. I was just noticing…." Marino said.

It was just then that Scarpetta took the Stryker to the top. Marino had seen this so many times that he no longer felt like the poor sucker propped in the corner. Still, it's never easy to see a saw go through the top like that. He watched as Scarpetta peeled back the top wood and began her internal investigation.

After a short while Sarpetta walked away from the table, removing her latex gloves and dropping them in the nearby sanitary container. She was shaking her head as she moved on toward the desk at which she filled out her reports.

"So, what is it, Doc?" Marino asked.

"Well, when I saw it was Norlin era, I assumed. It's no fun, but you still have to go in and find out for sure. The report has to be accurate." She began. "But my initial instinct was right. It's just another case of death by over-bracing".

"Damn" sighed Marino. "And it had such good mahogany too. Damn shame, that."