Relic

= 10 =

D’Agosta wished with all his heart that the double-chili-cheeseburger in his stomach would disappear. Not that it was bothering him—yet—but it was an unwelcome presence.

The place smelled like they all did. In fact it stank. All the disinfectants in the world couldn’t cover up the smell of death. And the vomit-green walls in the Medical Examiner’s Office didn’t help things any. Nor did the large gurney, currently empty, sitting like an uninvited guest under the bright lights of the autopsy suite.

His thoughts were interrupted as a large woman entered, two men following close behind. D’Agosta noticed stylish glasses, blonde hair escaping from under a surgeon’s cap. The woman strode over and held out her hand, her red lipstick creased in a professional smile.

“Dr. Ziewicz,” she said, with a crushing grip. “You must be D’Agosta. This is my assistant, Dr. Fred Gross.” Ziewicz indicated a short, skinny man. “And [59] this is our photographer, Delbert Smith.” Delbert nodded, clutching a 4x5 Deardorff to his chest.

“So, Dr. Ziewicz, you come here often?” D’Agosta asked, suddenly eager to say something, anything, to stall the inevitable.

“NYME’s my home away from home,” Ziewicz replied with the same smile. “My field is—how shall I put it—special forensics. For just about everybody. We do our thing and ship them back out. Then I read about what it all means in the papers.” She looked at him speculatively. “You’ve, ah, seen this kind of thing before, right?”

“Oh yeah,” said D’Agosta. “All the time.” The burger in his gut felt like a lead ingot. Why didn’t he think ahead, remember what his afternoon schedule was before chowing down like a damned hog?

“That’s good.” Ziewicz consulted her clipboard. “Let’s see, parental consent? Good. Looks like everything’s in order. Fred, start with 5-B.”

She began slipping on latex gloves, three pairs, a mask, goggles, and a plastic apron. D’Agosta did likewise.

Gross wheeled the gurney over to the morgue bank and slid out 5-B. The indistinct shape under the plastic looked strangely short to D’Agosta, with an odd bulge at one end. Gross slid the cadaver and its tray onto the gurney, wheeled the cart under the lights, checked the toe tag, and locked down the wheels. He placed a stainless-steel bucket under the gurney’s outlet pipe.

Ziewicz was fiddling with the microphone hanging above the body.

“Testing, one two three ... Fred, this mike is totally dead.”

Fred bent over the reel-to-reel. “I can’t understand it, everything’s turned on.”

D’Agosta cleared his throat. “It’s unplugged,” he said.

There was a short silence.

[60] “Well,” said Ziewicz, “I’m glad there’s someone here who’s not a scientist. If you have any questions or comments, Mr. D’Agosta, please state your name and speak clearly toward the microphone. Okay? Everything goes on the tape. I’m just going to describe the state of the body first, and then we’ll start cutting.”

“Got it,” D’Agosta replied tonelessly. Cutting. It was one thing when a dead body was just lying there at the scene. But when they started cutting into it, peeling the layers away—he’d never gotten used to that.

“Are we up and running? Good. This is Dr. Matilda Ziewicz and Dr. Frederick Gross, and the date is Monday, March 27, at two-fifteen in the afternoon. We are joined by Detective Sergeant—?”

“Lieutenant Vincent.”

“Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta, of the NYPD. We have here—“

Fred read off the tag. “William Howard Bridgeman, number 33-A45.”

“I am now removing the covering.” The thick plastic crackled.

There was a short silence. D’Agosta had a sudden flash of the gutted dog he’d seen that morning. The trick is not to think too much. Don’t think about your own Vinnie, eighth birthday just next week.

Dr. Ziewicz took a deep breath. “We have here a Caucasian male, a boy, age about, ah, ten to twelve years, height, well, I can’t give a height for this one because it’s decapitated. Maybe four feet ten inches, maybe five feet? Weight, about ninety pounds. This is very approximate. The state of the body is such that I can see no other identifying marks. Eye color and facial features indeterminate due to massive head trauma.”

“No anterior wounds or marks on the feet, legs, or genitals. Fred, please sponge off the abdominal area ... thank you. There are an undetermined number of large lacerations proceeding from the left anterior pectoral region at a hundred and ninety degree angle downward [61] through the costals, sternum, and terminating at the right anterior abdominal region. This is a massive wound, perhaps two feet long and a foot wide. It appears that the pectoralis minor and pectoralis major are separated from the external thoracic cavity, the external and internal intercostals are separated, and the body is eviscerated to a great degree. The sternal process has been split and the rib cage exposed. Massive hemorrhaging in the aortal—it’s hard to see before cleaning and exploration.

“Fred, clean the edge of the thoracic cavity. The viscera that are clearly exposed and fully protuberant are the stomach, small and large intestines. The retroperitoneal organs appear to be in situ.

“Sponge the neck off, Fred. The neck area shows signs of trauma, some bruising, perhaps indicative of extravasation, possible spinal dislocation.

“Now for the head ... dear God.”

In the silence, Fred cleared his throat.

“The head is decapitated between the axial process and the atlas. The entire occipital portion of the calvarium and half the parietal process have been crushed, or rather seemingly punched through and removed, by means unknown, leaving a hole perhaps ten inches in diameter. The skull is empty. The entire brain appears to have fallen out or been extracted through this hole ... The brain, or what is left of it, is in a pan here to the right of the head, but there is no indication of its original position vis-à-vis the body.”

“It was found in pieces near the body,” said D’Agosta.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. But where’s the rest of it?”

“That’s all there was.”

“No. Something’s missing. You got full scene-of-crime series for this?”

“Of course,” said D’Agosta, trying not to show his annoyance.

“The brain is severely traumatized. Fred, bring me a number 2 scalpel and transverse speculum. The brain [62] appears to have been severed at the medulla oblongata. The pons Varolii is intact, but separate. The cerebellum shows surface lacerations but is otherwise intact. There is little evidence of bleeding, indicating postmortem trauma. There’s the body of fornix, attached. The cerebrum has been completely severed from the mesencephalon and the mesencephalon has been bisected and—look, Fred, there’s no thalamoid region. And no pituitary. That’s what’s missing.”

“What’s that?” asked D’Agosta. He willed himself to look more closely. The brain, sitting in a stainless-steel pan, looked a hell of a lot more liquid than solid. He turned away. Baseball. Think about baseball. A pitch, the sound of a bat ...

“The thalamus and the hypothalamus. The body’s regulator.”

“The body’s regulator,” repeated D’Agosta.

“The hypothalamus regulates body temperature, blood pressure, heartbeat, and the metabolism of fats and carbohydrates. Also the sleep-wake cycle. We think it holds the centers of pleasure and pain. It’s a very complicated organ, Lieutenant.” She looked fixedly at him, anticipating a question. D’Agosta mumbled dutifully, “How does it do all that?”

“Hormones. It secretes hundreds of regulatory hormones into the brain and bloodstream.”

“Yeah,” D’Agosta replied. He stepped back. The baseball soaring deep into center field, the center fielder dropping back, glove raised ...

“Fred come over here and look at this,” Ziewicz said sharply.

Fred bent over the pan. “It looks like ... Well, I don’t know ...”

“Come on, Fred,” Ziewicz coaxed.

“Well, it looks almost like—“ Fred paused. “Like a bite was taken out.”

“Exactly. Photographer!” Delbert rushed forward. [63] “Get this. Looks just like when one of my kids takes a bite out of a cake.”

D’Agosta leaned forward, but he could see nothing special in the gray, bloody mess.

“It’s semicircular, like a human’s, but it appears larger, more ragged than you’d expect. We’ll take sections. Let’s test for the presence of salivase enzymes, Fred, just in case. Take this to the lab, tell them to flashfreeze it and microsection here, here, and here. Five sections each. Stain at least one with eosinophil. Stain one with salivase activating enzyme. Anything else you or they can think of.”

As Fred left, Ziewicz continued. “I am now bisecting the cerebrum. The posterior lobe is bruised, consistent with removal from the cranium. Photograph. The surface shows three parallel lacerations or incisions, approximately four millimeters apart, about half an inch deep. I am parting the first incision. Photograph. Lieutenant, see how these lacerations start wide and then converge? What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” D’Agosta said, peering a little closer. It’s just a dead brain, he thought.

“Long fingernails, maybe? Sharpened fingernails? I mean, do we have a homicidal psychopath on our hands?”

Fred returned from the lab, and they continued working on the brain for what seemed an eternity to D’Agosta. Finally, Ziewicz told Fred to put it in the refrigerator.

“I will now examine the hands,” she spoke into the microphone. She removed a plastic bag from the right hand and carefully resealed it. Then she lifted the hand, rotated it, examined the fingernails. “There is foreign matter under the thumb, index, and ring fingers. Fred, three well slides.”

“He’s just a kid,” D’Agosta said. “You’d expect his fingernails to be dirty.”

“Perhaps, Lieutenant,” Ziewicz replied. She scraped [64] the material into small depressions in the slides, one finger at a time. “Fred, the stereozoom? I want to look at this.”

Ziewicz placed the slide on the stage, peered down, and adjusted the instrument.

“Normal fingernail dirt under the thumb, from the looks of it. Same with the others. Fred, full analysis, just in case.”

There was nothing of interest on the left hand.

“I will now,” Ziewicz continued, “examine the longitudinal trauma to the anterior portion of the body. Del, photographs, here, here, and here, and whatever else you think will show the wound best. Close-ups of the areas of penetration. It looks like the killer has done our Y-incision for us, wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah,” D’Agosta said, swallowing hard.

There were a series of rapid flashes.

“Forceps,” Ziewicz continued. “Three ragged lacerations begin just above the left nipple in the greater pectoral, penetrating and eventually separating the muscle. I am opening and probing the first laceration at the point of entry. Clamp there, Fred.

“I am now probing the wound. There is unidentified foreign matter here. Fred, a glassine? It looks like clothing material, perhaps from the victim’s shirt. Photograph.”

The flash popped, and then she held up a small piece of what looked like bloody lint, dropping it into the glassine envelope. She continued probing in silence for a few moments.

“There is another piece of foreign material deep in the muscle, about four centimeters directly below the right nipple. It is lodged on a rib. It appears to be hard. Photograph. Stick a flag in there, Fred.”

She extracted it and held it up, a bloody lump poised at the end of the long forceps.

D’Agosta ventured forward. “What is it? Rinse it off, maybe, and see?”

[65] She glanced at him with a slight smile. “Fred, bring me a beaker of sterile water.”

As she dipped the object in and stirred, the water turned brownish red.

“Keep the water, we’ll see if there’s anything else in it,” she said, holding her find to the light.

“Jesus H. Christ,” said D’Agosta. “It’s a claw. A fucking claw.”

Ziewicz turned to her assistant. “That will be a charming snippet of monologue for our tape, won’t it, Fred?”