Millar pulled into the parking lot of the coroner’s office just behind Penner. The coroner’s office was located in the lower level of a new medical building only two blocks from the police station. Until recently, the old building had been located in the west end of the city, which, depending on the time of day and traffic, could take an hour to get to. Even longer in the winter, if there was a good dumping of snow. The new building was much more convenient. And modern. When they entered the large, brightly lit autopsy room, they could see Ms. Wong’s body was already under a sheet on a stainless steel table. Millar grabbed two masks and a couple of pairs of gloves from a shelf beside the door, handing a set to Penner.
‘Thanks. Morning, Faye,’ Penner said, walking to the side of the table in the middle of the room, putting on her mask and gloves. Millar slipped on his gloves but didn’t bother putting on the mask, instead just holding it up to his face.
‘Detectives,’ Faye responded. ‘So, we just got started. Karen Wong, four foot seven inches tall, ninety-seven pounds. I looked over her clothes. There was some blood on the back of her dress, right around the neck line, but not much. A few more drops down the back of her dress. Seems to me like the hit on the back of her head happened and then she ended up in a prone position; I can definitely rule out where she was found as the crime scene. If she had been laying down there, there would have been a pool of blood. If she had been hit and ended up sitting like she was found, the back of her dress would have had a lot more blood.’
‘So, she was definitely moved then,’ Millar said, leaning in to get a closer look at Ms. Wong’s head. ‘Any idea what she was hit with? Could she have fallen and bashed it on something? Maybe she came out of a bar from a night of drinking, tripped, fell backwards and hit her head. One of her friends carried her to the scene, got scared and just left her?’
‘It’s possible, but I didn’t smell any alcohol on her. Usually, if someone’s really drunk, you can smell it in their blood. I did take a blood sample—my assistant’s processing it right now. He should be done with it shortly,’ Faye said, moving around the table. ‘Also, if you look at the bash on her head, here, help me turn her over.’ Millar slid on his mask and he and Penner helped turn Ms. Wong over onto her stomach. ‘See how clean the gash looks, well, other than the dried blood? There doesn’t seem to be any foreign material in the wound at all.’ Faye pulled an electron microscope down, which was hanging from the ceiling on a long, multi-jointed arm. It looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. ‘Sue, can you go and turn on the large screen against the wall there.’ Penner walked to the foot of the table and pressed the button on the side of a large monitor.
‘Did you see this, Faye?’ Millar asked, pointing to a bruised area on Ms. Wong’s right elbow. The bruise wasn’t very large, but to Millar’s untrained eye it looked rather fresh. He had seen many bruises since Tina took up wrestling. Over the years, she had come home with a wide array of bruises—different sizes, different locations. He was always amazed at the different colours that they turned over time. Purple, red, blue, green, brown.
‘No, but I hadn’t gotten to her full exam yet. Good catch, though,’ Faye said. Millar was surprised—it was pretty rare for Faye to say anything nice to him. He winked at Penner, patting himself on the shoulder. She shook her head, her red hair hiding a grin. ‘Okay, let’s have a look at this cut.’ Faye maneuvered the microscope just above the back of Ms. Wong’s head, looking at the screen as she did. After a bit of manipulation, the image on the screen was crisp and in focus.
As they were looking at the screen, the door opened and Faye’s assistant walked in.
‘Dr. Pelow, I have the results. Morning, Detectives,’ he said.
‘And?’ Faye asked, turning her gaze away from the screen.
‘No alcohol, no drugs. Pretty clean sample really.’
‘So, there you go Millar. We can rule out a night of drinking,’ Faye said, turning her attention back to the monitor. ‘If you look at the centre of the cut, it’s clean. If she had fallen, I would expect some dirt, grass, rock, something. Especially with the depth of the wound, she would have hit really hard. Plus, where her skull is actually shattered, I would think she would have had to have fallen onto something, like a large rock or a concrete parking curb. No, I would be inclined to rule that out.’
‘So, any thoughts then?’ Penner asked. She had returned to the table beside Faye.
‘At first, I was thinking something like a baseball bat, but the size isn’t quite right. The damage could have been done by a bat, but the wound doesn’t seem wide enough to me.’ Faye looked over her shoulder at her assistant. ‘Andrew, can you grab me the ruler?’
‘Sure thing.’ Faye’s assistant opened the top drawer of a filing cabinet. He pulled out a foot-long plastic, transparent ruler and handed it to Faye.
‘Thanks. Also, if you don’t mind, can you put on some coffee? I’m knackered,’ Faye asked, taking the ruler.
‘If you’re making coffee…’ Penner added hopefully.
‘No problem. Detective Millar?’ Andrew asked as he was halfway out the door.
‘Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks,’ Millar replied. Andrew shut the door behind him.
Faye put the ruler up to the back of Ms. Wong’s head. ‘So, length of wound, 2.9 inches. Width, 1.3…no, make that 1.25 inches,’ Faye said, scribbling down some notes.
‘How wide is a bat?’ Penner asked, looking back to the screen.
‘Bigger than that,’ Faye said, putting the ruler on the table next to Ms. Wong. She walked over to her computer on the counter beside the filing cabinet and logged in. Penner and Millar walked over beside her to see what she was doing. She typed a few things, moved the mouse and clicked on a button. ‘Right. So, here we have a database of different types of wounds caused by different weapons and, well, ordinary items that were used as weapons. It’s really quite amazing. It’s a collaboration between the FBI and medical examiners from around the world. We just got the newest version here in Canada last month.’
‘So, how’s it work? Can you search by wound, or weapon, or…?’ Millar asked.
‘Whatever you want, and you can put in combinations, too,’ Faye said, typing and scrolling as she spoke. ‘I wish I had this type of resource bank during my entire career, not just towards the end. It would have made my job so much easier. New coroners don’t know how good they have it. Okay, first, let’s see what the dimensions of the average baseball bat is.’ She clicked on a pull-down box on the top of the screen entitled ‘Weapon’, and scrolled to ‘Bat – Baseball’.
‘Wow, there are so many options in there!’ Penner exclaimed in surprise.
‘Thousands. Tens of thousands. The software was years in the making. This latest version is a real improvement. They added so much information, and they also have a separate database with different pictures of wounds so you can do a really good comparison. Pretty gruesome, some of the pics, but a real useful tool,’ Faye said. ‘Alright, so according to this, the average length for a wooden baseball bat is 48 inches, average width is 2.75 inches and average weight is 2.1 pounds. Now, for an aluminum bat, the width varies a bit, so between 2 and 2.75 inches.’
‘So could the smaller bat have been the weapon?’ Millar asked.
‘It’s possible, but I would expect the wound to be closer to the size of the weapon used. We’re about three quarters of an inch smaller,’ Faye said, as Andrew walked in, carrying a pot of coffee and four mugs.
‘If you need cream or sugar, there’s some in the kitchen next door—I couldn’t carry it all,’ Andrew said, passing out mugs and then filling them.
‘Black’s fine, thanks,’ said Penner, quickly claiming her cup. Millar was good with black coffee, too, as was Faye.
‘Right, what if we put in the dimensions of the wound and see what it returns, eh?’ Faye said. She selected another drop-down box titled ‘Wound’. Here, she was able to input the length, width and depth. Next, she was prompted to input the body part where the wound was located. After clicking ‘OK’, a whole list of information appeared on the screen, including some horrific looking pictures.
‘Man, that’s crazy! Someone put in a lot of hours cataloging all the info. So, what’ve we got?’ Millar asked, leaning in closer to the screen.
‘Well, one of the possible matches for what made the wound is the edge of a cricket bat. Many cricket players here?’ Faye asked.
‘Maybe, but I’m really not sure,’ Penner said hesitantly. ‘I don’t even know what a cricket bat looks like.’
‘Me, neither,’ said Faye. She clicked on the word ‘Cricket’ on the screen and it brought up a picture of a long, flat faced bat. ‘So, looks like the edge of the bat is around 1.6 inches, so that could be it, if it was used on an angle.’
‘Seems like a long shot, but possible I guess.’ Millar wasn’t convinced. He pulled out his note pad and made a note. ‘I’ll get one of the patrol guys to do some digging, maybe there is a cricket league in town we’re not aware of. What else?’
‘Well,’ Faye said, going back to the previous page. ‘Maybe a crowbar, they come in a lot of different sizes.’ She clicked on the image beside the title ‘Crowbar’. About a dozen pictures of head wounds appeared on the screen.
‘This one’s similar,’ said Penner, pointing to the fifth picture. ‘OK, so we have two possibilities.’
Faye went back again. ‘Tire iron isn’t quite the right size, I don’t think. Maglite is too big. Steel toed boots is the wrong shape of wound.’ Faye kept clicking and looking for another twenty minutes.
Another pot of coffee later, Faye said, ‘Could be a police baton.’ She clicked on the link to bring up the pictures.
‘That looks really similar.’ Millar looked closer at the ninth picture on the screen. ‘What are the dimensions?’
‘Says 1.3 inches in diameter. Interesting,’ said Faye. ‘Well, that’s another possibility worth looking into.’ They continued looking at photos and descriptions, narrowing down their search, but not coming up with many more options.
‘Alright. Time to do the full exam of the body. You’re more than welcome to stick around if you want,’ Faye said, as she and her assistant went back to the examination table and began to gather their tools.
Millar looked at his watch. ‘We should probably get to Ms. Wong’s place, eh?’
‘You’re right.’ Penner placed her empty coffee cup on a shelf. ‘Let us know if you find anything else, Faye. Thanks for the coffee, Andrew.’
Millar and Penner left the cold examination room and headed into the hall to the elevator.
‘I have to stop at the office before we go. Meet me there, then we can just take one car,’ Penner said as the elevator door opened.
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Millar said. ‘I’ll race you there.’ The door closed behind them.