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“This is going to be tricky,” I said. “I’ll angle the distal end and rotate until I get the best view of whatever it is.”
“Say the word and I’ll hold her in place while you adjust focus,” Lindstrom said.
The man’s hands were as steady as a neurosurgeon’s.
“Looks like a splinter of metal,” I said when the image settled on the screen. “Probably forced into the shaft when the wrist was severed.”
“Makes sense. My guess, the hand was removed with a single powerful blow delivered quick and hard.” Lindstrom demonstrated with a vertical chop. “That’s an extraordinarily smooth cut.”
“May I use your saw?” I asked.
“Let me clean it.”
As Lindstrom did that, I snapped pics. When the saw was ready, I buzzed through the bone as near the inclusion as I dared.
“May I borrow—?”
Having anticipated my need, Lindstrom handed me a pair of mosquito forceps.
Moving gingerly, I clamped the visible edge of the splinter between the delicate jaws of the tweezers. At first it wouldn’t budge.
I tugged harder. No go.
Forcing the jaws further back onto the object, I squeezed the handles and yanked.
A slight shimmy, then the bone reluctantly yielded its booty. I pulled the thing free and held it aloft.
The sliver of metal was flat, roughly rectangular, and measured about one by two centimeters.
“Must be steel,” Lindstrom said. “To be strong enough to penetrate without bending.”
Wordlessly, I placed the fragment under the scope. Focused. We both studied the new image.
“Three of its borders are smooth, the fourth is rough. Looks like a flake broken from something larger.”
I agreed.
“Flip her over,” Lindstrom suggested.
Using the forceps, I did.
“Is that writing?” Apparently, the man’s eyesight was better than mine.
“Those dots?”
“Increase the magnification,” he said. “Please.”
When I did, the dots crystallized into angles and lines.
“More.”
I zoomed higher.
“Hey, Mem, the vowelO, Tsade,” Lindstrom read aloud. “The rest is missing.”
I just looked at him.
Lindstrom shrugged. “I’m blessed with extraordinary vision. Perhaps the reason they pay me the mediocre bucks.”
