ask Jim Ducket to take a look at it,’ Ben told him. ‘If you’re having trouble with the wagon, maybe we can get a replacement from the county until we get it fixed.’
‘Aw, the wagon ain’t no trouble. Just needs a little kick in the nuts every now and then. If you want Jimmy Ducket to take a look at anything, have him check out the radio. Hell, half the stations were set to classic rock when I climbed in it tonight. I take one five-day vacation and the whole place has gone to hell.’
Ben smiled. Nat had gone on a ski trip to Utah with his father last week, and Ben had been left making the pickups himself, just as he’d done before his assistant had come on board with him full-time several years ago. A few radio station adjustments had been the first order of business on his way out to pick up Kendra Fields, who’d died in her home last week of a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. When Ben arrived at the residence, Kendra’s husband, John, had been waiting for him at the front door. ‘Guess she’s gone and done it this time, Doc,’ the old man had said matter-of-factly. John was eighty-nine and belonged to the congregation at Ben’s church. Kendra had been three years his elder, and during the course of her life had survived two heart attacks, a serious stroke, breast cancer and a small plane crash. All things considered, it was time for her to pack up and head for home. Ben had chatted with John for half an hour. Then he’d loaded Kendra’s body into the back of the wagon and had treated her to some Creedence Clearwater Revival on the short ride back to the CO, cranking the volume up enough to turn people’s heads as he drove past. Hell, on top of everything else, Kendra Fields had also been a touch deaf during her final ten years on this earth.
‘Well, that’s what you get when you skip town and leave us old farts to drive the wagon,’ he advised his young colleague.
‘Yeah? Well, never again,’ Nat assured him. ‘Next time I leave town I’m takin’ the keys to the wagon with me. You can use that old beat-up jalopy of yours to pick up folks if you have to. Stuff ’em in the trunk, for all I care.’
Ben crossed the room and pulled a plastic apron down from the hook on the wall where it hung. He donned an eye shield, head cap, shoe covers and latex gloves, and approached the awaiting corpse. He was glad that Nat was here to assist him and to keep him company with his incessant, irreverent chatter. Ben filled his lungs with a deep breath, and let it out slowly through his nose. With his right hand he grasped the bag’s zipper and pulled it down.
The first thing he noticed was that the subject was young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. His skin was smooth and slightly freckled around the face. His eyes, still open, were dark brown, interlaced with a touch of mahogany. His hair was also brown, but several shades lighter than his eyes. A long lock hung partially across his forehead, tapering to a point and ending just shy of his left cheek, above the first of several obvious facial wounds. The flesh in this area had been torn completely away, leaving a jagged vacancy.
‘Jeeeesus,’ Nat commented. ‘That’s one hell of a chunk gone from his face, Dr S. What do you think he hit him with?’
Ben studied the gaping wound for a moment, peering closely at its serrated edges. ‘That’s a bite wound,’ he said quietly. ‘Hand me the camera.’
Nat walked across the room, opened a cabinet, and returned with the lab’s digital camera. ‘Bit him,’ he repeated softly to himself, mulling it over. ‘Now, that’s messed up.’
Ben snapped off several pictures of the facial wound. ‘In multiple places.’ He pointed to the right side of the boy’s lower neck. ‘See here?’
A second, wider piece of flesh was missing at the spot Ben was indicating. The boy was still dressed in the clothes he had died in, and the collar of his black, loosely fitting T-shirt was torn in this area and caked with dried blood. Ben inspected the wound carefully, using forceps to pull back a flap of skin that hung limply across the opening, partially obscuring it. A voice-activated recorder hung around Ben’s neck, and he spoke into it in a neutral, practiced tone as he worked: ‘Dr Ben Stevenson; March 29th, 2013; case number—’ He looked at the large dry erase board hanging on the wall. ‘Case number 127: John Doe. Received directly from the crime scene, custody transferred from Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department.’ He took a breath. ‘Subject is a Caucasian male, approximately fourteen years of age, dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans. Inspection of the face and cranium demonstrates a 3.6-by-4.1-centimeter soft tissue avulsion injury beginning superficial to the left zygomatic arch and extending inferiorly to involve the lateral portion of the orbicularis oris. Avulsions of the zygomaticus major and minor are noted, with wound depth extending through the masseteric fascia.’ He lifted the boy’s chin slightly with one gloved finger, using a thin metal instrument to probe a penetrating wound noted there. ‘Inspection of the submental region demonstrates a puncture wound measuring 0.75 by 0.9 centimeters, which extends through the mylohyoid and hyoglossus muscles, continuing superiorly and dorsally through the body of the tongue, soft palate and nasopharynx. There are seven – correction, eight – similar puncture wounds to the cranium that extend through the scalp, underlying musculature and galea aponeurotica. Two of the eight wounds penetrate the skull and enter the cranial vault. A second avulsion injury is noted at the right inferolateral aspect of the neck 5.3 centimeters medial to the acromioclavicular junction and involving the inferior platysma, lateral trapezius and sternocleidomastoid muscles, as well as the right external jugular vein.’
This part of the examination – the initial inspection and description of the body – was the portion of the necropsy Ben always found most interesting. Every corpse, he found, had a tale to tell, and the details of one’s life were often prominently revealed by the compilation of physical marks collected along the way, like scrapes and gouges on the underside of a boat. Prior scars (both surgical and traumatic), tattoos, track marks from a lifetime of IV drug abuse, burns, calluses, fat and muscle mass distribution, exaggerated spinal curvature from decades of stooped physical labor, tan lines, nicotine-stained fingertips, chewed fingernails and even the state of a person’s teeth often spoke volumes about the course of their life. In Ben’s opinion, these were not only the most interesting details of the examination, but also the most aesthetically beautiful – strange words to describe the physical blemishes of a corpse, perhaps, but he was a pathologist, after all. These marks and imperfections represented more than simple anatomy. They had been born from action, behavior and life experiences, and were therefore the most human, the most in touch with the life they had left behind.
In the case of traumatic deaths, however, it was different. One’s eye is inexorably drawn to the fatal injury – that which has extinguished the flame of life so abruptly. Especially in the case of young people, the autopsy ceases to be about discovering the marks left behind from a life richly experienced, and rather is about bearing witness to the end of a life barely begun. Such was the case here, as Ben moved from one disfiguring injury to the other, each one denoting a blatant disrespect for the life of this young man, and for human life in general. It was a tragedy to behold. He wanted simply to stop, to cover the form in front of him with cloth, to save it from this last final disgrace. Instead, he continued, using practiced and precise descriptive terminology like a shield to defend himself from what was real.
‘Inspection of the thorax demonstrates puncture wounds to the right fourth and sixth intercostal spaces anteriorly, and to the right fifth, seventh and eighth intercostal spaces along the midaxillary line. There is a 4.1-by-3.8-centimeter serrated avulsion of the left areola and underlying pectoralis muscle, similar in appearance to those of the face and neck, described above. There is a displaced fracture of the xiphoid process. Inspection of the abdomen demonstrates a 0.8-by-0.9-centimeter puncture wound to the right upper quadrant, and two similar puncture wounds to the right flank. There is a 35-centimeter diagonal incision extending from the right upper quadrant of the abdomen to the suprapubic region, penetrating the rectus abdominus and peritoneal fascia. There is evisceration of the small bowel. The genitalia are … missing.’
He
