The Stone Serpent, page 3
“Thanks, Dae-jung,” Laura said. “Can you set it up over by the table?”
He paused to put on a surgical mask and hair net, then rolled the portable X-ray machine up to the autopsy table. He looked over the body.
“This is some serious Clash of the Titans shit. Do you think he knew what was happening to him? Do you think he felt it?”
“It’s hard to say,” Laura said. “We don’t know yet if the condition occurred posthumously or…”
“Or if it’s what killed him,” Dae-jung finished for her.
“Let’s get this machine working,” Chief Morales said impatiently.
“No problem, Chief.” Dae-jung put on a pair of nitrile gloves and removed a black, square object from a sleeve on the back of the machine. “Where do you want me to set up the detector panel?”
Laura decided they might as well start at the top, with Malachai Applewhite’s head. Grunting with effort, Dae-jung lifted the head with one gloved hand, tilting the whole body stiffly upward, and with his other hand he positioned the detector panel beneath it. Made of carbon fiber and aluminum alloy with a rubber insulated frame, the panel was big, eighteen inches on each side. Laura was sure it was heavier than it looked. Dae-jung pushed the sides of the body bag as far away from the body as he could. Then he extended the machine’s arm over Malachai’s head.
“This model uses a much lower dose of radiation than the older ones did,” he said, “but I’m still going to need you both to step back as far as you can.”
Laura retreated to the morgue door. Morales followed her with a heavy sigh, as if this were already taking too long.
“How long will we have to wait?” Morales asked.
“The imaging is instantaneous,” Dae-jung explained, adjusting some numbers on the operation panel to select the kilovoltage and exposure time. “The detector panel sends the X-ray image back to the monitor the moment it’s captured. Much faster than the bad old days when you had to wait to develop the X-ray film.”
To demonstrate, Dae-jung removed the push-button switch from its holster on the console and pressed the button with his thumb. Instantly, an X-ray image of Malachai Applewhite’s head appeared on the monitor.
Dae-jung waved them over. The digital image on the monitor was a crystal-clear X-ray of Malachai Applewhite’s head in profile. Most people thought bones showed up on X-ray images because of their density, but that wasn’t the case. The X-rays were blocked and reflected by the calcium in the bones, which made the bones appear white in the imaging, while the X-rays passed right through soft tissue, which appeared much darker. Laura saw right away that this X-ray image wasn’t right. A normal image would show the outline of the skull in a hard, bold white. The cranial cavity, auditory canals, sinuses, and orbits of the eyes would all be much darker. In this image, however, it was all white, as though the skull had been filled with cement.
“It’s not just his skin that’s fossilized,” she said. “Everything inside the cranium has, too. His eyes, his brain, everything.”
“What are those?” Chief Morales pointed to spots on the teeth that were a brighter white than the rest of them.
“Fillings,” Dae-jung replied. “Modern composite resin fillings from the look of it. They add metallic compounds containing barium or zirconium to composite fillings these days to make them more radiopaque.”
Morales gave him a quizzical look.
“To make them show up better on X-rays,” he clarified.
“Modern fillings.” Morales said. “So much for your theory that he’s been dead for years, Dr. Powell.”
Laura was certain Morales was purposely needling her, but she held her tongue. She wasn’t going to give Morales the satisfaction of losing her temper.
“Did you find anything when you were at the scene?” Morales asked Dae-jung.
“I examined the tread marks on the road,” he said. “The car was driving steadily until just before it swerved onto the sidewalk. No stops, nothing suspicious. Whatever happened to this man happened inside the car.”
“Which I take it you examined thoroughly?” Morales said.
“I did,” he said. “I didn’t find anything unusual.”
“Let’s continue,” Laura said. “I’d like to X-ray his chest cavity next.”
Dae-jung moved the detector panel to underneath Malachai’s torso. The image showed similar results. The ribcage and spine showed up in bright, thick white. The lungs, which should have appeared so dark as to be almost black on a normal X-ray image, were as white as the bones. It reminded Laura of the exhibit at Storm King, complex crystals forming inside the ribcage. In the art piece, the crystals had responded to the humidity inside the glass case. What had Malachai Applewhite’s internal organs responded to? What could have caused this?
She’d seen enough to know further X-rays would only show the same throughout his body. All the soft tissue—the organs, the blood vessels, the subcutaneous fat—had fossilized, just like his skin.
“I’m sorry, Chief Morales, but there’s no way I can perform an autopsy on this body,” she said. “Even if I could cut him open, I wouldn’t be able to determine if there was a toxin in his bloodstream, or if there was an infection. All his internal organs have been compromised.”
Morales looked like she was going to explode. “Unacceptable, Dr. Powell.”
“There’s still one thing we can do,” Dae-jung said. “The organs may be affected, but as far as we can tell from the X-rays, the bones haven’t been.” He pointed to the ribcage on the screen. “If we’re lucky, the marrow might still be intact inside the bone. If I can examine it, I might be able to figure out if there was a disease or toxin involved in this man’s death, particularly if it was bloodborne. The marrow can’t tell us everything, but it’s a start.”
“How soon can you begin?” Morales asked.
“Not before tomorrow.”
Morales pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. “And why is that?”
“Sorry, Chief, but I need special tools to extract the marrow, and unfortunately I don’t have them in the lab.” He turned to Laura. “With your permission, of course. You’re the M.E. The body’s under your jurisdiction.”
“Just do it,” Morales interrupted. “We don’t need any more delays.”
Laura’s anger hit a rolling boil. It was her decision to make, not Morales’s. Dae-jung, to his credit, waited for her to give him a nod before continuing.
“Okay, tomorrow it is,” he said. “I’ll be on it first thing.”
“Well, I’m glad this wasn’t a complete waste of time,” Morales said.
Was she deliberately trying to get under Laura’s skin? Laura struggled to keep her cool. Dae-jung must have noticed the anger in her eyes, because he broke the tension by offering to help her move the body into the morgue refrigerator. Grateful for his help, Laura started to zip up the body bag again, then paused.
“Hold on a minute.”
She bent to look closer at Malachai’s feet. In the course of her full-body examination, she’d missed something on his left ankle. A mark of some kind. Laura grabbed a magnifying glass for a closer look. There was a small hole between the Achilles tendon and the lateral malleolus bone.
“Did you find something?” Chief Morales demanded, her impatience for answers surfacing again.
“Some kind of puncture wound on his ankle,” she said. “It might not be anything, but it’s worth noting.” She added it to the exam form.
“And you’re only just seeing it now?” Morales pressed.
“It’s very small, easy to miss, especially with the skin discoloration.”
Morales shook her head disdainfully. “Sloppy work, Dr. Powell. I expect better from you.”
If Laura had been holding a scalpel at that moment, there was no telling what she might have done. Instead, she ignored the remark and zipped up the body bag. She opened one of the refrigerator doors and pulled out the stainless-steel body tray while Dae-jung rolled the portable X-ray machine away from the autopsy table to give them room. Then, together, they strained to lift the heavy body bag off the table by its handles and carry him to the refrigerator. They laid him down on the body tray. Because of the position his body was stuck in, he just barely fit. She slid the tray into the refrigerator and closed the door.
Morales started to leave the morgue without thanking either of them, which Laura had to admit was on-brand for her.
“Wait, Chief,” she called. “I’d like to assist with the investigation. I think I can be helpful—”
“I’ve got it from here, Dr. Powell,” she interrupted. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
With that, Chief Morales blew out of the morgue like a cold wind.
4.
* * *
“There’s no way Morales is going to let me help with the investigation,” Laura said. “You should have seen her today, looking over my shoulder like I don’t know how to do my job.”
“I’m sorry,” Booker said. He cleared the plates off the dining room table and brought them into the kitchen.
She was spending the night at his place again, as she’d done most nights this week. Booker was one of the lucky ones whose house had survived the fires last year. Laura’s own house across town had survived as well, and although she found herself staying at Booker’s more often these days, she wasn’t ready to give it up yet. It wasn’t about their relationship. Laura knew she and Booker were in it for the long haul. The real reason—the only reason—was that she’d worked so hard at her medical practice to be able to afford her own house that she was reluctant to sell it. To his credit, Booker never pressured her about moving in with him, though she could tell he wanted that. Among other things, it was why he kept cooking amazing dinners for her.
“Maybe Chief Morales is still trying to find her footing,” he said from the kitchen. He rinsed off the plates and put them in the dishwasher. The scent of roasted chicken with pancetta and olives lingered in the air.
“I doubt it. She’s been chief for a year,” she said. “I think she just doesn’t like me. I know I sound like a child, but I’m convinced it’s true.”
Booker came back into the dining room holding an open bottle of red and two wine glasses. He put the glasses on the table and poured.
“You read my mind,” Laura said.
“I figured this was the kind of conversation that required wine.”
Laura lifted her glass to her lips. The wine had a rich claret color and tasted of dark cherries and plums. It was a sipping wine, but she was angry enough to seriously consider emptying the whole glass in a single gulp.
“Not that I’m defending Chief Morales,” Booker said, taking his seat again, “but it is unusual for the M.E. to help with an investigation, isn’t it?”
“Ralph always welcomed my help.”
“She’s not Ralph.”
“That’s for sure.” This time, she did empty her glass. She quickly refilled it from the bottle. “There’s something about this case, Booker. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never even heard of anything like it. How can someone fossilize so quickly?”
“He was petrified,” Booker said. “Not fossilized.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is there a difference?”
“There is in my field,” he said. “A fossil is any evidence of life that’s been preserved in rock—droppings, eggs, footprints. It doesn’t have to be an actual organism. Petrifaction, on the other hand, is the process by which organisms become fossils. Over time, the organic tissue is replaced by minerals.”
“Like petrified wood,” Laura said.
“Exactly.” Having finished his glass of wine, Booker poured himself another. “You get petrified wood when fallen trees are buried under layers of river mud. If there’s enough mud, it forms an airtight seal that prevents oxygen from reaching the dead tree. Without oxygen, it can’t decay. The wood’s organic tissue breaks down extremely slowly, and the resulting voids in the wood are filled with minerals. Over millions of years, those minerals crystallize within the wood’s cellular structure. Of course, by that point, the wood isn’t even really wood anymore. It’s closer to stone.”
His eyes twinkled the way they always did when his mind was revving like an engine, focusing on a topic he found fascinating.
“The really cool thing about petrified wood is that it takes on different colors, depending on which minerals have replaced the wood’s cells. Green and blue petrified wood has copper or cobalt inside it. Pink has manganese. Imagine that. Wood goes under the mud and comes out millions of years later as a totally different thing, a hybrid of sorts between what it used to be and what it has become, and when it finally emerges, it wears the colors of the minerals that transformed it.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine Booker standing in front of his science class at the high school, imparting the same information to his students with the same joyful ebullience. The thought made her smile, something she hadn’t done since her miserable experience with Morales earlier.
Laura picked up her wine glass and carried it into the living room. She sat down on the couch and tucked her bare feet under her. Booker sat down next to her.
“The man in the morgue was named Malachai Applewhite,” she said. “This didn’t happen to him over the course of millions of years. It happened to him while he was driving. It must have been quick.”
“I take it he wasn’t found buried in river mud, either,” Booker said.
“I’m starting to wish he had been. At least that would make sense.” Laura took another sip of wine. She was feeling a little better now. Talking it out with Booker helped. “Without the mud, and without millions of years passing, have you heard of any other ways for someone or something to become petrified like that?”
Booker swirled the dark red wine in his glass as he thought it over. “Have you ever heard of Stuckie the dog?”
“Stuckie?” She chuckled and put her glass down on the coffee table.
“It’s a nickname, but it’s not a happy one,” he said. “Back in the Eighties, some loggers in Georgia cut down a chestnut oak tree. They discovered it was hollow, and inside the trunk was the perfectly preserved, mummified body of a dog.”
“Oh no!” Laura immediately regretted having laughed. “What happened?”
“They think he was a hunting dog from the Sixties who chased something small like a squirrel into the tree,” Booker said. “The dog followed it up the hollow tree trunk, but the higher he climbed, the narrower the space became until finally he got stuck. Most likely, he died of dehydration.”
Laura put one hand over her mouth. The thought of that poor dog wedging himself into a tight space and not being able to turn around or get out was heartbreaking.
“But here’s the interesting part,” Booker said. “Because the dog died inside the tree, the carcass was protected. Other animals couldn’t get to him, and the dry environment inside the tree dehydrated the carcass. But that’s not what preserved it. The chestnut oak contains natural tannins, which seeped into the dog’s body and prevented it from decaying. It preserved Stuckie the dog for all those years.”
“That poor dog. They gave him a terrible nickname.” Laura finished the wine in her glass, then got up and took the bottle off the dining room table. She returned to the living room with it, sat down, and refilled both her and Booker’s glasses. “It still doesn’t sound like the same thing. The dog in the tree was essentially mummified, but Malachai… I really wish you could have seen him, Booker. Dae-jung said it looked like he was turned to stone.”
“Petrifaction and mummification are both forms of preservation, and they can both be caused by environmental conditions,” Booker said. “So, what environmental conditions would be necessary for Malachai to become naturally preserved?”
Laura held her wine glass in both palms and leaned against the couch cushion. Some couples spent the evening watching television or streaming movies; she and Booker talked about dead bodies and scientific oddities.
Take that, Cosmopolitan magazine! she thought.
“Okay, there are three conditions I can think of,” she said. “The first would be extreme cold. Permafrost ice can preserve bodies almost perfectly. Even the clothing. They found graves in the Canadian Arctic from the 1845 Franklin expedition, and the bodies inside were nearly pristine. But right now, the evidence says whatever happened to Malachai happened in his car, so it can’t be the cold.”
“That would be one hell of an air-conditioning system.” Booker pursed his lips and swirled the wine in his glass. “What’s number two?”
“A lack of oxygen, like with petrified wood.” She chewed her bottom lip, deep in thought. “Preserved bodies have been found buried in peat bogs. The sphagnum moss that forms over the bogs keeps out oxygen from the air and turns the bog acidic enough to be inhospitable to bacteria. Together, those factors cause organic material to decompose at an incredibly slow rate. In Denmark, they found a bog body they called Tollund Man, whose death dated back to the fourth century B.C. He was so well preserved they found stubble on his face. But again, it’s the same problem.”
“The location of his death,” Booker said. “Even if you could somehow remove every bit of oxygen from inside the car, he would suffocate, not petrify.”
“Right.” She groaned, annoyed that the answer was still eluding her.
“Let’s keep going,” Booker said. “What’s the third option?”
“Extremely arid conditions,” she said. “Bodies found buried in the desert are naturally mummified, presuming scavengers don’t find them. Bodies lose their moisture in those conditions, the skin becomes dry, papery, and tight to the bone. That’s not what happened to Malachai. He doesn’t look dried out, only discolored and with all his soft tissue now as hard as stone. I couldn’t even cut into him with a scalpel.”
“If he didn’t dry out, what happened to all the liquid in his body?” Booker asked. “You said he was petrified all the way through.”
