They soon finished the laser work, and J. T. instantly quizzed the neophytes, asking, “All right, now that you have sections of every major organ, Holbrook, Chen, what's next?” J. T. held the laser in his hand now, gently returning the wand back to its cradle attachment on the computer monitor.
Almost in tandem, like cartoon characters, Holbrook stammered an “I think… I think…” while Chen immediately said, “Blood and seminal fluid workup, I think.”
“Excellent, but none of that I think stuff. Every time anyone says those two words, it means they don't really know what they think. It's both a qualifying of your answer and a stalling tactic. It also makes you sound stupid. 'I think,' 'in my opinion,' 'it is my feeling.' Forget it. Simply state your facts without all the introductory stammering. Right, Holbrook?” replied J. T.
“I think so.”
“Damnit,” muttered J. T. as Jessica helplessly laughed behind her mask.
J. T. frowned, recalling how he'd earlier had the same discussion with Jessica because he'd seen and heard the president of the United States sounding silly by prefacing every damned remark at a news conference on NATO with I think. Jessica, for the benefit of the tape recording, loudly ordered a complete fluid workup, from semen to sweat, along with blood toxicology, all dissection and section work on the rack of organs called the viscera having been completed. Holbrook had logged in weight and appearance of each viscus as it had been surgically removed. Now with every laser cut, each slice coming off like a thin, large portion of salami, Chen bagged and labeled John Doe's specimens, using the number given her by the computer:
case # 348-119-2000.
As they worked and time ticked by, day turning to night, Jessica and J. T. discussed the recent frozen body of a prison inmate who had wanted to give something back to society, and so he had left his body to science-to the science of forensic medicine in particular. Out of this had come phenomenal new computer software, already proving invaluable to physicians everywhere.
The young interns had also heard the news, but they had no idea that the computer-imaging software they'd just used was the result of that unselfish act on the part of one lone prison inmate, a man named Albert Lawrence Kurlandinsky. Kurlandinsky had made headlines initially by one day walking calmly into his place of work-a JCPenney distribution warehouse-with a high-powered rifle. He opened fire on fellow employees and bosses, a spree murderer with sixteen maimed and seven deaths on his head.
“The software was created when Kurlandinsky's body experienced postmortem freezing in a cryogenics chamber. Frozen rock-hard solid in order that every inch of his body- from crown to toe-could be cut into cross sections,” explained Jessica. “Then each section was scanned into the computer.”
“The entire body?” young, petite Chen chirped, birdlike.
“Like a stack of large, oddly shaped poker chips,” supplied J. T.
Flashing on their ill-fated trip to Las Vegas a few years back, Jessica thought it just like J. T. to use a gambling metaphor. She continued saying, “Now that each section of an entire human body is filmed and on computer, scientists and autopsiests, such as we, benefit by seeing, for the first time in history, the human organs in three-dimensional form from top to bottom in successive sections.”
“All in 'living' color,” J. T. happily added, “so now you can call up any organ, and the computer will give you a full three-dimensional look at it.”
Today's John Doe autopsy benefited from the inmate's generosity, and certainly Jessica did, as the new imaging software saved hours in the lab. A simple, straightforward autopsy could be completed in an hour, but one faced untold complications whenever opening a cadaver and rummaging about in the cranium and below the breastplate. With the new technology, she didn't have to cut so many sections; she could use the templates created by the software to see if the victim's organs proved oversized, overweight, distended, ballooned up, too small, shriveled or lacking in proper color, texture, diseased or healthy. If an organ checked out against the software, then there was no need to cut any sections, because the computer wand had just told the computer brain that the measurements figured accurately. But whenever an organ didn't fit the profile as determined by the computer, a cute little Daffy Duck who-who laugh sounded an alarm. The alarm notified the people doing the autopsy that sections of a given organ absolutely had to be taken.
In John Doe's case, the Daffy Duck alarm had gone off repeatedly, signaling a hard life, despite his relatively young age.
Jessica had fought long and hard to finally persuade Quantico that the new technology must be had for their labs and teaching theaters here in Virginia, if the FBI wished to stay current with new advances in medical procedures. And she'd been absolutely right. Today alone, six hours of guesswork and searching about the body, rooting around in the “rack”- as the professionals called the organs below the rib cagehad been saved due to the new imaging wonder. And now she tried to imagine how they had ever gotten by without it.
But now a new mystery presented itself-today's cadaver. The strange case of Mr. John Doe-Horace, J. T. had taken to calling him because he “looked like a Horace”-whose body had gone unclaimed, whose identity remained a mystery, and whose unruly hair, from ponytail to thickly bearded chin, kept falling out and clogging the drain below the slab. The man's wild hair, black with streaks of gray throughout, gave him the appearance of a modern-day mountain man; his clothing marked him as both a biker and a gang member. But the gang jacket emblem, The Flesheaters, didn't exist according to the FBI's extensive records on outlaw biker gangs. They surmised that Horace had begun his own new club, and perhaps some rival had killed him for his trouble. It was all rank speculation.
All the same, someone with extreme patience had set this Tattoo Man up for murder. Someone with access to a rabid animal and time enough to infect five other canines and thus had introduced that unfortunate to six mad dogs. Someone had set those killing dogs in motion. The evidence pointed to a strong hand or two working the strings.
“Think of the sheer amount of planning that had to go into this killing.” Jessica clenched her teeth. “G'damnit. “
“It'd take months to set up, maybe a year,” agreed J. T.
Young Holbrook, one of her protdgfs, stared openmouthed at Jessica, having never heard her swear before. The Chinese intern, Chen, her nose dimpled and curled, offered an agreeing frown.
Jessica half-smiled to lighten the moment as much as possible and said, “The skin-art and hairiness of the victim presents you interns with a good lesson. We're not in the business of prejudging the victim from the evidence of the way he led his life. We don't write a body off just because of the chosen lifestyle, which often dictates the deathstyle, if you follow me.” Jessica half-joked, but it remained a serious point. The foul-of-the-earth issue raged as hot debate among medical people in the U.S. and elsewhere. Whom to serve first and foremost, those who live a clean life, or those who live a foul life? Jessica saw that while Holbrook accepted the notion on its face, that Yon Chen appeared to mentally grapple with it. Good, Jessica thought.
She decided to go on. “Well, it represents only one of a multiple set of problems surrounding Horace. This stone-cold John Doe represents a mystery. He's died with absolutely No distinguishing or identifying marks or papers on him, no wallet, no cards, very few teeth-the assumption already having been made that his killer took his dental plates to retard identification efforts. Somebody somewhere went to a great deal of trouble to confuse any efforts we make to identify Tattoo Man.”
J. T. had returned from the intercom where he'd shouted at maintenance, as he believed the temperature, and thus the odors in the room, was on the rise. He returned just in time to dovetail on Jessica's words for the benefit of the interning students. “No explanations as to who Horace had been in life, save the largest calling card Dr. Coran and I have ever seen on a body-the full-body tattoos that he accumulated over a lifetime of what one might assume-”