“So the theory from Julian Crist’s autopsy,” Dr. Cutty said, “was that his skull fracture came as the result of blunt-force trauma. By definition, this type of injury is produced by low-velocity impact from a blunt, or dull, object. Or the low-velocity impact of a body against a blunt surface. So something that is nonjagged and not sharp, moving at a particular velocity that is considered low, struck the skull. In Julian Crist’s case, the argument was made that a boat oar—specifically, a paddleboard oar—was used to strike him from behind.”
Dr. Cutty leaned down on the other side of the autopsy table and produced a long, crusty-looking wooden oar.
“According to the autopsy report, this is the same brand and make of the oar in question.”
Sidney cocked her head. “Where did you find it?”
“The office of the chief medical examiner has an extensivedatabase from our tool analysis guys. We’ve got a guy who knows just about everything about pretty much any device ever used as a weapon. He pulled this oar up on the database and went hunting for one at Play It Again Sports shops around the state. Found this beauty the other day. Sawyer no longer manufactures these.” Dr. Cutty held up the oar. “They’re heavy and wooden. Over time, they became waterlogged and chipped. The newer ones are much lighter and made of composite plastic.”
“Can I?” Sidney asked, holding out her hand.
“Sure.”
Sidney took the oar, surprised by its weight and length. At least five pounds, and more than six feet. She lifted it over her shoulder to see what it would take to swing it. A surge of adrenaline filled her body as she thought of Grace Sebold doing the same.
“Tim,” Dr. Cutty said to her colleague, pointing to the spot in front of her. Dr. Schultz walked from around the autopsy table and stood with his back to Dr. Cutty. “The theory,” Dr. Cutty said, taking the oar from Sidney, “was that the perpetrator approached the victim from behind and swung the oar on an oblique plane.”
She pantomimed the angle at which it was surmised in the autopsy report that the oar had struck Julian’s skull. Sidney watched Dr. Cutty imitate the lethal blow and made a mental note to talk with Leslie Martin and see about creating an animated reenactment of the assault.
“Here’s the problem with that theory,” Dr. Cutty said. “First, the skull fracture was stellate in nature. That means it came from a single source of impact and then spread outward, like dropping a heavy object on a thin sheet of ice and watching the fissures spread through it. Now, no matter how you simulate the oar striking the skull, with either the flat side or the thin side”—Dr. Cutty placed the oar against TimSchultz’s head, first with the flat end pancaked against his skull, and then rotated as if to chop a tree with the slim side of the blade—“it is impossible for this oar to cause a stellate fracture in the pattern found on Julian Crist’s skull.”
“Impossible or unlikely?” Sidney asked.
“Impossible.”
Sidney imagined the wordimpossibleringing out on episode four.
“How can you determine that?” Sidney asked.
“Because we’ve tried. Several times. And we’ll try again today on Damian and Martha.”
The other pathologist, Dr. Tilly, hoisted the first cadaver so it was bent at a ninety-degree angle from the waist as though Damian were sitting on the autopsy table. The leather skin cracked and oozed formalin as Dr. Tilly positioned it. With Dr. Schultz, she attached nylon straps to the chest and under the arms, which they secured to the corners of the autopsy table, where holes and fasteners were present, and then fastened the latches onto hanging braces that came from the ceiling. Apparently, sitting a dead body up in the morgue was a common practice.
“You’ll want to stand over there,” Dr. Cutty said to Derrick, who moved from the corner and positioned himself so that the back of the cadaver’s head was visible through the viewfinder.
“Here are the photos from Julian’s autopsy showing the skull fracture. Its epicenter is located in the posterior, superior aspect of the right parietal bone.”
Sidney paged through the graphic photos depicting the top and back of Julian’s skull. Several were taken with blood-soaked hair obscuring the details, then more after the head had been shaved, which more clearly showed the laceration. The last few photos had been taken after the scalp had been peeled away to reveal raw bone that brought clearly intoview the caved-in area, which reminded Sidney of a broken china doll.
“I’m going to strike Damian’s skull with the flat end of the oar,” Dr. Cutty said. “Then I’ll do the same thing to Martha, but I’ll use the sharp end of the oar blade. Now, of course, in this experiment we are creating postmortem fractures, which vary greatly from perimortem fractures. But we’re not studying the blood pattern, skin lacerations, or the angles of the fractures. We are only analyzing thepatternof the fractures.The ones we produce on Damian will serve as excellent comparison to the fractures found on Julian Crist.”
Dr. Cutty moved to the end of the autopsy table.
“Here goes.”
Damian sat upright with his back facing her. Sidney glanced at Derrick, who offered another thumbs-up as he kept his right eye trained through the viewfinder. She stepped back a bit when Dr. Cutty raised the elongated oar over her right shoulder. In dramatic fashion, she brought the oar down hard into the cadaver’s skull. A sickening thud mixed with the splintering of bone echoed off the walls of the autopsy suite. Damian jerked forward, but the nylon straps kept him upright and in place. Sidney felt an odd sadness for the cadaver, or the man he once was.
Resting the oar against the autopsy table, Dr. Cutty slipped on latex gloves.
“The first thing you’ll notice is that there’s no breach to the scalp. No skin laceration. We did this experiment three other times on three other cadavers, plus multiple times on Synbone with pigskin covering, which is a close approximation to human skin,” Dr. Cutty explained. “When using the flat side of the oar, we were never able to reproduce the scalp laceration that was found during Julian Crist’s autopsy.”
Dr. Cutty snaked a gloved finger under the surgically perforated flap of skin near the front of the cadaver’s skull.
“Once we get past the absence of a laceration,” Dr. Cutty said as she peeled the scalp and hair away from the skull, as if removing a mannequin’s wig, “we can analyze the actual bone fracture.”
There was not a drop of blood, Sidney noticed. Damian’s vessels had long been dry. Dr. Tilly pulled a Canon camera from a nearby table and twisted the focus to snap several photographs of the bone damage.
“We’ll make sure you get copies of these.”
