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I stopped to make a pot of coffee, and then I opened the pantry and used the step stool to reach the Hostess cinnamon rolls I’d hidden on the top shelf.
“Gotcha!” I said, stretching my fingers as far as I could until I touched the corner of the box and could nudge it forward.
The sound of crinkling plastic was music to my ears, and once I had my prize in hand I shoved the box back into hiding. Treats had a way of disappearing in this place. Lily said it was the ghosts of the dead who darkened our doorway, but I was pretty sure it was just me. I’d been blessed with great metabolism, and I’d learned how to survive on vending machine food and burnt coffee during my residency. Doctors typically had terrible eating and health habits. I was almost afraid to change at this point in my life. I was mostly held together with caffeine and gluten.
Once I had the essentials, I typed in the code that opened the lab door. When my parents decided to pursue lawlessness, they did it the right way and made sure everything was top of the line. I had one of the top labs in the state.
There was a soft click and a release of pressure as the door unsealed, and I immediately felt the change in temperature as I crossed the threshold. I debated on whether to use the lift or the stairs since my hands were full, and I decided on the stairs since I needed to counteract my upcoming calorie intake.
I enjoyed the monotony of the routine—the bright white lights and the sound of my soles hitting the metal stairs as I made my way down. No matter how good the ventilation system, there was always the faint smell of antiseptic and embalming fluid. It was the one smell Jack couldn’t stomach. He’d take a decayed body any day over chemicals.
I blew on my coffee and took a bite of cinnamon roll while I scrolled through my music library. I was feeling Rat Packish tonight, so I turned it on random and Dean Martin’s “Hey Mambo” blared through the speakers.
The sugar and caffeine finally hit my system, so I washed my hands, got a blank autopsy form from the drawer, and attached it to my clipboard. Technology had taken over many parts of the pathology industry, but there was something to be said for doing things with pencil and paper. You could look at x-rays and scans all day, but sometimes you had to touch and see for yourself.
I put on my lab coat and a thick apron, and I went to get David Sowers out of the cooler. I was humming along to Dean by the time I got him out of the bag and had removed all his clothes, and I was tapping my toe to Frank Sinatra by the time I’d scrubbed him down with antiseptic.
I checked all of his pockets again and the hems of his pants, and I found another vial of cocaine sewn into the cuff of his pants. This guy had a serious problem, but I was starting to wonder if he was a social user. Guys like Sowers typically ran in circles of people who had similar habits and income levels. Maybe he carried the extra for other people. It was definitely something to check out. The rats would start coming out of the woodwork once we started digging a little deeper.
There was no beauty in death. For David Sowers—educated, wealthy, and the ability to have anything he wanted at the snap of his fingers—he was still subjected to the humiliation of being nothing more than flesh and bone laid out on a cold metal table.
I turned the music off and turned on my recorder.
“Victim identified through driver’s license as David Sowers, age sixty-one. Caucasian male. Hair gray. Eyes blue. Height approximately one hundred and eighty-two centimeters. Weight is eighty-one point six kilograms.”
I moved the light closer to the body and photographed every inch of him, looking for distinguishing marks for identification or any other avenues for drug use as I went along.
“Apparent cause of death is GSW to the head,” I continued. “Indication of piercing in left ear. Significant swelling in nasal passages. Assumption due to cocaine found on victim at time of death. No sign of linear track marks in arms or between toes to indicate other avenues of drug use.”
I took x-rays and then displayed them on my light screen, seeing a picture of David Sowers’ life through his bones.
“Remodeled fractures on the metacarpals,” I said, furrowing my brow. “Less than a year old. Similar remodeled fractures on ribs two through four. Got in a fight with someone, didn’t you?”
I notated the breaks on paper. All in all, David Sowers appeared to be a typical sixty-one-year-old man. He wasn’t overweight, though there wasn’t any indication he took care of himself physically.
“Let’s see what your insides have to say,” I said.
I turned the music back on and took blood and urine samples, along with vitreous fluid from the eye. I could run basic toxicology tests here in the lab, but I’d have to send everything off to the state lab for corroboration and for more in-depth testing since I knew there was likely to be an interesting concoction in Sowers’ bloodstream.
Once I took care of the toxicology report I prepped him for his first Y-cut. The music had switched to Sammy Davis Jr. and I hummed along quietly as I made the cut all the way down to the pubic bone. I used shears to peel back skin and muscle and expose the rib cage.
“The candyman can…”
I put the shears back on the tray and grabbed my goggles and the bone saw, the grinding whir dampening the sound of the music as I cut through the rib cage. The way the human body was put together never ceased to amaze me. When the last cut was made, I lifted the rib cage out and had my first look at David Sowers’ internal organs. They were not what I would call healthy at first glance.
I reached for the syringe on the tray and drew another blood sample directly from the heart this time, and then I went through the painstaking process of removing each of his organs and weighing them. His heart was enlarged and several arteries that had blockages. His liver was fatty and his lungs indicated he was a smoker or had recently been within the last few years.
Another interesting find was that David Sowers had a prosthetic testicle. We’d have to locate medical records for the reason, but it had been surgically removed for whatever reason and replaced with a prosthetic for symmetry.
I moved on to the skull and removed what was left of his brain. I found several bullet fragments and carefully removed and bagged them to go with the other evidence. By the time I got everything put back in place and sewed up it was almost four, and my coffee and cinnamon roll were wearing off. I rolled him back into the cooler, finished the paperwork, and put the extra samples in the fridge to be sent to the state lab.
I texted Jack to let him know I was finished, and I debated just catching a couple of hours sleep in my office instead of making the drive home. I was just about to text Jack to let him know, but my phone rang.
“I’m out front,” Jack said. “I’ll follow you home since I’m sure whatever sugar concoction you ate has made you sleepy.”
“Hey, it kept me awake while I was operating power tools,” I said, making my way up the stairs and locking the lab door behind me.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s more important that you keep all your appendages. I’ll make sure you’re stocked with Hostess CupCakes for life.”
