‘And what sort of inconsistencies are we talking about here, Doc?’ Hunter asked, handing the folder over to Garcia.
Dr. Hove nodded at her student. ‘I’d better let Kay explain. Like I said, she was the one who discovered them all.’
Kay took in a proud breath of air and positioned herself across the examination table from the two detectives. ‘I’ll try to go over everything slowly, but if I go too fast, or you guys fall behind on any explanation and can’t keep up, just stop me at any time, OK?’
From the corner of his eye, Hunter saw Dr. Hove press her lips tightly together, trying to suppress the smile that was visibly threatening to erupt. He also saw Garcia frown at Kay. He was clearly trying to figure out if the Advanced Pathology student was being sarcastic or not.
She wasn’t.
Kay pulled the surgical sheet from over the subject. As she did, Garcia’s eyes widened at the state of the male body on the table in front of them. The ‘Y’ incision hadn’t been stitched back up yet. In fact, the chest flaps were still pulled back over the sides of his torso and neck, revealing a somewhat hollow thorax, as none of the removed internal organs, or the ribcage, had been put back in place. The top half of his skull, on the other hand, was exactly where it was supposed to be, but it hadn’t been stitched back up either.
‘Wow,’ Garcia commented, once again flipping open the folder in his hands. ‘Where did he jump from again?’
‘Allegedly—’ Hunter tried to correct his partner before he was corrected by Kay.
‘He didn’t jump,’ she said. Her tone was confident, leaving no room for argument. Her stare moved to Hunter. ‘Not even allegedly. He couldn’t have, but he fell from the 7th Street Bridge.’
Garcia nodded, as he found that same confirmation in the report. ‘That is a nasty fall. It explains the awful state of his limbs.’ He nodded at a couple of the exposed fractures on the body’s right leg and arm.
‘It does,’ Kay agreed. ‘And to be honest, it is because of those fractures that I know that this man didn’t jump to his death from the 7th Street Bridge a week ago.’
‘How so?’ Hunter asked.
‘Here,’ Kay said, guiding their attention to the two exposed fractures on the subject’s right arm. ‘Let me show you.’
As part of the full post-mortem examination, Kay and Dr. Hove had already cut open all the skin, flesh, muscle tissue and ligaments surrounding the wounds to better expose the fractures.
‘Bones are composed,’ Kay started, indicating the fracture on the forearm, ‘of both organic and inorganic material, each of which contribute to the biomechanical properties of the bones.’
‘Kay,’ Dr. Hove interrupted her student, her chin dipping down, her eyes looking at Kay over the rim of her glasses. ‘Unclench. This is what we call a “post-mortem briefing”, not a pathology class. Stick to the facts in plain English, pure and simple. No need to complicate anything with in-depth explanations in anatomy, biology, physiology… any of it. If they need details, they’ll ask you for them. Trust me, they’ve done this before.’
Kay paused and looked at the two detectives across the table from her. Both of them looked relaxed. Hunter had his arms loosely by his sides, while his eyes were on Kay. The look in them was friendly, as if seconding what Dr. Hove had just said.
Garcia had his arms folded over his chest, with his left one bent upward at the elbow and his chin resting on the knuckles of his left hand. His eyes were also on Kay, with a sympathetic smile showing at the corner of his lips.
‘OK,’ Kay said, as she clearly began rethinking her words. A second later, her shoulders seemed to relax a little. ‘If a fractureis sustained while the subject is still alive,’ she began again, ‘or at the moment of death, which should’ve been the case here because most of these fractures came as a result of the impact between his body and the ground, when he fell from the 7th Street Bridge, hemorrhage would’ve been very easily identifiable in the surrounding soft tissue.’ She indicated with the tip of the scalpel. ‘That’s because until the moment of death, blood would’ve been flowing normally throughout his body.’
‘But we’ve got none there,’ Hunter said, his eyes narrowing at the tissue surrounding the wound that Kay had indicated.
‘Not only here,’ Kay confirmed, redirecting their attention to the exposed fracture on the subject’s right elbow. ‘We’ve got none here either.’ Then again to the fracture in the subject’s right leg. ‘Or here.’ Collarbone. ‘Or here… or pretty much anywhere else. Can you see that?’ She gave everyone a couple of seconds. ‘That’s because at the moment of impact between his body and the ground, his heart wasn’t pumping blood through his veins anymore. No blood, no hemorrhage… it’s that simple.’
Garcia’s gaze moved from wound to wound. There really was no sign of any hemorrhage in any of the surrounding soft tissue. ‘You’re not wrong.’
‘I rarely am,’ Kay replied.
This time, while Dr. Hove allowed her head to drop, as if she had given up hope, Hunter and Garcia didn’t disguise the smiles that bloomed on their lips.
‘Ooh, I like her,’ Garcia said, nodding at the doctor.
Kay turned and pointed in the direction of the stainless-steel counter that hugged the east wall, where the subject’s internal organs lay inside separate containers filled with formalin. ‘The impact also fractured a few of his ribs, two of them so severely that they broke loose from the ribcage and perforated his right lung.’ She paused for effect. ‘That perforation should’ve, in theory, done two things.’
‘Caused the lung to collapse,’ Hunter offered. ‘And filled it with blood from the tissue tear.’
Kay looked back at Hunter with surprised eyes.
‘I read a lot,’ Hunter explained.
‘Good for you,’ Kay replied, without missing a beat. ‘Well, Detectives, neither of those things happened. We autopsied the lung. There was no sign of any internal hemorrhaging. No trauma to the tissue surrounding the tear either.’ She paused again, this time to allow the severity of what she had just said to sink in for a second.
