Read Online The Juan Doe Murders: A Smokey Brandon Thriller by Noreen Ayres - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Noreen Ayres
Ads: Link
comb, she parted the newly washed hair in a horizontal line mid-skull for the knife’s path. In a moment she would slice through the scalp and peel the face forward in a procedure called reflecting, folding the face onto itself in a bizarre, otherworldly mask. Then the electric saw would whine through the sinuses for access to the brain. It was a procedure I never got used to.
“See you in a minute,” I said, and walked away.
I approached the first table, where the pathologist was dipping a white plastic lid into the body cavity, then poured the collected blood into a small vial. She set the vial aside and came forward, her rubber gloves bright with fluid.
“Yours?” Dr. Schaeffer asked.
“The two on the end. How’ve you been, Doctor?” People who work at the morgue are a staunch lot. Some I wouldn’t walk across the street with, but others I’d invite to my own funeral. This one I liked: Dr. Schaeffer-White, recently gone to just Schaeffer. She had two little girls and an ex-husband who’d grown tired of her workload and her evening studies at law school. He told her he’d seen her through med school, he wasn’t going to do the same thing for law. She was living in a condo in Tustin Ranch about ten miles away, sharing custody in an informal way, but mostly still responsible for the kids with the help of a nanny from Guatemala. Her ex was engaged to a woman who designed bikinis.
She rubbed her forehead with a humped wrist and answered, “Not bad. What’s new with you?” She turned to a tech and said, “Excise the track marks on that left arm, will you?” She steppedcloser to me, her back to the table. “That one’s a student at the osteopathic college. Very good. Very cute.” I looked over Lenore’s shoulder to see him take a scalpel and remove a plane of tissue from the corpse’s mid-forearm. “What do you think?”
“I’m happy you see it that way,” I said.
A crimp came and went in her brow, as if I either had poor taste or my mild remark could make her reconsider.
The whine of the saw had ceased behind me but the smell of bone dust was still in the air, and I wasn’t quite ready to go back. As Lenore’s cute student laid the strip of flesh on a tray, I asked, “Going to the wedding Saturday?” There was to be a merger of two coroner’s technicians.
“Can’t,” she said, shaking her head hopelessly. “I have to study. Say, if you’re going back to the lab, would you mind delivering a blood sample?”
“Sure, no problem.”
The tech behind her placed the appendix he’d just removed in the sink and wrote “APP-yes” on the whiteboard against the wall. “I take the bar in July,” Lenore said. “Ask me something, anything. I can tell you how to sue Santa Claus’s sister.”
“We’ll be losing you,” I said.
“I’ll still be available for disaster work and maybe fill in for vacations. We’ll be able to get together.” But I knew no matter how sincerely Lenore meant it she also didn’t mean it, because she was entering law precisely so she
could
leave this work behind.
I went back to my cases. Dr. Margolis was in front of Doe Two, dictating to a tech who leaned on the counter, writing. “Deep muscle hemorrhage to the throat interior. Minor damage to the trachea consistent with strangulation, not sufficient to cause death.” He said to Boyd and me: “We’ll have a look at the contusions on this one tomorrow. By then they’ll appear more clearly.” Then he gave instructions to the techs to insert cornea caps containing small prongs so the eyes will stay closed. The other tech readied the waxed twine for sewing shut the mouth. The doctorhanded me a plastic container with the deformed slug in it. I gave it over to Boyd and he looked at it without comment and handed it back. He took off his smock, a concession to protective clothing I didn’t make, and wadded it up as we went to exit, coming too near the steel door of the cooler where bodies were kept so that it
“See you in a minute,” I said, and walked away.
I approached the first table, where the pathologist was dipping a white plastic lid into the body cavity, then poured the collected blood into a small vial. She set the vial aside and came forward, her rubber gloves bright with fluid.
“Yours?” Dr. Schaeffer asked.
“The two on the end. How’ve you been, Doctor?” People who work at the morgue are a staunch lot. Some I wouldn’t walk across the street with, but others I’d invite to my own funeral. This one I liked: Dr. Schaeffer-White, recently gone to just Schaeffer. She had two little girls and an ex-husband who’d grown tired of her workload and her evening studies at law school. He told her he’d seen her through med school, he wasn’t going to do the same thing for law. She was living in a condo in Tustin Ranch about ten miles away, sharing custody in an informal way, but mostly still responsible for the kids with the help of a nanny from Guatemala. Her ex was engaged to a woman who designed bikinis.
She rubbed her forehead with a humped wrist and answered, “Not bad. What’s new with you?” She turned to a tech and said, “Excise the track marks on that left arm, will you?” She steppedcloser to me, her back to the table. “That one’s a student at the osteopathic college. Very good. Very cute.” I looked over Lenore’s shoulder to see him take a scalpel and remove a plane of tissue from the corpse’s mid-forearm. “What do you think?”
“I’m happy you see it that way,” I said.
A crimp came and went in her brow, as if I either had poor taste or my mild remark could make her reconsider.
The whine of the saw had ceased behind me but the smell of bone dust was still in the air, and I wasn’t quite ready to go back. As Lenore’s cute student laid the strip of flesh on a tray, I asked, “Going to the wedding Saturday?” There was to be a merger of two coroner’s technicians.
“Can’t,” she said, shaking her head hopelessly. “I have to study. Say, if you’re going back to the lab, would you mind delivering a blood sample?”
“Sure, no problem.”
The tech behind her placed the appendix he’d just removed in the sink and wrote “APP-yes” on the whiteboard against the wall. “I take the bar in July,” Lenore said. “Ask me something, anything. I can tell you how to sue Santa Claus’s sister.”
“We’ll be losing you,” I said.
“I’ll still be available for disaster work and maybe fill in for vacations. We’ll be able to get together.” But I knew no matter how sincerely Lenore meant it she also didn’t mean it, because she was entering law precisely so she
could
leave this work behind.
I went back to my cases. Dr. Margolis was in front of Doe Two, dictating to a tech who leaned on the counter, writing. “Deep muscle hemorrhage to the throat interior. Minor damage to the trachea consistent with strangulation, not sufficient to cause death.” He said to Boyd and me: “We’ll have a look at the contusions on this one tomorrow. By then they’ll appear more clearly.” Then he gave instructions to the techs to insert cornea caps containing small prongs so the eyes will stay closed. The other tech readied the waxed twine for sewing shut the mouth. The doctorhanded me a plastic container with the deformed slug in it. I gave it over to Boyd and he looked at it without comment and handed it back. He took off his smock, a concession to protective clothing I didn’t make, and wadded it up as we went to exit, coming too near the steel door of the cooler where bodies were kept so that it
Similar Books
