Dr. Maggie Ross looked down at the body on the autopsy table in front of her with a professional eye. Accident, suicide, or homicide? She reflected that the BPD still thought the latter was a possibility, albeit a rather unlikely one. The district attorney, Micaela Barboza, had requested the autopsy at their insistence. That was usually a mere formality. In about an hour, she would know more, although she already had suspicions about it. She had already heard from Nikki that the man had no money or identification on him. Although Maggie knew that this meant nothing. The man wouldn't have had to have his wallet with him when he went into the water, or it might have slipped out of his pocket in the current. But her instinct told her that this wasn't necessarily the case. And she could usually rely on her instincts.
Before Maggie began her work, she went over all the information she had on the case again. She looked at the notes in front of her. It was around noon the previous day when Enno Jones had pulled the man's body out of the river. Jones had seen the lifeless figure in the water from across the street shortly after making an unscheduled stop because his car's engine was stuttering. After pulling the body from the water, he called 9-1-1. The paramedics realized immediately that any medical assistance would be too late because even a cursory examination showed that putrefaction had already set in.
The deceased wore dark trousers, a denim jacket, and a T-shirt underneath. His left foot was in a dark brown sock with large, colorful polka dots, while his right was bare. The officers who arrived a little later had examined the dead man's wholly soaked and dirty clothes for identification papers or other clues but without success. It's not much, thought Maggie, but it's a start.
She glanced at her assistant pathologist, Teresa Cox, standing at the far end of the autopsy table. Maggie met the young woman's light blue eyes.
"A case for Homicide?" the young woman asked, putting into words the thought that was also running through the ME's mind.
"It's hard to say, but we'll know more soon."
The background to Cox's question was, however, of crucial importance. Because if the suspicion of homicide was confirmed during her examination, Maggie would have to stop the autopsy immediately and notify the homicide squad.
The homicide squad would then come to the morgue shortly afterward, usually accompanied by the responsible prosecutor.
Maggie looked frowning at the dead man, then said, "Let's get started. As soon as we have a clue that violence may have been involved, we'll call in Homicide. But if it turns out to be an accident, we don't want to have wasted the detectives' time."
Cox nodded, and Maggie began the external examination, recording every detail on her dictaphone.
She proceeded systematically, starting with the dead man's clothing. She couldn't see any signs of defects that might have resulted from stab or gunshot wounds. Nor did she see any blood-suspicious traces on the clothing, which was not surprising either. Because the clothed body had apparently been in the water for quite some time.
The next moment, however, her expression brightened. "Look," the redhead said with a knowing smile on her face, pointing to the left nipple of the dead man. 'What do you think it is?'
Cox now also leaned over the dead body. 'It looks like a mole, doesn't it?' she replied with a doubtful tone, unsure if she had overlooked something.
"You're right. At first glance, yes. But take a closer look again."
"I don't believe it," Cox exclaimed in surprise after she had examined the area in question a second time and with considerably more care. "That's not a mole; that's a third nipple. Right here, directly under his actual left nipple."
"Right, an accessory nipple," Maggie replied with a hint of a smile, raising her eyebrows. 'Like Scaramanga.'
Cox looked at her questioningly.
'Scaramanga. The man with the golden gun,' the redhead explained. "From the James Bond movie."
It was evident that Teresa Cox had no idea what her boss was talking about, which Maggie put down to her young age. It would have been common knowledge in my day, she thought, before she dismissed the thought just as quickly as it had occurred. She turned her attention back to the examination. "The third nipple," she said to her assistant, who still seemed a little disappointed about her first answer, 'could actually be easily overlooked with the present putrefaction. So let's move on. Let's see what clues to his possible identity he still has for us.'
Maggie turned her attention back to the body lying in front of her.
She thought that drowned bodies weren't a pretty sight, and this one was no exception. Large areas of skin were grayish-green, and bits of skin had come off and hung from the body like thin strips of dirty parchment paper. On the skin of the hands, feet, and ears, but also above the knees and elbow joints, the calluses consisting of dead skin cells had absorbed water and swollen, giving them a wrinkled appearance.
Maggie continued to dictate her findings and described the scaling skin that had discolored the palms of the hands and soles of his feet, turning them chalk white. She also noted in the dictaphone that the skin on the tips of his fingers and toes, including the nails, had begun to peel off noticeably.
Maggie thought for a moment, " Maybe it's not a bad thing that we don't have any cops here today." The sight had caused Nikki, a hardened detective in her own right, to leave the autopsy room for a few minutes to get some fresh air. The combination of the smell and sight of water corpses was only for some.
"Look," called Teresa Cox, who was about to turn the body over to inspect the back, pointing to the arches of the dead man's feet. "A thin, slippery green film of algae has formed. It looks a bit like a ship's hull that hasn't been cleaned in a long time."
"Right. You could say that," replied Maggie. 'And from that, we can also conclude that this man must have been in the water for some time.'
But the redhead had yet to estimate precisely how long it had been. Because neither cadaveric putrefaction, the formation of ichthyosis, nor the colonization of water cadavers by algae or other marine flora follows comprehensible laws.
Next, Maggie examined the dead man's chest and stomach skin, which had turned a grayish-green color. "Look," she said to Cox. "Nature, in this case, the postmortem artifacts, is truly a marvel. It almost looks like an amateur with a shaky hand tattooed a brown-black spider web on our man."
"Yes," replied the assistant, obviously just as fascinated as the ME, "show-through of the spider's web of vessels."
Maggie nodded slowly with a frown. "Exactly," she replied. "The blood vessels under the skin can be seen here, in which, as in the entire body, the red blood pigment darkens under the influence of bacteria during the putrefaction process."
How did you die? What happened in the minutes before your death?" Maggie asked herself, looking at the body, which was less a person to her than just a shell. But even the examination of the head didn't provide any further information. Most of the hair was no longer present because the structure of the scalp had loosened during the swelling, and almost all of the hair had fallen out.
Next, Cox turned the body, and Maggie turned her attention to the back of the deceased.
"Well, let's see if we can find anything here to help us..." Before Maggie could finish the sentence, Cox pointed to a dark skin discoloration directly above the spine, about halfway down the back, which was still clearly distinguishable despite the decomposition of the corpse.
"A hematoma," Maggie heard the assistant say.
"It looks like one," she said with a brief nod. "The question is when and how it was formed. Based on its location, the obvious hematoma is not an injury typical of a fall or impact." The ME reached for one of the sturdy dissecting knives, which were lined up neatly next to each other at the foot of the autopsy table, and made a four-inch incision lengthwise through the dark skin discoloration. The moist, shiny, dark red-black subcutaneous fatty tissue that had bled into it was revealed in the area corresponding to the hematoma. Maggie nodded briefly before turning to the assistant. "A hematoma, indeed. And this hematoma is not postmortem, so it was not caused after the death of the deceased. Definitely during his lifetime. And very fresh, so right before the death of the unknown. He sustained this injury here just a short time before he died."
"Did he receive a solid blow to the back?" Teresa Cox wanted to know.
"Or a push or kick, in any case, a very violent blunt external force," replied Maggie. "Let's see if one or more vertebral bodies in this area have fractured. Because then we could draw a conclusion about the severity of the force."
The redhead extended the four-inch incision she had just made, located approximately on the midline of the back, down to the tailbone, and up to the level of the clavicles. Then, layer by layer, she exposed the spine by releasing muscle strands and mobilizing them to the side.
After a few minutes, she shook her head slightly and said, "No fracture." Nevertheless, my working hypothesis still stands, namely that this man here was, in all likelihood, severely beaten from behind. What is even more likely is kicked. I rule out mere pushing given the extent of the sub-hemorrhage."
"You mean the man was thrown into the water like that?"
"I'll have an opinion on that when we know more about the cause of death."
Together, they turned the body back onto its back, and Maggie began the actual autopsy, the internal examination, with Teresa Cox.
In fact, the findings on the lungs indicated that John Doe had drowned, which confirmed Maggie's suspicion.
Even though we can't be sure, it looks like you didn't die in an accident. And somehow, I can't shake the feeling that something is wrong here.
While Teresa Cox weighed the individual organs, entered the weights in a log sheet, and then allowed the organs to disappear into the open chest and abdominal cavity of the corpse, Maggie prepared the necessary papers for the chemical-toxicological tests.
"Good, that's all we need to do here today," she said afterward, nodding to her assistant, who was just closing the corpse with a skillful suture on the front of the body.
"What do you think? What happened to the man? Was it a --?" asked Cox, interrupted by Maggie formulating her question.
"Whether this was an accident or a violent crime? I simply don't know. I want to wait for the toxicology results before I form a final opinion. It's quite possible that someone pushed the man into the river. But it's also possible that he was intoxicated with alcohol, medication, and drugs and hit his back on the water when he fell into the river somewhere. However, at the moment, I don't really believe that." With these words, the redhead turned around and headed towards the exit.
Just before leaving the autopsy room, she turned to Teresa Cox again and said, 'But believing is not knowing... Time will tell.'
xxx
"I think it's at least quite likely that we're dealing with a homicide here." Maggie sat down behind her desk with a loud sigh.
Nikki nodded slowly and sat in one of the visitor chairs, a paper cup of coffee in her hand. 'And how exactly did you come to this conclusion?' she asked with a slightly furrowed brow.
Maggie took a sip from her cup and licked her lips. "The examination didn't reveal any 100% findings that indicate a violent death. Drowning: very likely, as far as one can tell, with a corpse that has begun to decompose, but no fatal injuries from external force, no signs of an attack on the neck. But the man had a hematoma on his back in a place that indicates that he received a kick or violent blow from behind. And that could have been the cause of him getting into the river and drowning."
Nikki nodded slowly and licked her lips, too. "Okay, I understand that. But wouldn't it also be possible that the dead man was hit by someone shortly before he – for whatever reason – ended up in the water and that it was an accident or maybe even suicide?" she asked.
"Yes, that's possible, of course," Maggie replied, nodding. 'I now also have the results of the toxicological examination. And it shows that the dead man was drunk.'
Nikki blinked a few times. 'Drunk?'
"Exactly. Our unknown had an alcohol concentration of 1.1 per mille at the time of his death."
"Well, that's not a small amount, but it's not alarmingly unusual either, is it? So doesn't that support my accident theory?"
"Theoretically, yes. But only in theory. I mean, anything is possible. Quite a few suicides drink to build up their courage before taking their own lives. And, of course, a drunk is an easier target for an attack than someone sober."
"Hm," said Nikki. 'To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at, Mom.'
Maggie nodded again and leaned forward a little, frowning. "What I'm trying to say is that anything is possible, but I have a strange feeling about this massive hematoma, which is also in a very unusual location. Something tells me that there is more to it than just a fall resulting from an accident or jumping, or let's call it, jumping into the water with suicidal intent."
The detective smiled briefly but without humor. "I still don't understand what you're getting at, Mom."
Maggie paused for a moment and placed her hands flat on the desk. "It doesn't look like a coincidence. It doesn't add up."
"And you can tell that from what?"
Maggie licked her lips again, took a deep breath, and leaned back in her chair. "Intuition based on years of work in the autopsy room, Veronica. I haven't seen anything like this in hundreds of water corpses."
"Okay," Nikki took the ball. "So there could have been an argument or an assault, you think. That could be. And it would also fit with the other evidence. Because he had no wallet or any valuables on him either." She paused briefly, and Maggie could see that the cogs in Nikki's mind were starting to turn relentlessly. 'Have you typed up the autopsy report yet?'
Maggie handed her daughter a file across the desk. "And as for the identification of the dead man, I have a clue for you. Our man has three nipples. Maybe that will help you."
"Three nipples!" said Nikki, looking astonished. "Like Scaramanga?"
"Yes, like Scaramanga," laughed Maggie, pleased she was not alone in her James Bond knowledge.