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Authors: Annelise Ryan
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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.
“A .38 is pretty common, isn’t it?” I continue. “That alone isn’t enough to convict the guy.”
“Maybe not,” Hurley says. “But it’s one more piece of the puzzle.”
“Did you find Erik’s gun?” Izzy asks.
Hurley shakes his head. “Apparently he was smart enough to ditch the thing. I had a couple guys execute a search warrant on his place early this morning.”
We have removed the second lung, and after noting that Shannon had a hiatal hernia—a typically benign condition where there is a hole in the diaphragm that allows a portion of the stomach to slide into the chest cavity—Izzy cuts loose Shannon’s stomach. As soon as it’s out, he slices it open.
“Her stomach is empty,” he says.
“What does that mean?” Hurley asks.
“Well, it takes four to six hours after ingestion for food to empty out of the stomach and move into the intestines. So if Shannon ate around twelve-thirty as her coworkers said, it’s unlikely she was killed before four-thirty. Once I get a look at her intestines I might be able to finesse that estimate some more.”
For the next half an hour the room is relatively silent except for the sounds of slicing, dicing, and sloshing organs. We find a second bullet in the abdominal cavity and my initial suspicion that Shannon’s liver was hit by one of the bullets is confirmed. The damage to the organ is extensive and would have caused significant bleeding. Some of the blood, most of it eventually, would have oozed out through the bullet wound. But a fair amount had also spread throughout the abdominal cavity, a condition that would have been excruciatingly painful. It might also have been a blessing of sorts since the bleeding into the chest cavity, along with the gradual collapse of the shot lung, would have caused a slow form of suffocation had she not bled out from the liver first.
For a moment I imagine Shannon, wounded,
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.
“A .38 is pretty common, isn’t it?” I continue. “That alone isn’t enough to convict the guy.”
“Maybe not,” Hurley says. “But it’s one more piece of the puzzle.”
“Did you find Erik’s gun?” Izzy asks.
Hurley shakes his head. “Apparently he was smart enough to ditch the thing. I had a couple guys execute a search warrant on his place early this morning.”
We have removed the second lung, and after noting that Shannon had a hiatal hernia—a typically benign condition where there is a hole in the diaphragm that allows a portion of the stomach to slide into the chest cavity—Izzy cuts loose Shannon’s stomach. As soon as it’s out, he slices it open.
“Her stomach is empty,” he says.
“What does that mean?” Hurley asks.
“Well, it takes four to six hours after ingestion for food to empty out of the stomach and move into the intestines. So if Shannon ate around twelve-thirty as her coworkers said, it’s unlikely she was killed before four-thirty. Once I get a look at her intestines I might be able to finesse that estimate some more.”
For the next half an hour the room is relatively silent except for the sounds of slicing, dicing, and sloshing organs. We find a second bullet in the abdominal cavity and my initial suspicion that Shannon’s liver was hit by one of the bullets is confirmed. The damage to the organ is extensive and would have caused significant bleeding. Some of the blood, most of it eventually, would have oozed out through the bullet wound. But a fair amount had also spread throughout the abdominal cavity, a condition that would have been excruciatingly painful. It might also have been a blessing of sorts since the bleeding into the chest cavity, along with the gradual collapse of the shot lung, would have caused a slow form of suffocation had she not bled out from the liver first.
For a moment I imagine Shannon, wounded,
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