Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [57]
Deputy Clarkston greeted Mitch and Steve when they arrived. “Thanks for letting us come,” Steve said diplomatically.
Clarkston shrugged. “You did the heavy lifting yesterday. If you want to watch the autopsy, fine by me. My boss said whatever you need, to help. But we’re working the case, just so you know.”
“Good,” Steve said when Mitch wanted to argue. “We’ll give you whatever help you need, but it’s all yours.”
Clarkston relaxed and opened the door to the observation room.
The small room was cramped for three broad-shouldered cops. They stood, pushing the two chairs to the corners. A television high in one corner was blank. Mitch flicked a switch and static ensued.
Clarkston tapped on the window and caught the attention of a young forensic pathologist. He turned on the mic. “Can we get a visual here? And we will need two copies of the tape.”
She nodded and switched on the camera above the body.
The pathologists all wore face masks, gowns, gloves, and booties, but that was the extent of their protective clothing. The three of them in the room were all women.
Mitch wanted to tell Steve what he’d learned from Claire’s computer, but the information had been obtained illegally. Meg would have a meltdown: She was a stickler for constitutional law. You don’t bend the rules—any of them.
Mitch glanced at the dead body. They would have confirmation within the hour—the dental records from his hometown dentist had been overnighted and the chief pathologist was off right now comparing the corpse’s dental X-rays to those of Maddox.
Just last night he’d promised Steve that he would keep nothing from him, nothing that could jeopardize the capture of Thomas O’Brien. But what did he know now, really? Claire had done a few Google searches on the principals of the case. What did that tell them? It wasn’t illegal for Claire to look into her father’s case.
But Mitch knew there was more to it than that.
The external exam now over, the internal exam was beginning. The senior pathologist made the first incision.
Maddox’s body was pale, the skin having dissolved. The body was a lumpy mass of human Jell-O. Because it had been in fresh, cold water, putrefaction had slowed, but bacteria had still done severe damage. If Maddox had drowned, there was no way to prove it. Only through external investigation—accident site, damage to the car, mental state of the victim prior to disappearance—could they determine it had been an accident rather than murder. A bullet would be nice, Mitch thought, but there had been no obvious wounds on the body when they’d bagged him underwater yesterday.
And looking at the body now, Mitch couldn’t see anything obvious. There were no visible wounds that would indicate cause of death. No bullet or knife wounds. But with the skin slippage and advanced putrefaction, obvious wounds might be unnoticeable.
Mitch watched in silence as the pathologists removed and weighed organs that no longer had the color and shape they should have. How they knew what section was the heart and what was the lungs, he didn’t know.
When the senior pathologist removed the brain, she said, “Now this is interesting.”
“What?” Mitch asked.
She pulled the camera in closer and Mitch focused on the television screen over his head. “See it?”
“No.” All Mitch saw was a lump of dark mass that had the basic form of a brain.
“Here.” She took a scalpel and touched a section of the brain that was a slightly different color than the remainder.
“Okay, you got me. What?”
“This is discolored because it was bruised prior to death.”
“Are you saying he was hit on the back of the head before he died?”
“I’m saying that his brain was bruised prior to death, but there were no open wounds.”
“How can you tell?” Clarkston asked, nose wrinkled in disgust.
“The fish would have attacked his brain if it was bleeding externally at the time of