Arnie, who functions as our primary lab tech, sometime autopsy assistant, general gofer, and resident conspiracy theorist, had tucked Shannon’s body in the cold storage room last evening. It’s the only body in the room so it isn’t hard to find.
I grab the clipboard at the end of the stretcher and examine the checklist of items on the top page—all the things that have to be done before the actual cutting part of the autopsy begins.
A weight is obtained on each body, something that is relatively simple since the stretcher weights are known. Once a body arrives in our office and gets loaded onto a stretcher, the whole thing is wheeled onto a scale built into the floor. The scale automatically deducts the stretcher’s weight and flashes the remainder, which is the body’s weight, on a digital screen.
We also obtain vitreous samples—a needle aspiration of the fluid inside the eyeballs. Whereas blood and other bodily fluids deteriorate rapidly once death occurs, a process that can affect certain lab values or the presence of residual drugs, the vitreous fluid remains more stable. It can also help narrow down the time of death as there is a somewhat predictable rise in the potassium level in the vitreous fluid after death. Each body is also X-rayed soon after arrival, before it is removed from its body bag.
According to the checklist, Arnie did all of these things last night when the body arrived. I’m glad, not only because it makes my job that much easier this morning, but because I hate having to obtain the vitreous fluid. The process of pushing a needle into someone’s eyeball, even knowing they are dead, gives me the willies.
I wheel the stretcher into the main autopsy room where Izzy and Hurley are already waiting. Izzy and I move Shannon’s body from the stretcher onto the autopsy table, then Izzy, who is already suited and gloved, opens the body bag and starts taking photos while I don my own protective gear. Thirty minutes later we have photographed and examined her body and clothing for trace evidence, undressed her, scraped for evidence beneath her nails, and hosed her down. Izzy is posed over her upper chest with his scalpel, ready to make the first incision.
Hurley is standing off to one side and has been quiet up to now, watching us with an intensity that makes my pulse quicken every time I look at him. This is my fourth autopsy with him and so far he’s followed a regular modus operandi: standing by quietly, observing, and occasionally asking a question or two about the significance of a particular finding. Today, however, he breaks with tradition just as Izzy is making the first cut. Taking out his notebook, he flips it open and begins a running commentary on his investigation thus far.
“Turns out Erik Tolliver was at work both yesterday and the day before. He met with Shannon at Dairy Airs on the day he said he did and, according to the workers there, things ended on a fiery note when Erik threw the papers at Shannon, called her a bitch, and stormed out. His dinner alibi holds up for the day of the murder but after about six P.M. his whereabouts are unaccounted for.
“Shannon was alive at three o’clock on the day she was murdered because that’s when she left work, but I haven’t found anyone who saw her after that. So that narrows down our time of death to sometime after three P.M. on the thirtieth. Yesterday’s mail was still in the mailbox, presumably delivered sometime after Shannon was killed. The box is out by the street and the mailman said he drove up at about ten in the morning, put the mail inside the box, and continued on. He didn’t pay particular attention to the yard display.
“The only other information I have is that her coworkers said she ate lunch around twelve-thirty on the day she was killed: a roast beef sandwich, some cream of tomato soup, and an order of fried cheese curds.”
Izzy says, “That might help us narrow down the time of death even more once I get a look at her stomach contents.”
Hurley says, “I’m betting she was killed after six that night. The husband definitely has some issues and I think that whole thing with the separation papers set him off.”
I frown and Hurley catches it. “What? You still think he’s innocent?”
I shrug. “I’m having a hard time believing he could do this, based on what I know of him.”
“Want to make a friendly wager on it?”
“I don’t know. It sounds like you already have your mind made up. How do I know you’ll even try to find another suspect?”
Hurley sighs and gives me an are-you-kidding-me? look. “I always keep an open mind,” he says.
“You seem pretty convinced that Erik did this.”
“At the moment I am.”
“See, I knew it.” I look pointedly at Izzy, who wisely shrugs and says nothing. “Taking this wager would be a sucker bet.”
“Then find me someone who looks better for it,” Hurley says.
“Will you let me do some of my own investigating?”
“As long as you keep me in the loop, don’t do anything that would interfere with the official investigation, and promise to share anything you find with me.”
“And you’ll share evidence with me?”
“Tit for tat,” Hurley says with a suggestive grin.
I consider the idea. I’m competitive by nature and something about Hurley brings that trait out even stronger in me. “What are the stakes?” I ask.
Hurley shrugs, thinks a moment, and then says, “How about dinner? The winner picks the place and time, and the loser gets to pay.”
“Deal,” I say without hesitation, so excited over the prospect of dinner with Hurley that, for a moment, I don’t care who wins the bet.
“Good.” He closes his eyes, licks his lips, and says, “Mmmm. I can already taste my filet mignon from Harvey’s, medium rare, wrapped in bacon, with a baked potato on the side.”
I’m so transfixed by the sight of Hurley licking his lips and moaning that it takes me a second to remember that a dinner at Harvey’s will cost me more than half a week’s pay. My hands start to shake and I’m not sure if it’s out of fear or lust. I realize Izzy has finished cracking Shannon’s chest and is in the process of removing one of her lungs, so I tear my gaze from Hurley and try to focus on the work instead. Trembling hands, sharp scalpels, and slippery organs make for a bad combination.
Shannon’s chest cavity is filled with clots of blood, and as Izzy scoops some of them out of the way, the idea of a medium rare filet mignon is suddenly nauseating. Izzy severs the connections for the right lung, removes it from the chest cavity, and hands it to me. I weigh it on the scale, noting that its color is a dull gray rather than the healthy pink it should be, an indication that Shannon was a smoker. Once I take it from the scale and lay it on the dissection table, I can see that it also has two bullet holes in it: one in the front of the lower lobe, which is most likely the entry point, and a second on the back of the middle lobe, the probable exit point.
Izzy confirms my suspicions when he finds a bullet lodged next to Shannon’s thoracic spine. He pulls the bullet out, cleans it off, and shows it to Hurley. “Looks like a .38,” he says.
“Yup,” Hurley agrees. “And guess who owns a .38 caliber handgun?”
“Half the people in Wisconsin?” I offer, knowing it’s not the answer he’s looking for.
“I don’t know about half,” he says, “but I know Erik Tolliver owns one. He bought it two years ago.”
I sigh, and start calculating how many pints of ice cream I’m going to have to forgo in the future so I can save up enough money to pay for our dinner date. I might have to ask Izzy for a raise, which would be rather brazen considering that I’ve only been on the job for a couple of weeks.
“Lots of people have guns,” I counter. It’s a feeble argument, but a true one. The NRA is alive and well in Wisconsin, where deer season means closed-down businesses, hunting widow parties, and men who become live oxymora by dressing in camouflage clothes topped with blaze orange vests. Every year, one or two yahoos are mistaken for a deer and get shot . . . Darwinism in action.