| |
Halifax, May 9
11:37 a.m.
Allan’s mouth dropped open when he walked into the morgue.
The body of a still-clothed Brad Hawkins lay on a dissection table. The paper bags hadn’t yet been removed from the victim’s hands. The polythene wrap and body bag lay on a counter to be later sent to the forensics lab for analysis.
Dr. Coulter and Lawrence Sodero were dressed in green surgical scrubs, plastic aprons, and latex gloves.
Glancing over, Coulter said, “Detective Stanton. We’re running behind schedule.”
Allan spread his hands. “What happened?”
“Got called to Sackville. Suspicious death. Looks like an OD.”
Allan checked his pager. “Who responded?”
“Detective Price. They probably thought your plate was full enough at the moment.”
“It is,” he said. “How long will the autopsy take?”
“Hour. Hour and a half.”
Sodero said, “Going to join us?”
Allan raised his eyebrows at him. The morgue was the last place he’d rather be. It always had the look and feel of one part laboratory, another part slaughterhouse. The harsh surgical lamps. The hanging meat scales. The steel tables and cabinetry. The smell of disinfectant looming in the air seemed to be as strong as the sense of finality.
Coulter said, “You can wait around if you want.”
Allan looked at the time. He had a shitload of work to do. Once he left here, he didn’t want to come back.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll wait around for a while. As long as I can stomach it.”
Coulter chuckled. “Shouldn’t be too bad. At least he’s fresh.”
Sodero pushed a steel tray across the tile floor. On it lay a small assortment of tools—scalpels, scissors, forceps, rib cutters, a bread knife, a chisel, a Stryker saw.
The examination began with a thorough inspection of the clothing. With the overhead lamps dimmed, Coulter moved a blue light over the entire body, looking for the illumination of trace evidence. He was a cautious man. He worked slowly and meticulously. Lacking an overhead mic, he stopped periodically to take notes that he’d later transcribe to his report.
With Sodero’s help, he turned the body over. Finding no trace on the back side, he turned up the lamps again. Coulter then carefully examined the back of the jacket where the blade had gone through, matching the hole with the correlative wound underneath. Sodero took photographs throughout.
The two men rolled the body onto its back again. Coulter removed the paper bags from the hands and gave them to Sodero, who neatly folded them and sealed each one in a separate evidence bag. Then, without cutting or tearing, they began removing each article of clothing.
Allan thought about how Brad had started his day like anyone else. Got up, showered, and dressed. Now he was being stripped naked by other hands and laid on a metal slab to be photographed and washed by strangers.
Life was so uncertain. It could change in an instant.
Coulter measured the body and then weighed it on an overhead scale.
“Height is one hundred sixty-nine centimeters,” he said. “Weight is eighty-two kilograms.”
He started the examination of the body itself, inspecting the scalp for any injuries hidden by the hair. He checked the ear canals for signs of bleeding, the eyes for petechiae—broken blood vessels suggestive of strangulation or asphyxia. He moved systematically over the face, looking for bruises or cyanosis, then into the mouth for foreign objects, damaged teeth, or cut lips.
“Rigor has now set in the jaw,” he said. “The neck is symmetrical. The trachea is in the midline. No signs of injury to either.”
He moved down the front of the torso to the legs. After finding nothing remarkable, Coulter studied the palms and fingers.
“Signs of rigor in the extremities as well,” he noted. “Nothing to indicate the victim put up much of a fight. No defensive wounds to the hands, the flexor surface, or the ulnar aspects of the forearms.
“There are impact abrasions to the palmar surface of both hands. I attribute this to the pavement after the victim had probably put out his hands to break his fall.”
With Sodero’s help, he turned the body over to examine the wound in the back.
“The blade entered the body vertically on the right side of the spinal column, just missing the medial border of the scapula. Both the top and bottom margins of the wound are squared off.” Coulter leaned closer, eyes narrowing. “There is also a guard mark at the top of the wound, but none at the bottom. The thrust of the weapon came at a downward angle.”
Carefully, he measured the margins of the wound and then the depth of the track. “I can approximate the length of the blade to be about six inches. Not so sure about the shape of the blade, however. The elasticity of the skin can actually distort the wound so that it doesn’t resemble the blade at all.”
Sodero placed a scale beside the wound and photographed it several times.
“The rest of the external investigation is unremarkable,” Coulter said. “There are no bruises, marks, or other trauma anywhere else on the body.”
He clipped the fingernails and packaged them. Then he took fingerprints. As he filled out the print cards, Sodero transferred the body to a metal gurney and covered it with a sheet. Coulter then wheeled the body into an adjacent room to be x-rayed.
Allan took out his notepad and jotted down the details about the knife. Sodero brought him over a plastic apron.
“You might want to wear this, Detective.”
“Thank you, Lawrence.”
“No problem.”
Allan put away his notepad and slipped the apron on. “You enjoy this work?”
“Very much.”
“It never bothers you? The sights, the smells?”
Sodero shook his head. “I find the human body very fascinating. I knew back in grade ten biology when I dissected a fetal pig that I would someday get into this type of work.”
“A fetal pig, huh? In my biology class we only dissected a starfish and a frog. And I found both to be rather disgusting.”
Sodero laughed. “We also used those for dissections. I must say the fetal pig was my favorite, though. Call me weird, but during my years in university I kept one preserved in a jar in my dorm room.”
“Did you give it a name?”
“I did.” Sodero smiled. “I called him Fred.”
Just then, Coulter came back with the body and the developed x-rays. He pinned the images to a view box mounted on the far wall. Allan walked over.
“No broken pieces of blade,” Coulter said. “But the fourth posterior rib is broken, and the fifth is completely severed. Both in the nonarticular portion of the tubercle.” He adjusted his glasses. “The ribs tend to deflect a blade, directing it into the intercostal spaces between them. It requires little pressure for a very sharp blade to enter the human body.” He paused and extended a forefinger, pressing it into Allan’s arm. “About that much pressure, Detective. Once the tip punctures the skin, the rest of the blade glides in with relative ease. But when the blade runs into bone, we have a different story. This wound here required some force.”
Allan scratched his chin, looking past Coulter to the x-rays. “So we’re probably dealing with a male? Perhaps one with considerable strength?”
Coulter removed his glasses. “There’s really no way to quantitate the strength of the individual. You’re correct, the subject is probably a male. I feel the knife is of high quality. Sharp. Strong. Single edged. But you can rarely match a knife to a wound with any certainty. You’d be better off checking a suspect knife for blood, either around the guard or beneath the handle.”
Allan turned to him. “Can you tell the handedness of the suspect?”
“Right handed. I base that on the angle of the wound.” Still looking over the images, Coulter concluded, “There are no other signs of previous trauma here. No healed fractures. No prior operations. All the organs are present. Mr. Hawkins was in good shape.”
Sodero helped him transfer the body to the dissection table again. Coulter put a block under the victim’s back, allowing the chest to rise up, the head and arms to fall back.
That block could only mean one thing; Allan braced himself for what was to come. He watched Coulter take a scalpel from the steel tray. Starting at each shoulder, the medical examiner made an incision down across the chest to the sternum then proceeded down the abdomen, around the navel, and ended at the pubic bone.
With the forceps, he pulled back on the corners of skin. Keeping the tension throughout, he scraped away the underlying tissue. He peeled off the top flap of skin and brought it up over Brad’s chin to expose the vessels in front of the neck. Coulter then cut the pectoral muscles from their attachments to the sternum, intercostals, and clavicles, and reflected them outward. When he finished, the rib cage lay bare.
Standing close by, the faint smell that drifted to Allan was of fresh meat.
Quick, shallow breaths, he told himself. Quick, shallow breaths.
Pale, he watched a mound of coiled intestinal tract shift to one side and then spill onto the table.
The rib cutters Coulter took from the tray resembled gardening loppers. One at a time, he clipped the ribs from the lateral costal margins to the inner clavicles. Allan flinched at each sharp little snip.
Coulter removed the breastplate. Blood began to flow over the table now.
He leaned over the body, eyes intent. “The pericardial sac has been damaged,” he said. “The pleural cavity is full of blood. This is where things get messy.” He turned on a faucet hooked up at the table. “We had very little blood at the scene, Detective, because most of it stayed inside the body, as you can see.”
Allan swallowed as he watched waves of bloody water roll down the raised sides of the table, swirling around the drain between the feet of Brad Hawkins.
“There’s been a stabbing down on Lower Water Street... Your son was involved. ”
“Is he all right?”
“I’m sorry...”
Allan drew a breath and backed up a few steps. The other two men didn’t seem to notice.
Coulter cut open the pericardial sac to expose the heart. With a needle and syringe, he withdrew two vials of blood from the organ. One would be used for toxicology, the other for typing.
Coulter proceeded to take out the heart. He weighed it and then carried it to the sink, where he rinsed it under the water. For some time, he stood there, quiet. Diligently, he examined the wound track. Then, with the bread knife, he began to dissect the heart.
He said, “The blade entered the posterior of the heart at a slight downward angle. Went straight through the anterior wall and punctured the pericardial sac. There’s lethal damage to the right atrium and right ventricle. The right coronary artery had been cut. As well, the superior vena cava and inferior vena cava were both damaged. Death ensued after massive hemorrhage.”
He came back and picked up the breastplate. He turned it over, looking at the underside.
“The tip of the blade actually nicked the posterior surface of the gladiolus.”
Allan noticed the change in Coulter’s normal didactic tone of voice. For a brief spurt, a trace of guarded amazement replaced it. Coulter’s eyes became reflective, as though trying to remember if he had seen this before.
“Good thing the blade wasn’t longer,” he said. “It could’ve come out the front of the chest.”
He went back to work on the body, removing the pericardial sac. Next came the lungs. Another odor, acrid and metallic, began to overpower the smell of meat. Allan found himself staring into the thoracic cavity at a pool of blood that looked inches deep. He put a hand to his nose.
“You okay, Detective?” Sodero asked him.
“It’s just the smell. Nothing serious.”
Coulter glanced over from the sink. “We have some VapoRub. Might help you.”
Allan put up a hand. “No, I’m fine. Really. How much longer?”
“Not long now,” Coulter said. “The root of the right lung is damaged. Wasn’t life threatening, though.”
He came back over and inspected the neck for trauma. With the scalpel slicing away, he took out the larynx, trachea, carotids, and tongue. These were explored at an adjacent table.
He systematically emptied the abdominal cavity and checked the stomach for undigested food. Once more, he didn’t find anything noteworthy. He finished up by collecting tissue samples of all the major organs for later microscopic analysis and one vial of urine through the fundus in the bladder.
Sodero took the block from beneath the victim’s back and placed it under the head. Scalpel in hand, he started an incision behind the right ear across the crown of the head to the back of the left ear. Face straining, he pulled the front section of scalp up and over the top of the head, rolling it down over the victim’s face. The back section was pulled down to the nape of the neck. All semblance of Brad Hawkins had now disappeared, buried under a contortion of skin.
Allan winced. Flesh and bone. We’re all just flesh and bone.
Coulter took over at this point. Using the Stryker saw, he cut around the perimeter of the cranium. Before he could lift away the skullcap, he had to remove the dura mater that adhered to the inside. He took a chisel and slid it under the edge of the cranium, gingerly prying away the thick membrane. As the top of the skull was worked free, there was a wet sucking sound.
“No signs of epidural hematoma,” Coulter said. “Meninges are clear.”
Next, he stripped away the white dura to reveal the convoluted surface of the brain. It glistened under the powerful overhead lights.
“The cerebrum looks good. No subdural hematoma or signs of other hemorrhaging.”
Gently working his fingers down the sides of the brain, he lifted on the frontal lobes. He skillfully cut through nerves, arteries, and the intersection between the spinal column and brain stem. In his hands, the brain quivered like a gelatinous mass as he carried it to the scale and weighed it. Coulter then suspended the organ in a jar of formalin.
With the autopsy over, Sodero poured the hodgepodge of organs into the body cavity and set the breastplate onto the chest. Threading heavy twine through the eye of a hagedorn needle, he began stitching up the abdomen.
The brain would not go back with the body. Coulter positioned the cranium in place and then rolled the scalp back over the top of it. As if by magic, the face of Brad Hawkins reappeared.
“I’ll have my full report to you in the morning, Detective,” said Coulter. “Concerning the time of death, I can say it happened within two hours of the body being discovered. I can neither approve nor disprove the timeline you gave me earlier.”
“I understand how hard it is. Thank you very much.”
Allan removed the plastic apron and left.
He stopped in the hallway, took out his notepad again, and began to write:
1. Right-handed male.
2. Special skill with knives?
3. Pickup.
4. Cash and credit cards left in wallet.
5. Notebook missing.
6. No defense wounds.
Allan put the notepad away. He checked his watch: 2:05 p.m. Already eight hours into the murder, and he’d barely made a dent in the investigation.
