I realize then that I should be nicer to Richmond. Since he’s now within my circle of acquaintances, he may be the only thing keeping the local animal advocates groups from thinking I need to be pushed back into the ocean. Well, that and the fact that there’s no ocean within a thousand miles of here.
By the time I pull into the morgue garage, some of the snow in my buckets has started to melt and the weight of them seems to have tripled. I struggle to lug two of them inside and then commandeer Izzy and our lab assistant, Arnie, to help with the rest. Richmond, who followed me inside with the first batch, stands by watching as the rest of us do all the work. We store the buckets in a utility room where Arnie will oversee the straining of the resultant water to look for trace evidence.
After taking off my coat and boots, I change into scrubs and make my way into the autopsy area, where I find our victim already laid out on one of the tables. Someone, Izzy I assume, has removed her body bag and plastic shroud, leaving her exposed to the room air so she can thaw out. As I look at her, I’m struck once again by how lovely she is, even in death.
Within minutes Izzy joins me, followed by Richmond, who has managed to dig up a jelly doughnut from somewhere. I watch as he bites into the pastry on one end and a huge glob of strawberry jam oozes out the other, landing on his shirtfront.
“Sorry, there’s no food allowed in here,” Izzy tells him.
Richmond shrugs, crams the rest of the doughnut into his mouth, scrapes the jelly from his shirt with a finger, and then shoves that in his mouth, too, leaving a huge, red stain on the shirt. It reminds me of the frozen smear of blood on the victim’s chest and I turn to look at it. The blood doesn’t look frosted anymore, leading me to think it may have thawed, but it is still mostly solidified from clotting.
“Mind if I watch?” says a male voice.
I look up and see Colbert has joined the fray.
“The chief said I could since I’ve never seen an autopsy before.”
Izzy and I exchange looks. One’s first autopsy is always a dicey experience and about half of the people who watch them either recycle their last meal or pass out. Sometimes they do both.
Izzy says, “Sure, but stand over there by the chair and if you start to feel light-headed, sit down immediately. If you think you’re going to puke, the bathroom is right down the hall.”
Colbert nods his understanding and waves away Izzy’s concerns. “I’ll be fine,” he says.
Izzy walks over to the X-ray viewer and slides a film onto it. After studying it a minute, he frowns and says, “The knife pierced her left ventricle, which should have caused fibrillation and instantaneous death. But if it had, there should have been very little blood loss since her heart wasn’t beating and the knife would have served as a tamponade. Clearly that’s not the case, which makes me think there’s another stab wound under all that blood.”
Izzy and I don special goggles and turn on an overhead black light, and then carefully start washing away the clotted blood. The resultant maroon-colored water makes its way into channels that run the length of the stretcher and empty into a sieved drain that will collect any trace particles that might be in the water. After a minute or so of this, a second stab wound is revealed nearer the center of the victim’s chest. “I’m betting that one hit the aorta,” Izzy says. “That’s why she bled out.”
One of the overhead fluorescent bulbs flickers off, then on again, and in the resultant flash something catches my eye.
“I see something sticking out of the blood here,” I say, picking up a pair of forceps. “It looks like a hair.” I grab the end I can see with my instrument and tug. It comes free with a little resistance, revealing a short, black hair about an inch and a half in length. “I don’t see any root,” I say, examining the ends closely. “So no DNA.”
Izzy holds out an envelope for me and I drop the hair inside. “It still may help narrow down suspects,” he says.
Richmond snorts. “If we ever get any. It would help if we knew who she was. The fact that no one locally has been reported missing confirms my suspicion that she’s not from around here.”
The door to the autopsy room opens and a young lad dressed like an early twentieth-century newsboy walks in.
“Hey, Cass,” Izzy says.
I do a double take and remove my goggles. This isn’t the first time I’ve been surprised by Cass Zigler’s appearance. In addition to being our file clerk-slash-secretary-slash-receptionist, she also spends time acting with our local thespian group. As a result, she often tries out her characters by dressing and playing the parts at work. I’ve never seen Cass as Cass, and I’m not sure I’d recognize her if I ran into her on the street.
“Cass?” Richmond says, his eyebrows arched. “You’re a woman?”
“Not today. Today I’m Henry,” she says, adopting a cockney accent and dropping the H on the name. “I’m your local newsboy, which seems appropriate at the moment because Alison Miller is out front asking if she can come back and get some information on your latest victim.”
Alison Miller is Sorenson’s ace reporter and photographer, and she and I share a long, and recently turbulent history. I’ve known her since high school and over the past month or so she has also been my chief competition for Hurley’s affections. Fortunately she seems to have given up on this latest pursuit. When Hurley was injured and on his way to the OR drugged up on morphine with Alison at his side, he kept mumbling my name. Alison didn’t take it very well and as a result she has quit hound-dogging Hurley and speaking to me.
“Let her come back,” Izzy tells Cass. “Maybe she can help us identify our victim.”
“What are you going to do?” Richmond says as Cass leaves the room. “Put a dead woman’s picture in the paper?”
“No,” Izzy says with an admirable degree of patience. “But the handle on this knife is quite unique and a picture of it might give us some leads. As might a picture of this tattoo on her ankle,” he adds, pushing one of the woman’s trouser legs up and revealing a colorful butterfly.
Not one to tolerate a public reprimand very well, Richmond tries to save pride by going on the offensive. “You have cross-dressers working your front desk?” he says, shaking his head with dismay. “What the hell is this office coming to, anyway?”
Colbert gives Richmond a wary look and does a little sidestep, as if to separate himself from the other man’s insanity.
“Cass isn’t a cross-dresser,” Izzy says, his voice tight. “But if she was I would still hire her, as long as she did her job.”
Richmond clucks his tongue and shakes his head woefully. “What a fine impression she must make on the public.”
Since most of our “public” is dead on arrival, I’m with Izzy; I don’t see what the big deal is. I start to say so but Izzy speaks before I can.
“Cass is an actor,” he says. “And I see no harm in letting her practice some of her roles while she’s working.”
“An actor,” Richmond harrumphs. “That explains a lot.”
“Yes, an actor,” Izzy repeats. His eyes have narrowed and I can tell he’s starting to lose his patience. “She works with the same thespian group my partner, Dom, does. He’s an actor, too. And gay. As am I. Do you have a problem with any of that?”