back the scalp, and the air vibrates with the loud whining and grinding of the oscillating saw, and bone dust is suspended in the bright white light. I open the major blood vessels, the inferior vena cava, the aorta, finding what I expect, that they are empty, with dry diffuse hemolytic staining. I see no evidence of blockage or injury or disease, just a moderate amount of calcification, certainly not enough to kill her.
“The brain’s too soft to section,” Luke reports. “But I’m not seeing anything to suggest cerebral injury. Dura’s intact and free of staining.” He writes it down.
Her organs are decomposed. Her lungs are collapsed, reddish-purple and very soft, the airways devoid of water, froth, sand, or foreign material, the gallbladder dry and wrinkled, with no residual bile. With each minute we work it becomes abundantly clear that this is an autopsy of exclusion, of ruling out possible causes of death and leaving little doubt that she either asphyxiated or was poisoned. But it will be a while—days, at least—before we have a complete ethanol and drug screen of liver tissue.
“No petechiae I can find.” Luke opens each eye. “No irregular areas of hemorrhage to the sclera or the conjunctiva. Of course, that doesn’t rule out asphyxia by smothering or strangulation,” he adds, and he’s right.
While there are no abrasions or contusions, no injuries I might associate with smothering or strangulation, the absence of facial or scleral pinpoint hemorrhages called petechiae doesn’t mean that someone didn’t place a plastic bag over her head or tie a gag around her nose and mouth or ram a cloth down her throat that obstructed her breathing.
Her gastric contents are granular and dry like animal feed. I adjust the light and use a lens, moving the material around with forceps.
“Dried out, desiccated meat,” I observe. “If I can see it grossly, it wasn’t very digested when she died.”
“There’s very little in her small intestine,” Luke lets me know. “Almost nothing in her large intestine. It usually takes what? A good ten hours for food to completely clear?”
“It depends on a lot of things. How much she ate, whether she exercised, her hydration. Digestion varies considerably with individuals.”
“So if she ate and the food hardly had begun to digest before she died,” he supposes, “chances are we’re talking only a couple of hours after her last meal?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
I tell him to weigh the gastric contents and place some of it in formalin so we can process it histologically.
“An iodine test for starch, napthol for sugar, Oil Red O for lipids. Hopefully we can pick out identifiable food particles on the stereomicroscope.” I explain the special stains I’ll want used.
We are working side by side, our backs to the door.
“So I’m going to make evidence rounds to tox, to histology, to trace, with special instructions,” Luke goes down the list. “What about SEM?”
“Maybe for botanicals.” I’m vaguely aware of a shift in the air behind me. “For stomatal comparisons. For example, is it napa cabbage? Is it Chinese broccoli? Is it bok choy? Is there any evidence of arthropods such as shrimp? Are there cellular structures that might be oats? Are there cereal grains that might be wheat?”
Luke turns around, and then I do.
“I’m wondering how much longer,” Benton says, from the open door he holds.
“Didn’t hear you come in,” Luke replies, as if making a point.
“We’re actually finishing up now.” I meet Benton’s eyes, and his are wary.
“Find anything helpful?” He stands in the doorway.
“The long answer is undetermined for now, pending toxicology and further studies.” I untie my gown in back. “The short answer is I don’t know.”
“Not even a guess?” Benton stares at what’s on the table, and the reason he doesn’t come closer isn’t because of the odor or the ugliness.
He isn’t bothered by such things. He’s bothered by something else.
“I’m not going to guess about what killed her.” I toss my gloves and shoe covers into a biohazard can. “But I can give you a long list of what didn’t.”
twenty-two
HEAVY RAINS HAVE TURNED TORRENTIAL, THE VIOLENT storm unseasonable for fall, with high winds stripping trees of any leaves left and thunder cracking like a war going on. Water sprays the undercarriage of the SUV and splashes the glass, and Benton seems miles from me as I drive through the dark puddled streets of mid-Cambridge.
“It’s common sense that he can’t be involved,” he says from the passenger’s seat, where he’s alert to his surroundings and not looking at me.