Dr. Parrish had seen many terrible ways to die. During her twenty-two years as a medical examiner for the city of New York, she's seen just about every conceivable way a human being can leave the life they had either by their own hand or someone else's.
But what lies on the table in front of her is something that she has never seen before. She has a job to do and it doesn't matter who lies in front of her. They could be a senator's wife, a young lady of the evening, a city councilman, or a six-year-old child, they will get her undivided attention and compassion. But to see this woman lying on her table she can only hope that her death was swift.
She starts by removing all of her clothing. By the time her clothing is completely removed, she sees that there are many tattoos and some have been damaged by the gunshot wounds she received. Janelle is a fair-skinned African American woman and most of her tattoos are of colorful nature. On her right hip, she has the Japanese symbol for strength. She knows this because she herself has the same symbol but it's in a different location. There are twelve identifying tattoos in all and she writes a description of each one on the preliminary intake examination form.
She notes that all of the gunshot wounds are all below the neckline. But here is where it becomes complicated. There is a small entrance wound on the left side of her head. She can tell that it is a wound from a small caliber weapon, but there is no exit wound. She guesses that it would be a .22 caliber and the bullet is still inside her head. She only can hope that this wound was made before she received the other gunshot wounds because if they weren't she can't imagine the pain that she went through.
She takes her time making the "Y" incision on her chest. Once this is done, the chest flap is pulled up over her face, exposing the ribcage and neck muscles. Two cuts are made on each side of the ribcage, and then the ribcage is pulled from the chest area after dissecting the tissue behind it with a scalpel. This allows her to retrieve some of the bullets that entered her body.
With care, she removes all of her internal organs and finds that even if she were to survive her gunshot wounds she would have been paralyzed. One round severed her spinal cord and it would've made her a paraplegic. She carefully retrieves twenty-six rounds in total. She has to recount the bullet holes in her body because something doesn't add up. She finds twenty-three holes in her body and she can only theorize that three of the bullets went through three of the same holes.
Next Lanie will then remove the body block from her back and put it behind her neck like a pillow, raising the head of the body so that it's easier to remove her brain. She makes a cut with a scalpel from behind one ear, across the forehead, to the other ear, and around. The cut is divided, and the scalp is pulled away from the skull in two flaps. The front flap goes over her face and the rear flap over the back of her neck. She removes her brain and usually she can find the round after she removes it but in this case, it's not visible inside her skull. She can see the path the bullet took through the brain and what most likely happened is that it hit the right side of her skull and embedded itself back into the right side of her brain. It only takes fifteen minutes but she finds the .22 caliber round and puts it in an evidence bag for later comparison.
She finishes up the rest of the autopsy and it's pretty much textbook from this point on. As she completes the autopsy he makes notes on the types of wounds and other pertinent information for her final report.
From there she bathes the mayor's daughter in a solution of chamomile and bergamot. This will mask the odor of her being in the morgue. Later when the mayor comes to identify his daughter she will ask him for clothing for her to wear for the funeral. Once those clothes are delivered she will dress her in those clothes. She looks upon the young woman and wonders how this could have ever happened. She had her whole life in front of her and she ends up on her table, dead. She can only hope that her friend catches the case and solves her murder.
Lanie places a sheet over Janelle's body and covers her head with it. For now, until the mayor and his wife arrive she will be stored in a locker. Once they come down to identify her daughter there will only be an identification from the neck up.
Lanie heads back to the second autopsy table and takes in the body that lies on it. Whoever this was was already dead when they were burned. When people are alive and they are burned in this manner they usually tend to revert to the pugilistic stance. This person died prior to being burned because their body is not in the pugilistic stance position. That's not to say that all people end up in this position. But she can tell that it's a good indication that this person was already dead before they were burned. Lanie remembers what her professor at medical school taught her about being burned alive.
In the process of being burned to death, a body experiences burns to exposed tissue, changes in content and distribution of body fluid, fixation of tissue, and shrinkage of the skin. Internal organs may be shrunken due to fluid loss. Shrinkage and contraction of the muscles may cause joints to flex and the body to adopt the "pugilistic stance" or the boxer stance, with the elbows and knees flexed and the fists clenched. Shrinkage of the skin around the neck may be severe enough to strangle a victim. Fluid shifts, especially in the skull and in the hollow organs of the abdomen, can cause pseudo-hemorrhages in the form of heat hematomas.
The amount of pain experienced is greatest at the beginning of the burning process before the flame burns the nerves, after which the skin does not hurt. Many victims die quickly from suffocation as hot gases damage the respiratory tract. Those who survive the burning frequently die within days as the lungs' alveoli fill with fluid and the victim dies of pulmonary edema.
Everything that they taught her in college is sitting on the table in front of her. She knows this person was killed before they were burned. Now she has to determine how he was initially killed before he was burned. She's never seen something like this before. Strike that, she has seen this before many times but not to the extent she sees it now.
The procedure is a little different than the previous autopsy she had previously conducted. Janelle was easy in every sense of the word. This will be very tough. Lanie starts with basic measurements to determine the gender of the person. After her measurements are complete her first indication is that this is a man. She can determine this by the size of the pelvis. Women have differently shaped pelvises than men. She can tell immediately that this is a man, a man who didn't need to come to her in this state.
As usual, she treated him with the care that everyone came to expect from her. In her mind, it didn't matter what this person did in order to get here just the fact that he or she was taken care of was all that mattered to her. Just as she is getting ready to start working on the man on her table the phone in the morgue rings. She pulls off her gloves and walks over to the phone hanging on the wall she picks it up and answers.
"OCME how can I help you?" Lanie says.
She waits as the person on the other end explains their problem. Then she answers in return.
"Cynthia just tell them that there is not much I'm able to do in order to prepare them for what they are about to face. It's pretty much cut and dry. But if they're okay with coming down I can present them to their daughter. This way they know how they want to proceed if at all. If you have any questions you can call me anytime. But until then I'll be expecting them within the hour." Lanie listens for another thirty seconds and then hangs up the phone. Losing a child is always heartbreaking.
By the time she is halfway through the second autopsy on the burnt body, the phone rings once again. She strips off her gloves and walks back over to the phone hanging on the wall and answers it. This time she's informed that the mayor and his wife are on their way down to the morgue. This will be hard no matter how she looks at it. She quickly walks over to the second body she was autopsying and pulls the sheet over the burned body. She then pulls off her protective gown and throws it into the bin that holds the used gowns in it. She throws her gloves into the medical waste bin and washes her hands. She goes to her office pulls off her lab coat with her name on it and puts it on. Just as she turns to leave her office the elevator dings and she walks over to greet the mayor and his wife.
She can see that Gail had been crying. And that's to be expected. But what she didn't expect to see was the mayor himself. It looked like he had aged twenty years in the last two hours. She had no words of consolation for the two people standing in front of her. So she wordlessly moves them over to the crypt area. They all walked over to a drawer marked Janelle Weldon. Lanie looks over to the mayor and his wife and gives them a courtly nod. She then pulls the drawer out and stops halfway. They're only here to make an identification and don't need to see the exact cause of death even though she is under a sheet.
"Dr. Parrish thank you for letting us come down and identify our daughter. I know it's against policy but could you possibly give us our cause of death?" Mayor Weldon asked.
"Mayor Weldon your daughter was met with a very vicious death. She was shot a total of twenty-five times but she survived those initial gunshot wounds. Whoever it was who did this to her made sure she was not going to survive and shot her in the head. Her cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. The time of death was between eight p.m. and midnight yesterday. My condolences to you and your wife."
Lanie looks to Gail who now has her head buried in her husband's shoulder sobbing uncontrollably. This is the part of the job that she really hates the most. Telling someone that their loved one is moved on to a better place. She herself would never want to be on the receiving end of something like this. She lets the couple grieve for their daughter and after about twenty minutes of standing there she slowly closes the drawer to the crypt that their daughter is in. It's times like these when she has total faith in her best friend. Because if she didn't have that faith people would never get the closure that they are looking for.
Lanie ventures a look at the mayor and his wife and can see that each is unconsolable at this time. Without them even knowing it she moved them to her office and sits them down on the couch across from her desk. She pulls over a chair that is next to the doorway and sits directly in front of them.
"Mr. Weldon, Gail, I know how difficult this is for both of you and you have my sympathies. If there is anything I can do to make your grief more at ease please just let me know." Lanie told them.
Before she knew it Gail was out of her seat on the couch and bent over Lanie pulling her into a fierce hug. This was not an uncommon reaction when someone was told about their loved ones. She would not deprive them of their emotional response to what they had just been through. She wrapped her arms around Gail's back and let her have her moment. The mayor watched on and she could tell that he was just emotionally shaken as his wife was. The tears that were flowing freely down his cheeks were all the indication she needed. After about five minutes of consoling Lanie asked what they wanted to do about adorning their daughter for the funeral service she knew was going to be held.
"Dr. Parrish I'm not sure that an open casket is what we both want at this time. I don't think that you will be able to hide the wound in her head from where whoever it was shot her. But if you think that it's possible to do that then I will never question your professional integrity again."
"Robert if I can call you that, I'm sure that I can present your daughter for her funeral with the ability to hide her wounds so she won't be looked upon as someone who had a head wound. I would like to know if you have something that you would like to dress her in for her final appearance."
"Dr. Parrish I'm grateful for the concern that you have given my daughter. You have gone above and beyond the scope of your job. I'll make sure that my husband drops off something fitting for my daughter to wear for her funeral." Gail says cutting off her husband before he can answer.
Lanie escorts the Weldons out of the morgue and to the elevator. She once again assures them that they have nothing to worry about and she will take care of everything. As they both get on the elevator she wonders how they're going to process all the information they just learned today.
True to her word, a courier drops off a dress box in less than an hour. Inside the box is a floral print dress. Along with the dress, there is also a note from the mayor's wife.
"Dr. Parrish, my daughter always loved flowers. Please place her in this for me for the funeral. Thank you, Gail."
Lanie could not imagine how hard it was for her to do this. She knows that if it was herself she would be breaking down emotionally by now.
A/N: My apologies for the tardiness of this posting. I'm in Atlantic City with my bride for Valentine's day weekend and slept in a little too late for my usual posting time. Go EAGLES!