Robert Ellis - The Dead Room

Teddy buttoned himself up. An ME handed him a shower cap and a pair of goggles, pointing to the face masks and a box of latex gloves on the table while he warned him about the dangers of tuberculosis and HIV. When everyone was suited up, they entered the examining room.

The walls were tiled. The stainless steel gurneys tilted forward slightly with the naked bodies of Darlene Lewis and Valerie Kram lying side by side like dead twins.

Teddy shuddered at the hideous sight and looked away. When he caught Andrews staring at him again, even smiling behind his mask, he knew the man had been waiting for this moment, too.

The ME gave Teddy a nudge and pointed out the rails on the gurney. They looked more like gutters on the roof of a house. He saw the holes at the foot of the gurney and now understood why they were tilted forward slightly. In a few minutes, body fluids would be streaming down the rails venting through the holes like rain onto the floor.

“If you begin to feel faint,” the ME said, “then leave the room. Believe me, you want to limit your contact with the floor.”

Andrews was smiling again; Carolyn Powell and Detective Vega gazing at him evenly. Teddy grit his teeth behind his mask, determined to hang on. But it was tough. He glanced at Valerie Kram’s body on the far table, her chest already open like a jacket. Then back at Darlene Lewis’s face with her eyes bulging out of her head. As his gaze moved down her body, taking in her bruised neck and the missing patches of skin, the ME made his first cut.

It was a long, deep slice, as if Darlene Lewis was a piece of meat. Even more horrific, the incision looked identical to the wound the murderer had already inflicted on Valerie Kram. The cut formed the letter Y, running from the girl’s shoulders across her upper chest, then straight down to the missing skin just above her vagina. When the ME pulled out the gardening shears and began clipping the girl’s ribs away, Teddy realized he’d seen enough and kept his eyes on the ME’s face the rest of the way.

They worked for hours. The ME showing no emotion, just an ample supply of curiosity and professionalism. With each step, he recorded his observations into an audio recorder and often stopped to wipe off his hands and write something down. Sometimes he would confer with the ME working on Valerie Kram at the next gurney. Occasionally, Teddy’s eyes would wander down to one of the bodies. But as the autopsies proceeded, the view became progressively worse and his eyes popped back up again. Every time he glanced at Andrews, he found the man staring at him. It was almost as if the DA was using the horror of the autopsy as some sort of initiation or dare. Almost as if Andrews was taunting him and hoping he might faint.

But the gruesome ordeal bore fruit. It had been worth it because they were learning something. When the ME examined Darlene Lewis’s neck, he found torn cartilage and a broken bone which indicated she died from strangulation. And it had been quick, the ME noted, the murder performed by someone with powerful hands. Teddy tried not to think about the size of Holmes’s massive hands, or his client’s fingerprints that glowed about the girl’s neck like a string of pearls under the black lights at the crime scene. As he glanced about the room, it was obvious that everyone else was thinking the same thing, but wouldn’t be letting the thought go.

Although the end came quickly for Darlene Lewis, the ME concluded she had been tortured by the murderer for perhaps as long as two hours before her death. The ME pointed to the missing skin. He likened it to foreplay, and said it had probably been removed while she was still alive. Detective Vega seemed to have already guessed as much, saying this would account for the amount of blood at the crime scene. The ME agreed, and told them the killer probably removed the skin and waited for her to bleed out. Then for some reason, he changed his mind and strangled her to death. Holmes’s name was mentioned freely, as was a lengthy discussion on what he’d done with the skin. All conclusions were preliminary, and Teddy listened without saying anything. At some point he began to wonder if they’d forgotten he was in the room. But when the ME offered his own theory-that Holmes ate the girl’s flesh before her eyes, then killed her when she passed out-the room suddenly quieted.

The silence underlined their theory. Holmes got off on the shock. The minute Darlene Lewis passed out, he’d lost his audience and the thrill was gone. This was the work of someone who was more than troubled and a long way past being sick. When she fainted, he strangled her-simple as that.

Valerie Kram’s fate was much less conclusive because of the time she’d spent in the river. Still, the cold water had preserved her better than either ME would have guessed. Although she was an avid jogger and probably in good shape the day she vanished, her muscle tone had wasted away before her death. She’d been worn down, perhaps even starved. An examination of her neck revealed that Kram had died in exactly the same manner as Darlene Lewis. It hadn’t been the cut. The hyoid bone was broken indicating that she’d died as a result of strangulation as well.

Andrews seemed to get off on the connection and threw an exalted fist in the air.

While the others ignored the DA’s outburst, Teddy noticed that both MEs found Kram’s open chest particularly intriguing. Inside her body things weren’t necessarily where they were supposed to be. The tube top had held her together, her organs remarkably preserved. The word cannibalism came up again, in spite of Teddy’s presence. The MEs discussed the length of time she’d been in the water again, and agreed they couldn’t be sure what happened. What troubled both of them was the appearance that things were handled inside her body and deliberately moved around.

Teddy felt his head lighten and begin to spin. It had been a valiant effort. He’d fought the fight, lasting for hours, but knew he was done. As he excused himself from the examining room, Andrews cackled.

“What did I tell you,” the DA was saying in his wake. “He couldn’t hack it. He’s just a kid, and doesn’t have the stuff.”

Teddy ripped open the door, bolting through the main entrance of the medical examiner’s office in search of fresh cold air. He grabbed the handrail and held on. A noisy bus was lumbering up University Avenue loaded with people who looked like they were alive and on their way home. He realized it was night and wondered where the day had gone. When he turned toward the parking lot, he noticed the press assembling with their video cameras and microwave transmitters. No doubt the DA would be holding another press conference.

Teddy dug into his jacket pocket and found his cigarettes, then lit up trying to get rid of the rotten smell lingering about him. The sounds of garden shears and images of death that were seared into his mind, his memory. As he inhaled the nicotine rich smoke and blew it out, he saw a man with long hair take his photograph then fade into the crowd.

The front door opened and Powell walked out of the building. He turned away, needing a break from her, too.

“Alan Andrews is a world class asshole,” he said in a quiet voice.

Powell didn’t respond. He thought she might have gone back inside. But when he turned, he found her still there. He looked at her face, her wide-open blue-gray eyes staring at him. The distance was gone. She held Holmes’s checkbook in her hand.

“You made it all the way through,” she said gently.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re taking fluid samples and sewing them back up. What’s left will take time and be in the ME’s report. You didn’t miss anything at all.”