Autopsy, p.20
Autopsy, page 20
“Later he can drop me back at the house. We’ll deal with my car tomorrow,” I explain, and after the day I’ve had I wouldn’t mind being chauffeured by Marino in his big truck full of weapons.
“Fine,” Benton says. “That would make me much happier. With all that’s going on I don’t want you driving yourself around in the middle of the night.”
Chapter 26
Reaching my parking lot, we stop at the security gate. I take off my shoulder harness, placing my briefcase in my lap.
Benton opens his window, entering my code on the keypad, and I think of Marino driving me to Colonial Landing last night. Strains of the creepy Shock Theater theme play in my mind, and it’s ironic that the townhome development has better security than my state government headquarters.
The security gate’s red-striped wooden arm lifts, a barrier you can walk around. Some employees are headed to their cars, the streetlights on their tall masts pushing back the darkness. We park next to my take-home Subaru in its assigned spot where I left it barely twenty-four hours ago.
“I’ll be home as soon as possible.” I grab our White House takeout trash, walking around to the back, and Benton pops open the tailgate.
I pull out the scene case I carried home last night, and his window rolls down as I walk by.
“Be careful, and I mean it,” he says with a smile. “Don’t forget I love you.”
“And don’t you forget,” I reply, and he drives off quietly as I enter the bay to the strong odor of exhaust, the loud noise of a diesel engine running.
A funeral home’s old white van is parked inside, its rear doors open wide. Fabian helps a smartly dressed attendant maneuver an unwieldly stretcher down the concrete ramp that leads into the intake area of the building. The rotund pouched body is covered with a blue velour quilt, the name of the funeral home, Rivers Rest, embroidered on it.
They’re careful not to let their heavy payload get away from them or topple over, the attendant hanging on for dear life while Fabian mutters a few choice words under his breath. He’s dressed in dark blue scrubs and rubber clogs instead of his usual investigative garb, his long jet-black hair tied back in a ponytail.
“What have we got here?” I announce myself, dropping the plastic takeout bags into the trash.
But not before Fabian notices the White House seals on them. He walks over to inspect.
“Yowzers.” He picks up one of the takeout bags. “Looks like you’ve had quite the outing.”
Ignoring his comment, I introduce myself to the attendant, an older man in a dark suit and a polka-dotted red bow tie.
“I’m the new chief,” I explain to him, and his van is gushing exhaust that’s filling the bay.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Howie Rivers.” He nods at me, then resumes ferrying his unwieldy cargo, one of the stretcher’s wheels sticking.
I push the big green button on the epoxy-sealed cinder block wall, and the motorized door begins to retract with a loud clanking and creaking. Cold air seeps in, and through the big square opening I can see more people headed to their cars. It’s getting to be the magic hour, employees egressing through the lobby, and nothing much has changed.
Most of the scientists and support staff avoid the scenic route through the morgue, the intake area and the vehicle bay. The same was true back in my Richmond days, not everybody interested in seeing the gory source of the evidence they examine. A lot of people don’t want to know a story they might not forget.
DNA scientists in particular don’t want to be told why there’s blood on a weapon, skin cells on a ski mask, seminal fluid on a rug or where the pubic hair came from. For many, all that matters is whose DNA it is or isn’t, and I have to remind myself regularly that what’s routine for me is aberrant to polite society.
“We don’t want to keep vehicle engines running while the door is down,” I remind Fabian and Howie. “Carbon monoxide can build up in a hurry.”
I shouldn’t have to tell them that. They’re well versed in what kills, knowing it up close and personal the same way I do, and I suppose that’s part of the problem. The abnormal becomes normal, and people get complacent if not careless.
“We took a little longer than planned getting her out of the cooler,” Fabian explains. “Not what I’d call a fun time.”
“She weighs over three hundred pounds.” Howie parks the stretcher by the van’s tailgate, and I examine the toe tag attached to the heavy-duty black body bag’s zipper.
The name penned on it isn’t one I recognize, the location simply listed as an alleyway several miles west of here, and it’s the case Rex was telling me about over the phone a few minutes ago. The death occurred late morning while I was inside the Situation Room, and Fabian responded to the scene.
“I was present for the autopsy,” he lets me know as I help them collapse the stretcher’s legs.
We slide the body into the back of the van, and Howie drives off in a wake of belching exhaust.
“You need some help carrying all that?” Fabian asks as I collect my belongings off the concrete floor.
“I’ve got it but thanks.” I walk up the ramp, and he hurries ahead of me to open the door.
“I’m ready and waiting if anything good comes in,” he adds, and nothing coming into this place is ever good.
He follows me inside, an empty gurney on the floor scale that he rolls past the cooler and freezer, in the direction of the autopsy suite. I head to the security office directly ahead, and Wyatt is sitting at his desk. On the ledge outside his window is the big black morgue log anchored by a thin chain, the ballpoint pen attached by a string so no one can walk off with them.
The Virginia medical examiner’s system has been keeping the logs since the early 1940s, and like the notebooks I carry, the records are initial impressions. They’re what first responders jotted down at the time, the entries made by those who bring the dead and carry them away.
For the most part, we’re talking about funeral home and removal service attendants. But it could be one of my investigators, especially if I’m worried about preserving evidence during transport. But also, when a body has no other secure means of conveyance, we take care of it, and that became common practice during the pandemic.
Commercial transporters were overwhelmed, and my former forensic center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had no choice but to take care of all pickups and removals in our black windowless vans. That placed the drivers solidly in the chain of evidence, and what a huge responsibility, not to mention a liability. The log is an important legal guestbook that people shouldn’t want their names in for any reason.
I’ve always considered it my truest and most important snapshot of what I’m dealing with, and it’s my habit to check the latest entries first thing when I get to work. I take a look again before leaving at day’s end, and if the initial information turns out to be incorrect, a statement to that effect must be added to the decedent’s record.
Setting down my scene case and other belongings, I open the big hardbound ledger with its pale green lined pages.
“How are you this evening?” I ask Wyatt. “Thanks for holding down the fort while I’ve been gone.”
“As best I can.” He dabs his lips with a napkin, the crinkle of paper amplified by the window’s speak-thru, and he’s got his air purifier going full tilt.
I can see from the log that since Marino drove away with me about this time last night, eight cases have come in. Two motor vehicle fatalities, a suicide by hanging, two natural causes, and the three possible overdoses pending toxicology. Most of the bodies have been released, including the one I saw inside the bay a few minutes ago.
“Did you just get here?” I notice the remains of a meal from Wendy’s on his desk, the overflowing trash can, and how tired and stressed he looks.
“No, ma’am. I’ve been here since eight o’clock and won’t get off until midnight.”
“Why are you doing a double shift?”
“It’s not like I had a say about it.” Dipping a french fry into ketchup, he lets me know that the security officer scheduled to come in this morning wasn’t feeling well, supposedly.
“I’m sorry to hear that’s happened again.” It’s not the first time, and it would have been nice for Maggie to tell me.
“Another headache that he blames on allergies.” Wyatt takes a loud sip of his melted Frosty. “Huh. The only thing he’s allergic to is work.”
“I’m sorry you were inconvenienced,” I reply, and it’s just one more thing to straighten out. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you eat in your office.” I know full well how much he hates the morgue. “You always have your meals in the breakroom.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s correct,” he says, and I go on to remind him that the library and conference room also are options.
There are video monitors in most places, making it easy for the security officers and people like me to keep an eye on the surveillance cameras. In other words, it’s safer and far more civilized to eat upstairs.
“You don’t have to tell me.” He doesn’t hide his aggravation. “Especially after that funeral home just wheeled a dead body out. And they don’t know what killed the person or two others that were autopsied today. How do I know what’s in the air? It wasn’t my idea to eat down here, and when Fabian made a Wendy’s run, he dropped my food on my desk. I was told to stay put.”
“He told you that?”
“Maggie passed the message along through him,” Wyatt says resentfully, and my secretary acting like she’s in charge seems to be an intractable problem. “She’s worried about reporters showing up. Especially that woman whose crew’s been hanging around because of the big story she’s doing.”
“Dana Diletti,” I presume.
“Uh-huh, the one whose house got broken into. Well, Maggie’s got it in her head that some reporter like that might sneak in when the bay door opens or who knows what.” He takes another bite of chili while I turn the log’s big heavy pages back eight months.
He informs me that until a little while ago, there were TV trucks pulled off the road beyond our parking lot. Journalists and their crews were filming around the complex as staff and police, the hearses and vans were coming and going. Apparently, the hope is to capture Gwen Hainey’s body being driven away, and I let Wyatt know she’s not going anywhere today.
“Probably not tomorrow, either. Hers is a complicated case, and she may be with us for a while yet,” I say to him. “And you don’t need to feel trapped inside your office. That’s ridiculous.”
I don’t care what Maggie or anyone else says. As long as he’s down here when there’s a pickup or delivery, that’s what matters. The rest of the time he can hang out upstairs, and turning another page, I find Cammie Ramada, her name neatly written in black ink. The address where her death occurred is the beach at Daingerfield Island, and I have to wonder what she was doing on the shore after dark.
Her body was delivered to the morgue at 12:50 a.m. on Sunday, April 11, and it would seem her correct identity was known from the start. Perhaps some form of identification was found at the scene, her cause of death “possible drowning.” The manner of it is abbreviated as “UND” for undetermined, and I hear Fruge’s voice in my head.
“But your office eventually decided it was an accident without a doubt, and without testing evidence I might add,” she said, and I remember being struck by the word eventually.
The implication is that the death was suspicious at first, and I ask Wyatt if he happened to be working that early morning. I wonder what he might remember about the case.
“I realize it was more than seven months and a lot of bodies ago.” I tell him who I’m talking about.
“Oh yeah, I remember that one all right.” He takes a bite of a cheeseburger that like everything else must be cold. “After that, I wouldn’t let my daughter go jogging after dark. That’s when bad people come out, and it’s not safe being by yourself anyway. You get hurt, there’s no one around to help.”
“What did you hear about how Cammie Ramada might have gotten hurt?” I close the log.
“I heard she must have fallen, hitting her head, knocking herself out and drowning. She had some medical problem, maybe got disoriented. That’s all I know except it was strange,” he says.
“Were you around when she was autopsied?”
“I never go in there when they’ve got cases.”
“But were you here in your office at the time. Or was someone else on duty?” I ask, and Wyatt nods that yes, he was on duty.
The autopsy waited until Monday morning, and that’s not unusual. Wyatt says he started his shift that day at seven a.m., and I ask if he might have seen police and others associated with the case coming in and out of the morgue.
“Yes, ma’am, it was busy. Mondays almost always are because of what comes in over the weekend. But that morning in particular, there were a lot of people.”
“Who do you remember seeing in connection to the Cammie Ramada death?”
“Well, the FBI was involved, and a couple of their agents were hanging around.” He constantly monitors security camera images on the big computer screen in front of him.
“Did Investigator Ryan from the park police show up?”
“I don’t think I know who that is,” he says, and I doubt August was there.
I haven’t seen his name listed as a witness to the autopsy, and if the FBI had rolled in, the park police were going to be overpowered.
“What about Doctor Reddy?” I ask.
“He may have walked through once, maybe twice.” Wyatt is visibly uncomfortable talking about him.
Chapter 27
“Was Doctor Reddy with anyone when you’d see him pass through?” I ask.
“He was with the FBI.” Wyatt dips a plastic spoon into what’s left of the chili, squeezing out the last few drops of hot sauce.
“Was he in scrubs?” I can bet on the answer.
“No, ma’am. I’m pretty sure he was dressed like he always is. In a suit.” He confirms what I suspect, and I gather my belongings, heading toward the stairs.
I detect the familiar telltale clatter as I near the anthropology lab’s observation windows. The big stockpot simmers on the portable cooktop as it has for days, and it can take quite a while to deflesh and degrease bones completely. When they’re whistle clean, they’ll be examined painstakingly.
We’ll make sure there’s no nick, cut, bullet hole or other defect suggesting violence. At least in this case we know who the man was but not what happened to him or when. We may never know what his final moments were like. But I’m grateful there won’t be yet one more resident in my overcrowded skeleton closet.
I can’t think of a bigger failure than never figuring out who someone was. The eighty-seven unsolved cases Elvin left go back two decades, and I envision the storage closet with its labeled archival boxes, and the distinctive paraffin-like musky odor of waxy old bones.
Reaching the autopsy suite, I don’t see Fabian but his brand of pop music is booming inside the men’s locker room. He’s probably cleaning up, changing back into his investigative clothes, and I take the stairs, my shoes loud on the metal-edged concrete steps. I push my way through the door to the sound of Maggie Cutbush talking to someone.
“. . . I thought you’d want to know.” She’s on her cell phone, and not always aware that her British voice carries.
There’s no one else in the corridor except me, and I decide against noisily rolling my scene case along on its wheels. I keep quiet and my distance.
“. . . No, no, I don’t think so. Nothing new that I know of.” She’s maybe twenty feet in front of me talking hands-free, her wireless earpiece winking blue.
In her standard wool skirt suit and matronly shoes, her hair in a tight bun, she’s carrying an armload of files that probably are destined for my desk eventually.
“. . . Of course, I asked why the sudden interest. But when she gets hold of something? Well, you know this better than anyone.”
I can tell that whoever she’s talking to is high in her pecking order, someone she might care about deeply. There’s a protective tenderness in her tone that I’ve not heard before, and I hope what I suspect turns out to be wrong.
“Yes, like a pit bull, not knowing when to quit, hell-bent on creating the latest drama,” she agrees, walking into her office.
Then I’m walking into mine, setting down my belongings on the conference table. The first order of business is to close the shades as I watch the parking lot continue to empty. Next, I unlock the supply cabinet I obsessively keep stocked with what I consider forensic and medical necessities.
Finding the Narcan nasal spray, I try to ignore what I overheard a moment earlier, doing my best not to let it get to me. I have no doubt who Maggie was talking about, and it’s not true that words don’t hurt. They can hurt mightily, and if I didn’t feel unwelcome and on my own before, I do now, that’s for sure.
“Oh! Well, hello.” She appears in our shared doorway. “I didn’t realize you were here.” A shadow passes behind her eyes, and it may be the first time I’ve seen her flustered.
I’ve just walked into my office, and she’s worried about what I overheard in the corridor while she was talking on the phone. I play dumb, grabbing Narcan from a shelf.
“I just got here at long last.” I place half a dozen doses inside my scene case, promising never to be without them again. “Between traffic jams and protests, and I appreciate your waiting for me.”
“I wasn’t actually, you got here just in time. I was taking care of a few things before leaving.” She watches my every move as if trying to figure me out. “You have a lot of phone messages, I just e-mailed you the list of them. And there’s a stack of cases and death certificates for you to initial. I’ll have them ready shortly.”
“When we texted while Benton and I were stuck in gridlock, you said things are a mess, and I quote. What’s going on besides the day shift security guard calling in sick again? I believe his name is Nathan.” I envision him, built like a bullet, a perpetual sour expression on his face.
“Fine,” Benton says. “That would make me much happier. With all that’s going on I don’t want you driving yourself around in the middle of the night.”
Chapter 26
Reaching my parking lot, we stop at the security gate. I take off my shoulder harness, placing my briefcase in my lap.
Benton opens his window, entering my code on the keypad, and I think of Marino driving me to Colonial Landing last night. Strains of the creepy Shock Theater theme play in my mind, and it’s ironic that the townhome development has better security than my state government headquarters.
The security gate’s red-striped wooden arm lifts, a barrier you can walk around. Some employees are headed to their cars, the streetlights on their tall masts pushing back the darkness. We park next to my take-home Subaru in its assigned spot where I left it barely twenty-four hours ago.
“I’ll be home as soon as possible.” I grab our White House takeout trash, walking around to the back, and Benton pops open the tailgate.
I pull out the scene case I carried home last night, and his window rolls down as I walk by.
“Be careful, and I mean it,” he says with a smile. “Don’t forget I love you.”
“And don’t you forget,” I reply, and he drives off quietly as I enter the bay to the strong odor of exhaust, the loud noise of a diesel engine running.
A funeral home’s old white van is parked inside, its rear doors open wide. Fabian helps a smartly dressed attendant maneuver an unwieldly stretcher down the concrete ramp that leads into the intake area of the building. The rotund pouched body is covered with a blue velour quilt, the name of the funeral home, Rivers Rest, embroidered on it.
They’re careful not to let their heavy payload get away from them or topple over, the attendant hanging on for dear life while Fabian mutters a few choice words under his breath. He’s dressed in dark blue scrubs and rubber clogs instead of his usual investigative garb, his long jet-black hair tied back in a ponytail.
“What have we got here?” I announce myself, dropping the plastic takeout bags into the trash.
But not before Fabian notices the White House seals on them. He walks over to inspect.
“Yowzers.” He picks up one of the takeout bags. “Looks like you’ve had quite the outing.”
Ignoring his comment, I introduce myself to the attendant, an older man in a dark suit and a polka-dotted red bow tie.
“I’m the new chief,” I explain to him, and his van is gushing exhaust that’s filling the bay.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Howie Rivers.” He nods at me, then resumes ferrying his unwieldy cargo, one of the stretcher’s wheels sticking.
I push the big green button on the epoxy-sealed cinder block wall, and the motorized door begins to retract with a loud clanking and creaking. Cold air seeps in, and through the big square opening I can see more people headed to their cars. It’s getting to be the magic hour, employees egressing through the lobby, and nothing much has changed.
Most of the scientists and support staff avoid the scenic route through the morgue, the intake area and the vehicle bay. The same was true back in my Richmond days, not everybody interested in seeing the gory source of the evidence they examine. A lot of people don’t want to know a story they might not forget.
DNA scientists in particular don’t want to be told why there’s blood on a weapon, skin cells on a ski mask, seminal fluid on a rug or where the pubic hair came from. For many, all that matters is whose DNA it is or isn’t, and I have to remind myself regularly that what’s routine for me is aberrant to polite society.
“We don’t want to keep vehicle engines running while the door is down,” I remind Fabian and Howie. “Carbon monoxide can build up in a hurry.”
I shouldn’t have to tell them that. They’re well versed in what kills, knowing it up close and personal the same way I do, and I suppose that’s part of the problem. The abnormal becomes normal, and people get complacent if not careless.
“We took a little longer than planned getting her out of the cooler,” Fabian explains. “Not what I’d call a fun time.”
“She weighs over three hundred pounds.” Howie parks the stretcher by the van’s tailgate, and I examine the toe tag attached to the heavy-duty black body bag’s zipper.
The name penned on it isn’t one I recognize, the location simply listed as an alleyway several miles west of here, and it’s the case Rex was telling me about over the phone a few minutes ago. The death occurred late morning while I was inside the Situation Room, and Fabian responded to the scene.
“I was present for the autopsy,” he lets me know as I help them collapse the stretcher’s legs.
We slide the body into the back of the van, and Howie drives off in a wake of belching exhaust.
“You need some help carrying all that?” Fabian asks as I collect my belongings off the concrete floor.
“I’ve got it but thanks.” I walk up the ramp, and he hurries ahead of me to open the door.
“I’m ready and waiting if anything good comes in,” he adds, and nothing coming into this place is ever good.
He follows me inside, an empty gurney on the floor scale that he rolls past the cooler and freezer, in the direction of the autopsy suite. I head to the security office directly ahead, and Wyatt is sitting at his desk. On the ledge outside his window is the big black morgue log anchored by a thin chain, the ballpoint pen attached by a string so no one can walk off with them.
The Virginia medical examiner’s system has been keeping the logs since the early 1940s, and like the notebooks I carry, the records are initial impressions. They’re what first responders jotted down at the time, the entries made by those who bring the dead and carry them away.
For the most part, we’re talking about funeral home and removal service attendants. But it could be one of my investigators, especially if I’m worried about preserving evidence during transport. But also, when a body has no other secure means of conveyance, we take care of it, and that became common practice during the pandemic.
Commercial transporters were overwhelmed, and my former forensic center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, had no choice but to take care of all pickups and removals in our black windowless vans. That placed the drivers solidly in the chain of evidence, and what a huge responsibility, not to mention a liability. The log is an important legal guestbook that people shouldn’t want their names in for any reason.
I’ve always considered it my truest and most important snapshot of what I’m dealing with, and it’s my habit to check the latest entries first thing when I get to work. I take a look again before leaving at day’s end, and if the initial information turns out to be incorrect, a statement to that effect must be added to the decedent’s record.
Setting down my scene case and other belongings, I open the big hardbound ledger with its pale green lined pages.
“How are you this evening?” I ask Wyatt. “Thanks for holding down the fort while I’ve been gone.”
“As best I can.” He dabs his lips with a napkin, the crinkle of paper amplified by the window’s speak-thru, and he’s got his air purifier going full tilt.
I can see from the log that since Marino drove away with me about this time last night, eight cases have come in. Two motor vehicle fatalities, a suicide by hanging, two natural causes, and the three possible overdoses pending toxicology. Most of the bodies have been released, including the one I saw inside the bay a few minutes ago.
“Did you just get here?” I notice the remains of a meal from Wendy’s on his desk, the overflowing trash can, and how tired and stressed he looks.
“No, ma’am. I’ve been here since eight o’clock and won’t get off until midnight.”
“Why are you doing a double shift?”
“It’s not like I had a say about it.” Dipping a french fry into ketchup, he lets me know that the security officer scheduled to come in this morning wasn’t feeling well, supposedly.
“I’m sorry to hear that’s happened again.” It’s not the first time, and it would have been nice for Maggie to tell me.
“Another headache that he blames on allergies.” Wyatt takes a loud sip of his melted Frosty. “Huh. The only thing he’s allergic to is work.”
“I’m sorry you were inconvenienced,” I reply, and it’s just one more thing to straighten out. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you eat in your office.” I know full well how much he hates the morgue. “You always have your meals in the breakroom.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s correct,” he says, and I go on to remind him that the library and conference room also are options.
There are video monitors in most places, making it easy for the security officers and people like me to keep an eye on the surveillance cameras. In other words, it’s safer and far more civilized to eat upstairs.
“You don’t have to tell me.” He doesn’t hide his aggravation. “Especially after that funeral home just wheeled a dead body out. And they don’t know what killed the person or two others that were autopsied today. How do I know what’s in the air? It wasn’t my idea to eat down here, and when Fabian made a Wendy’s run, he dropped my food on my desk. I was told to stay put.”
“He told you that?”
“Maggie passed the message along through him,” Wyatt says resentfully, and my secretary acting like she’s in charge seems to be an intractable problem. “She’s worried about reporters showing up. Especially that woman whose crew’s been hanging around because of the big story she’s doing.”
“Dana Diletti,” I presume.
“Uh-huh, the one whose house got broken into. Well, Maggie’s got it in her head that some reporter like that might sneak in when the bay door opens or who knows what.” He takes another bite of chili while I turn the log’s big heavy pages back eight months.
He informs me that until a little while ago, there were TV trucks pulled off the road beyond our parking lot. Journalists and their crews were filming around the complex as staff and police, the hearses and vans were coming and going. Apparently, the hope is to capture Gwen Hainey’s body being driven away, and I let Wyatt know she’s not going anywhere today.
“Probably not tomorrow, either. Hers is a complicated case, and she may be with us for a while yet,” I say to him. “And you don’t need to feel trapped inside your office. That’s ridiculous.”
I don’t care what Maggie or anyone else says. As long as he’s down here when there’s a pickup or delivery, that’s what matters. The rest of the time he can hang out upstairs, and turning another page, I find Cammie Ramada, her name neatly written in black ink. The address where her death occurred is the beach at Daingerfield Island, and I have to wonder what she was doing on the shore after dark.
Her body was delivered to the morgue at 12:50 a.m. on Sunday, April 11, and it would seem her correct identity was known from the start. Perhaps some form of identification was found at the scene, her cause of death “possible drowning.” The manner of it is abbreviated as “UND” for undetermined, and I hear Fruge’s voice in my head.
“But your office eventually decided it was an accident without a doubt, and without testing evidence I might add,” she said, and I remember being struck by the word eventually.
The implication is that the death was suspicious at first, and I ask Wyatt if he happened to be working that early morning. I wonder what he might remember about the case.
“I realize it was more than seven months and a lot of bodies ago.” I tell him who I’m talking about.
“Oh yeah, I remember that one all right.” He takes a bite of a cheeseburger that like everything else must be cold. “After that, I wouldn’t let my daughter go jogging after dark. That’s when bad people come out, and it’s not safe being by yourself anyway. You get hurt, there’s no one around to help.”
“What did you hear about how Cammie Ramada might have gotten hurt?” I close the log.
“I heard she must have fallen, hitting her head, knocking herself out and drowning. She had some medical problem, maybe got disoriented. That’s all I know except it was strange,” he says.
“Were you around when she was autopsied?”
“I never go in there when they’ve got cases.”
“But were you here in your office at the time. Or was someone else on duty?” I ask, and Wyatt nods that yes, he was on duty.
The autopsy waited until Monday morning, and that’s not unusual. Wyatt says he started his shift that day at seven a.m., and I ask if he might have seen police and others associated with the case coming in and out of the morgue.
“Yes, ma’am, it was busy. Mondays almost always are because of what comes in over the weekend. But that morning in particular, there were a lot of people.”
“Who do you remember seeing in connection to the Cammie Ramada death?”
“Well, the FBI was involved, and a couple of their agents were hanging around.” He constantly monitors security camera images on the big computer screen in front of him.
“Did Investigator Ryan from the park police show up?”
“I don’t think I know who that is,” he says, and I doubt August was there.
I haven’t seen his name listed as a witness to the autopsy, and if the FBI had rolled in, the park police were going to be overpowered.
“What about Doctor Reddy?” I ask.
“He may have walked through once, maybe twice.” Wyatt is visibly uncomfortable talking about him.
Chapter 27
“Was Doctor Reddy with anyone when you’d see him pass through?” I ask.
“He was with the FBI.” Wyatt dips a plastic spoon into what’s left of the chili, squeezing out the last few drops of hot sauce.
“Was he in scrubs?” I can bet on the answer.
“No, ma’am. I’m pretty sure he was dressed like he always is. In a suit.” He confirms what I suspect, and I gather my belongings, heading toward the stairs.
I detect the familiar telltale clatter as I near the anthropology lab’s observation windows. The big stockpot simmers on the portable cooktop as it has for days, and it can take quite a while to deflesh and degrease bones completely. When they’re whistle clean, they’ll be examined painstakingly.
We’ll make sure there’s no nick, cut, bullet hole or other defect suggesting violence. At least in this case we know who the man was but not what happened to him or when. We may never know what his final moments were like. But I’m grateful there won’t be yet one more resident in my overcrowded skeleton closet.
I can’t think of a bigger failure than never figuring out who someone was. The eighty-seven unsolved cases Elvin left go back two decades, and I envision the storage closet with its labeled archival boxes, and the distinctive paraffin-like musky odor of waxy old bones.
Reaching the autopsy suite, I don’t see Fabian but his brand of pop music is booming inside the men’s locker room. He’s probably cleaning up, changing back into his investigative clothes, and I take the stairs, my shoes loud on the metal-edged concrete steps. I push my way through the door to the sound of Maggie Cutbush talking to someone.
“. . . I thought you’d want to know.” She’s on her cell phone, and not always aware that her British voice carries.
There’s no one else in the corridor except me, and I decide against noisily rolling my scene case along on its wheels. I keep quiet and my distance.
“. . . No, no, I don’t think so. Nothing new that I know of.” She’s maybe twenty feet in front of me talking hands-free, her wireless earpiece winking blue.
In her standard wool skirt suit and matronly shoes, her hair in a tight bun, she’s carrying an armload of files that probably are destined for my desk eventually.
“. . . Of course, I asked why the sudden interest. But when she gets hold of something? Well, you know this better than anyone.”
I can tell that whoever she’s talking to is high in her pecking order, someone she might care about deeply. There’s a protective tenderness in her tone that I’ve not heard before, and I hope what I suspect turns out to be wrong.
“Yes, like a pit bull, not knowing when to quit, hell-bent on creating the latest drama,” she agrees, walking into her office.
Then I’m walking into mine, setting down my belongings on the conference table. The first order of business is to close the shades as I watch the parking lot continue to empty. Next, I unlock the supply cabinet I obsessively keep stocked with what I consider forensic and medical necessities.
Finding the Narcan nasal spray, I try to ignore what I overheard a moment earlier, doing my best not to let it get to me. I have no doubt who Maggie was talking about, and it’s not true that words don’t hurt. They can hurt mightily, and if I didn’t feel unwelcome and on my own before, I do now, that’s for sure.
“Oh! Well, hello.” She appears in our shared doorway. “I didn’t realize you were here.” A shadow passes behind her eyes, and it may be the first time I’ve seen her flustered.
I’ve just walked into my office, and she’s worried about what I overheard in the corridor while she was talking on the phone. I play dumb, grabbing Narcan from a shelf.
“I just got here at long last.” I place half a dozen doses inside my scene case, promising never to be without them again. “Between traffic jams and protests, and I appreciate your waiting for me.”
“I wasn’t actually, you got here just in time. I was taking care of a few things before leaving.” She watches my every move as if trying to figure me out. “You have a lot of phone messages, I just e-mailed you the list of them. And there’s a stack of cases and death certificates for you to initial. I’ll have them ready shortly.”
“When we texted while Benton and I were stuck in gridlock, you said things are a mess, and I quote. What’s going on besides the day shift security guard calling in sick again? I believe his name is Nathan.” I envision him, built like a bullet, a perpetual sour expression on his face.
