Read Online The Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Capuzzo
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arrived at the two-story morgue on University Avenue with a sketch pad and calipers in his knapsack. He was excited. He would learn anatomy by studying the human body up close, flesh, bones, and organs revealed, much as his hero Michelangelo once did. Banned by sixteenth-century church authorities from working with dead bodies, Michelangelo procured a key from a friend to the church basement morgue, and spent nights with a candle and a butcher knife studying how the body was assembled.
But as soon as Zandel began leading him through the windowless rooms filled with a cold, sickly sweet air, Frank knew he’d made a terrible mistake.
All around him, bodies on metal tables were grotesquely swollen by disease, shorn by knives and bullets, smashed in automobile accidents, devoured by animals and all the forces of time and decay. He saw a man in the autopsy room who had been hit by a train that cleanly sliced him in two across the thighs. He lifted the white sheet from one gurney and stared openmouthed. In place of a woman’s corpse were three suitcases. The woman, apparently murdered, had been carved up and scattered along the New Jersey Turnpike in the luggage, which held all her remains. There was nothing left of her to put on paper.
In the autopsy room, Frank stared at a torso that was propped high on a block—the breastplate had been removed, the ribs cut. He gawked as an assistant medical examiner plunged his hand deep into the chest cavity and, while feeling around, turned and winked at Frank. The place was surreal.
This is no place for an anatomy lesson, he thought.
But he was fascinated by a body on a gurney in the storage room, toe tag number 5233. It was an unidentified white woman in her fifties, heavyset with dyed hair, a murdered Jane Doe. Her badly decomposed body had been found on October 16, 1977, dumped in a field near Philadelphia International Airport, wearing a herringbone suit, a white blouse, and three bullets in the brain. Frank studied her closely. Her skull was shattered on one side by gunshots; a mass of dried blood and dark blond hair was plastered around the wound. Neither her fingerprints nor missing-person bulletins came up with a match.
It looked like a professional hit. Zandel saw a mass of ruined flesh.
“This is one we’ll never solve,” he said. “Who knows what she looks like?”
But Frank saw something else—a face round and sagged with age, narrow nose, thin lips. He sensed tranquillity about the eyes.
“I know,” he blurted out. “I know what she looks like.”
Dr. Halbert Fillinger, the assistant ME who had winked at Frank, overheard the comment and approached. It was his case, Fillinger said, and he figured they’d never get an identity.
“Did you say you know what this woman looks like?”
“I do,” Frank said. “I see a face in the skull.”
Fillinger stared appraisingly at the blunt young man. “Have you ever done forensic art?”
Frank shook his head. “I don’t even know what the word ‘forensic’ means.”
“Well, you must try.” As they chatted for a few minutes, Fillinger complained that TV shows like the new hit drama Quincy, M.E. starring Jack Klugman as a Los Angeles assistant medical examiner gave a false impression of cases quickly solved and tied up in a Christmas bow. The truth was, many cases went nowhere, often because of lack of identity.
“If you can get me an identity, we may also find her killer. Would you like to help us do that?”
Frank replied that he would.
“We can’t pay you anything.”
“That’s OK.”
Fillinger challenged him to “show me what she looks like.”
“I’ve never completed a sculpture in my life,” Frank said. At the academy they discarded their half-completed clay sculptures at the end of each class. “But I’ll do it.”
“Good. Come back at midnight Friday. I’ll be on the graveyard shift.”
It took Frank eight hours. After measuring the skull and drawing a rough outline of the face on
But as soon as Zandel began leading him through the windowless rooms filled with a cold, sickly sweet air, Frank knew he’d made a terrible mistake.
All around him, bodies on metal tables were grotesquely swollen by disease, shorn by knives and bullets, smashed in automobile accidents, devoured by animals and all the forces of time and decay. He saw a man in the autopsy room who had been hit by a train that cleanly sliced him in two across the thighs. He lifted the white sheet from one gurney and stared openmouthed. In place of a woman’s corpse were three suitcases. The woman, apparently murdered, had been carved up and scattered along the New Jersey Turnpike in the luggage, which held all her remains. There was nothing left of her to put on paper.
In the autopsy room, Frank stared at a torso that was propped high on a block—the breastplate had been removed, the ribs cut. He gawked as an assistant medical examiner plunged his hand deep into the chest cavity and, while feeling around, turned and winked at Frank. The place was surreal.
This is no place for an anatomy lesson, he thought.
But he was fascinated by a body on a gurney in the storage room, toe tag number 5233. It was an unidentified white woman in her fifties, heavyset with dyed hair, a murdered Jane Doe. Her badly decomposed body had been found on October 16, 1977, dumped in a field near Philadelphia International Airport, wearing a herringbone suit, a white blouse, and three bullets in the brain. Frank studied her closely. Her skull was shattered on one side by gunshots; a mass of dried blood and dark blond hair was plastered around the wound. Neither her fingerprints nor missing-person bulletins came up with a match.
It looked like a professional hit. Zandel saw a mass of ruined flesh.
“This is one we’ll never solve,” he said. “Who knows what she looks like?”
But Frank saw something else—a face round and sagged with age, narrow nose, thin lips. He sensed tranquillity about the eyes.
“I know,” he blurted out. “I know what she looks like.”
Dr. Halbert Fillinger, the assistant ME who had winked at Frank, overheard the comment and approached. It was his case, Fillinger said, and he figured they’d never get an identity.
“Did you say you know what this woman looks like?”
“I do,” Frank said. “I see a face in the skull.”
Fillinger stared appraisingly at the blunt young man. “Have you ever done forensic art?”
Frank shook his head. “I don’t even know what the word ‘forensic’ means.”
“Well, you must try.” As they chatted for a few minutes, Fillinger complained that TV shows like the new hit drama Quincy, M.E. starring Jack Klugman as a Los Angeles assistant medical examiner gave a false impression of cases quickly solved and tied up in a Christmas bow. The truth was, many cases went nowhere, often because of lack of identity.
“If you can get me an identity, we may also find her killer. Would you like to help us do that?”
Frank replied that he would.
“We can’t pay you anything.”
“That’s OK.”
Fillinger challenged him to “show me what she looks like.”
“I’ve never completed a sculpture in my life,” Frank said. At the academy they discarded their half-completed clay sculptures at the end of each class. “But I’ll do it.”
“Good. Come back at midnight Friday. I’ll be on the graveyard shift.”
It took Frank eight hours. After measuring the skull and drawing a rough outline of the face on
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