Rushin' Death, page 5
“Good.” Dr. Wiltshire nodded. “Carry on, then. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”
He wasn’t quiet as a mouse, and he didn’t go directly to his office to work on whatever personal business he had to attend to. She could hear him going through the inventory in the morgue, checking in on their newest guests. Kenzie hadn’t had a chance yet to make sure that they had all been logged in correctly and to identify what other paperwork they might be waiting for. She forced herself to ignore the noise of Dr. Wiltshire moving around the morgue, whistling softly through his teeth. It was his morgue, after all; he was perfectly entitled to approach the day as he wished. Kenzie liked things to be done in a certain way, but he was the one who was ultimately in charge and responsible for whatever happened here.
She checked the voicemail inboxes first, having missed important information at the beginning of the day before because her inclination was to deal with email and physical inboxes first and leave the voicemails to last. There weren’t any messages from Dr. Wiltshire because, of course, he was already there. She added relevant details from the voicemail messages into her electronic notes, then worked her way through their email inboxes, printing and filing reports and assembling the information that Dr. Wiltshire would need during the day, or requests that he would need to answer. Then she went through the new log-in sheets and the remains in the morgue to ensure that everything was properly identified and accounted for and opened a new file for each new arrival.
Dr. Wiltshire went out and returned with the promised coffee and donuts, and they sat down at the table in the meeting room nearest Kenzie’s desk to go through the long list of jobs to be done on old cases or the new ones that had arrived since leaving the night before Christmas.
Dr. Wiltshire scrutinized the list of names paired with the circumstances of their deaths, his brows drawn together.
“I think the best approach is to deal with as many routine cases as we can today, and then prioritize the ones that will need deeper investigation over the next few days. We should be able to get through a lot of these.” His eyes scanned the list again. “Homeless death due to exposure, MVAs, unattended with no signs of violence or suspicious circumstances. Get those cleared out of the way, and then we can concentrate on the ones that are more obviously homicide.”
“Won’t the police be eager for us to deal with the homicides first?”
He shrugged. “Of course. But rushing them through because we have a backlog doesn’t benefit anyone. We’ll be able to do a more thorough investigation without worrying about running out of space if we can get the others out of here. And there’s no reason to hold up the funerals for folks who were almost certainly natural causes. Families of homicide victims will understand that it will take longer if they want answers.”
Kenzie nodded. “Okay.” She knew she would be getting calls from the detectives assigned to the apparent homicides, but she could handle them if she knew how Dr. Wiltshire wanted to handle the investigations.
“How is your workload? Do you have a lot of paperwork to get done?”
“It’s not too bad.” Kenzie shrugged. She often had more to do after a weekend. They had only been shut down for one day due to Christmas and, while there was a larger than usual influx, it wasn’t that much worse than a Monday. She’d been with Dr. Wiltshire for a couple of Christmases now, so she had a good feel for how long it would take to clear the stacks of paperwork and was not stressed out about it. She was more distracted by thoughts about her parents than how much administrative work there was to do.
It wasn’t emergency medicine. Their patients were not going anywhere.
“Do you want to assist with clearing these patients through, then? We can set up several tables at a time, divide them between us to do the gross exam and preliminaries, and then discuss any findings and additional work to be done.”
Kenzie nodded eagerly. She had led a few postmortems, taking primary control of the case rather than assisting Dr. Wiltshire. This was the next step, completing the preliminary work without his direct supervision and then collaborating on the rest of the examination. “Sure. I’d be comfortable with that.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Wiltshire leaned back in his chair and took a bite of the donut that had been sitting on a napkin beside his elbow. “I think that will help us clear them in the most efficient way possible. You are quite invaluable here, Kenzie. Being able to work more independently on autopsies is just one more thing to add to the resume. Though I don’t mean you should be looking for work outside this office. I want to keep you here for as long as possible.” He chuckled.
“I don’t plan to go anywhere soon,” Kenzie assured him. “It has been a great learning environment. I enjoy working with you. And I don’t think I would have so many opportunities in a big city morgue. It’s been nice to learn the ropes here.”
“And you’re learning everything from the ground up. One day, you’ll be running an office of your own.”
Kenzie smiled, her face warming. She was excited to be adding more tools to her toolbox. She fully intended to have a morgue of her own one day, though she didn’t know how far down the road that would be. She was getting plenty of experience with Dr. Wiltshire, and that was what she needed the most.
9
On her lunch break, which amounted to a walk down the hall to the vending machine to get a bag of chips and a sandwich, Kenzie checked her phone for any messages, then tried calling her father again. Whatever he had been doing on Christmas Day, he should be back to work now, busy on the phone and computer, trying to talk people into backroom deals, to figure out how to get enough support for the bills that he wanted to go through and to block those that he didn’t. Even with the Senate closed for several weeks, there was still plenty of work that could be done to prepare for when it reopened.
There was still no answer on Walter’s phone, the line ringing and ringing until it went through to voicemail, and Kenzie again heard Walter’s outgoing message, unchanged, inviting her to leave a message. Nothing to say that he was sick, on vacation, or would be unavailable until New Year’s Day or some other reasonable-sounding date.
Where was he? Even if he was taking a real vacation for the first time in decades, why wasn’t he answering his phone? Why wasn’t he returning Kenzie’s calls? He had said that he would always be there for her, that she only had to call him if she needed anything.
So, where was he?
Kenzie left a terse message and hung up.
She sat at her desk, unwrapped the sandwich, and examined it. She knew that if she didn’t want to rely on the less-than-stellar sandwiches in the machine, she needed to either bring her lunch or go out to one of the nearby restaurants or cafes. Or even order in using one of the many food delivery services eager to take her money. But she kept sabotaging herself by not preparing ahead of time or saying that she didn’t have time over her lunch hour. She didn’t really get a break away from her desk. She was the public face of the Medical Examiner’s Office, and people expected her to be there when they came by to fill out a form or make a request.
She knew that people would have to get used to it if she just decided to take her lunch away from her desk and left a sign telling them to come back later. But she also liked the feeling of being indispensable. That people needed her to be there throughout the workday and on into the evening, or the work of the Medical Examiner’s Office would stall.
It wouldn’t, of course. People would just call back another time. But logical thoughts and feelings and ego didn’t always line up.
Dr. Wiltshire sailed back in after his lunch, taken away from the office rather than at his desk, and nodded to Kenzie. “When you’re done there, we’ll get started,” he told her. Then, realizing she was holding the phone to her ear, he waved his hands to negate the statement. “When you’re ready,” he mouthed, and carried on to his office.
Kenzie listened to the recorded message. This time Lisa’s, rather than Walter’s. She tried to decide whether to leave a message for her mother about Walter. She didn’t have any objective evidence that there was anything wrong. Just her father neglecting to call her back. Kenzie knew he could get immersed in his work and be distracted from the incidentals, like calling his daughter back. He’d never missed being there for Amanda when she was sick. He’d been very diligent about that. But calling Kenzie back about something unimportant might slip his mind.
Kenzie hung up without leaving a message. She glanced over her desktop and computer screen to make sure that she had completed everything she needed to and there were no half-typed messages to file or to Dr. Wiltshire that she needed to finish before leaving her desk. Then she walked down the hall to Dr. Wiltshire’s office.
“I’m off,” she announced. “Sorry about that.”
“No, not at all!” Dr. Wiltshire insisted. “I just didn’t notice you were on the phone to start with.” His brows pulled down as he studied her and he readjusted his rectangular-framed glasses. “Is everything okay?”
“Just fine,” Kenzie assured him quickly.
“You look upset. Are you sure?” Before Kenzie could answer, he continued. “Is it Zachary?”
“Zachary is fine. It’s my—everything is fine. I’m ready if you want to get started.”
Dr. Wiltshire looked at her for a moment, then nodded his agreement. Kenzie was glad that he didn’t pursue it further. If she needed something from him, she would tell him. Until then, she preferred to keep her personal troubles to herself.
In autopsy, they both suited up to prevent contamination of the bodies or the evidence and protect their clothing from the various bodily fluids. Four bodies were laid out on tables for them, the most that they could do at a time. George had already done the work of stripping, washing, and preparing the bodies. The clothing was all tagged and inventoried and close at hand if they needed to look at it, and any evidence removed from the bodies—hairs, nail scrapings or clippings, particulates—had been carefully preserved and logged for them to review. Each body was draped, awaiting the doctors’ examinations.
“Why don’t you take those two,” Dr. Wiltshire gestured to the right, “and I’ll start on these.”
Kenzie positioned herself at the first right-hand table and adjusted the height. She would be sore at the end of the day if she didn’t take the time to do it, even if it seemed like that inch or two shouldn’t make any difference. She checked the identification tags on the first body, tapped the button on the floor with her foot to activate the recording equipment that hung above her, and dictated the date, her identity, and that of the corpse’s in a low, even tone. Dr. Wiltshire waited for a pause in her dictation before beginning his own recording. The equipment was good at capturing only the voice of the doctor at the table and canceling out any background, but they would try not to talk over each other anyway, just to be sure.
Kenzie’s first postmortem was the homeless man who appeared to have died from exposure. Kenzie would try her best not to be influenced by what she had already been told about the victim. There had been times when the police had been wrong. When someone was initially identified as homeless when they were not. When a John Doe had not been indigent, but the unfortunate victim of a mugger who had stripped him of his wallet, watch, phone, and any other items that might identify him. The body might tell her things the police had missed.
There were no personal items logged for the victim besides the clothes he had been wearing. Kenzie took a look through the clothes with gloved hands, looking for anything that might identify who the man was or where he had come from. Worn, dirty clothes. Not filthy, encrusted with vomit or other secretions and food drippings. Just old and well-used. The brand names did not all match or suggest that they had come from the same store. They were a mix of older styles and obsolete brand names. Thrift store finds, Kenzie would bet. They were all in good repair, with no holes or rips.
When there was nothing else to glean from the clothes, Kenzie moved on to the body. The man’s face was thin. His hair was short and not tangled or matted. He had facial hair, but it was no more than a few days’ growth. Not weeks or months. Some minor rashes on his arm and throat. His arms were thin but muscular. Not someone who had only been sitting down begging or drinking for weeks on end, maybe someone who took casual labor jobs as they were available. Such jobs would not be available as much during the winter when construction in Vermont was generally on hiatus and landscaping consisted only of clearing snow. He had tattoos. Kenzie scrutinized them for a few minutes and took several pictures to capture the details. They might be useful in identifying him.
He had several surgical scars. Nothing too recent. Nothing that would have contributed to his death. The stitching was… less skillful than Kenzie would have expected. As if it had been done hurriedly or by someone without a lot of experience. Certainly not anyone who cared whether they left a scar. There was no frostbite on his fingers or toes. They were whole. He hadn’t lost the tips of any digits over previous winters on the street.
Kenzie wondered if that meant that he hadn’t been homeless for any previous winters. Maybe this was his first year on the streets and he hadn’t known enough to keep himself alive. But he was emaciated. All of his ribs showed like a picket fence. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Muscle and bones without any padding. She’d participated in postmortems on homeless men and women before, and they didn’t generally look like that. Even those who had been on the street for years went to soup kitchens, begged for money or food, and, except for those who were junkies or very sick with AIDS or cancer, didn’t have the wasted look of Kenzie’s John Doe. And he didn’t have any needle marks.
She continued her work, dictating notes as she went along, looking for any other clues that might help the police identify the man. She finished the gross exam, front and back, and looked over at Dr. Wiltshire.
“I’m ready to begin the Y-incision. Did you want to look at him first or supervise?”
Wiltshire looked up from his table. “No, not unless you have questions or concerns.”
“Nothing that I need to ask about right now. We can go over findings whenever you’re ready.”
“Go ahead, then.” He looked back down at his own subject and continued his examination.
Kenzie took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. She continued with the procedure she had been taught in medical school and had followed more than once in the Medical Examiner’s Office. She’d just never been fully on her own before.
There were no surprises with the incision and opening John Doe up. Kenzie examined the body cavity before beginning to excise any organs.
“Dr. Wiltshire.”
“Yes, Dr. Kirsch?”
“He only has one kidney.”
He looked up at Kenzie and nodded. “Congenital, or has it been removed?”
Kenzie had seen the surgical scars on his abdomen and didn’t have to look too closely to find the internal scarring. “It was removed.”
“Make a note of it. Maybe kidney disease. Maybe a donor.”
Kenzie nodded. She made the appropriate notes and began removing the man’s organs. There was barely any visible fat cushioning his organs either. Kenzie stopped.
“Doctor?”
“Did you find something of interest?”
“He’s had one lung removed.”
Wiltshire’s eyebrow went up. “Interesting.”
Kenzie prodded the organs that remained in the abdominal cavity. “And… one lobe of the liver.”
“Most unusual. Possibly the living donor of three different organs? Very rare. At least… in North America.”
Kenzie knew a good deal about organ transplants and the black-market organ trade. She knew that Dr. Wiltshire was right and that it was not unusual to pay poor farmers for their organs in other countries, notably those in Asia and India. Whatever they could donate and stay alive. Or, in some cases, more. Giving up their bodies and their lives for the money that would go to their families.
But in North America… Kenzie shook her head. It was unthinkable. The man must be a refugee. An immigrant from another country who had escaped the horrors of poverty in his own part of the world to start anew in the United States. The American dream.
“Have you ever seen that before?” she asked Dr. Wiltshire.
“No. Not here. I’ve only read about it in journals.”
Kenzie dictated her findings and continued.
10
How was work today?” Zachary asked after they had been through the preliminary hellos and observations about the weather and how much better he was looking. He ran one hand over his dark buzz cut. “Anything interesting?”
Kenzie recounted that she had been able to perform two autopsies pretty much on her own, and observe and assist what Dr. Wiltshire had discovered in his.
“That’s great!” he observed, dark eyes alive with interest. “Dr. Wiltshire really trusts you.”
Kenzie nodded. He had not hovered over her, watching her every move and making suggestions along the way. They had spoken to each other across the room and Dr. Wiltshire had checked Kenzie’s work and discussed what other labs they needed to order when it was done. But he had treated her as if she was perfectly capable of completing the postmortem on her own. And, of course, she was.
“Did you find anything interesting?”
Zachary was one of the few people Kenzie could talk to about autopsies and who wasn’t squeamish about them. Happy to discuss them over dinner without any sign that it made him sick or nauseated to do so. What medical examiner didn’t want to be partnered with someone like that?
She described the John Doe, including the organs that had been removed, his extreme thinness, and the skin rashes that Dr. Wiltshire confirmed were the result of malnutrition.
