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A gumbo of smells already packed the small room. Refrigerated flesh. Salt water. Dead vegetation.
“Eww.” As was her habit, Lisa would speak English to me. I guess that qualified.
Either way, I agreed. The special fans would earn their keep with this one.
On the table lay a body bag—one that showed very small bulges. A foot and some partial limbs.
While Lisa collected a Nikon and Sony Handycam, I filled out my case form. It’s a Luddite approach, granted. But putting my observations on paper helps me to organize my thoughts. And I like having a hard copy to cover the whole process.
Wordlessly, Lisa and I donned gloves, aprons, and goggles. Then, as she shot video, I unzipped the bag. The odor level jumped to Defcon 1.
The remains were as I recalled—a jumble of putrefying flesh wrapped in rotting seaweed. One by one I removed, cleaned, and arranged the body parts in their anatomical position on a stainless-steel gurney.
When I’d finished, Lisa and I studied my handiwork. The body I’d assembled consisted of an almost complete right foot, a segment of right lower leg, a segment of right thigh, and a segment of right upper arm. A person composed of more gaps than flesh.
“Radiographs?” Lisa asked.
“Please,” I said.
She stepped close to roll the gurney to the X-ray unit. Stopped. Leaned in and pointed one gloved finger at the upper arm.
“What’s that?”
I joined her.
We both stared.
Baffled.
6
“Is it a bruise?” Lisa asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
Lisa crossed to a drawer, withdrew a magnifier, and handed it to me. I raised and lowered the lens until the dark smudge came into focus on the pale flesh. Though blurred by decomp and days of immersion, a pattern was evident.
“What do you see?” I asked, handing Lisa the magnifier.
“Looks like a wheel with a digit in the middle.” After peering through the glass for another thirty seconds. “Maybe a five?”
“What’s the bump on top?”
“Right. Maybe it’s a spider with legs curling down around the number?”
“Could it be an octopus?”
“Maybe.”
“Have you ever seen this tattoo before?” I asked, knowing Lisa had attended hundreds, maybe thousands of conventional autopsies and had seen far more fleshed bodies than I.
“No.”
“Let’s get some photos. I don’t want the detail compromised by dehydration.”
She shot pics with both cameras, then wheeled the remains off for X-rays. By the time I’d filled out my forms, she was back and the films were ready for viewing.
Parking the gurney beside the autopsy table, Lisa keyed in the case number and brought up the first plate. The tattooed upper arm.
