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After Dr. Harrison had made it back to the morgue with the body, she was placed on the autopsy table. He confirmed that she had been dead for over thirty days. Experience had taught him that the tissues soften so much in water they expand far beyond normal dimensions. Water also bleached the skin.
The flesh was completely bloodless, and the slightest touch caused the skin to separate and dissolve. He knew there was no hope of retrieving any evidence off of the body. The bayou made sure of that. Dr. Harrison groaned to himself when he considered his task at hand. His job was going to be difficult. Drowning victims were the worst. Water did strange, horrifying things to flesh.
Working in south Louisiana, this close to the water, he had become an expert on what happened to a body when it had been submerged over time. Unfortunately, there were a few subjects that weren’t addressed in depth in medical school and the pathological condition of drowning victims happened to be one of them. Sadly, most of what he had learned had been from experience.
As far as the bones went, they would need to be sent to a forensic anthropologist. Bone analysis was out of his realm of expertise.
But he had an old friend with the FBI who worked with a facial reconstruction artist who was supposed to be an expert. If he agreed to help, he suspected he would want the skeletal remains shipped to their lab instead of coming here where they didn’t have the necessary equipment.
He called Dr. Frank Bendell, “Mon ami, it’s been a long time, mais non?”
Dr. Bendell replied back, “Mais oui, how are you my old friend?”
“I have been better. I have a case in my morgue right now that may interest your team, but the funds may not be as high as your usual cases.”
Dr. Bendell knew that if Dr. Harrison was calling in a favor it must be something big, “What exactly is it that you have?”
“A watery graveyard has been found deep in the bayou here. Several bodies, or I should say skeletal remains, have been uncovered so far. The remains are too far gone for me, and I thought of you and your team. The only way we may be able to identify any of these victims is by facial reconstruction, and I know your assistant is one of the best in her field.”
“That she is. How many are we talking about?”
“Last count they pulled fifteen bodies out of the water, but there could be more. They are sending in a special robot to travel along the bayou floor, but some may have sunk too deep to make recovery possible.”
“Mon Dieu, you have a mass murderer on your hands, mais non?”
Dr. Harrison replied, “Mais oui.”
Dr. Bendell instructed him, “Box up what you have and send them as soon as possible. My team and I will not charge you as long as we are allowed to write a journal about this case.”
“I will run it by Sheriff Riley, but I don’t see where he would have a problem with that. Everyone wants to put these poor souls to rest, mon ami.”
“Good, good. Just let me know when you have an answer and if you send me the remains. We will get to work on them as soon as possible.”