breathed heavily. My gut was threatening to take over, an expanding ball of nausea and alarm, but I fought it back with research mode. This is what I do, I told myself. I research.
RADIOGRAPHS: Postmortem radiographs of the head and neck reveal several radiopaque fragments in the front-right skull/brain. Cranial X-rays demonstrate sizable missile fragments in the central head region with additional fragments in the right forehead region and smaller fragments dispersed throughout the midcranial region.
I searched for “radiopaque” and then felt stupid for not just sounding it out: opaque to an X-ray or similar radiology. Duh.
INTERNAL EXAMINATION: A 2.5-inch circular area of scalp hemorrhage is present around a gunshot entry wound in the forehead region. Additionally, an individual 3-inch circular scalp hematoma is present over the vertex as well as a hemorrhage surrounding the laceration over the external occipital protuberance. The calvarium is intact. Upon its removal diffuse subarachnoid hemorrhage is evident. The brain weighs 1,280 grams. There is a perforating track through the brain, described below. Other than this, no underlying abnormalities are evident in the brain.
I was shaken enough to pause my reading and search for it: The average weight of an adult female’s brain is 1,198 grams. Smarty Edie.
PATHOLOGIC DIAGNOSES: Gunshot wound of the head
Entrance: Side of the head; close range of fire
Path: Skin and subcutaneous tissue of midline parietal scalp, frontoparietal skull, dura, frontoparietal brain lobes, corpus callosum, base of the skull, hard palate, tongue, and floor of mouth
Associated injuries: Laceration of the right medial cathus of the eye, extensive skull fractures, and contusions of the left and right periorbital tissue
Missile: Multiple fragments of copper-colored metal in the brain and sinuses weighing, in aggregate, 162.8 grains
Okay—a handgun bullet would be at least 120, maybe 180 grains. I hated that I knew this, that so much gun information was tucked away in my own brain.
OPINION: This 23-year-old white female, Edith Iredale, died of a gunshot wound to the head. According to reports, the decedent was found in her apartment with an antique pistol near her body. Autopsy revealed a close-range entrance gunshot wound to the side of the head that fractured the skull and damaged the brain. Fractures at the base of the skull caused the appearance of bruising around both eyes. This gunshot wound also damaged the roof of the mouth (hard palate) and the tongue.
Postmortem toxicological testing revealed a blood alcohol concentration of 0.054. There was a high level of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (202 ng/mL) in the blood.
Whoa. Alcohol I expected, but drugs? I searched for it and it rang a distant bell: Molly, a potent form of MDMA that had a resurgence in the spring of 2009. A fifth of Calhoun’s residents were probably on it on any given Friday. But Edie?
The presence of gunpowder stippling, gunpowder particles, and soot on the skin surrounding the entrance defects is consistent with a close range of fire (less than 2–3 inches). Gunshot particles deep in the brain tissue suggest a close-range shot consistent with suicide, although accidental death should still be considered a possibility.
I could only skim the rest: section by section descriptions of opening her up with a Y-shape incision, peeling out her organs, weighing them, making pithy observations. Then there was a matrix repeating the levels of drugs and booze in her splayed-open body. The report ended on a note of finality, some of the only improperly used periods capping five pages of sentence fragments:
CAUSE OF DEATH: Gunshot wound to the head.
MANNER: Suicide.
I leaned back and breathed deeply through my nose, waiting for my stomach to unclench. Then I opened another file folder: dozens of free-floating emails between the police department and city officials. They swirled like snowflakes, unindexed, and I thought dully of my own emails from that era banging around on my server. I opened one at random: It was a New York City Police Department spokesman telling city employees that Edie probably killed herself. “Police are on the scene of a possible suicide in Bushwick that occurred by 11:30 p.m. I will provide you with updates,” it read. A two-liner, letting everyone know no foul play was suspected.
I clicked on a folder named after the detectives assigned to the case and realized it contained notes from their interviews with us, handwritten in comically terrible handwriting and scanned. There was one from their discussion with me, labeled LBACH, which touched off a strange thrill in my ribs. I opened it