Patricia Cornwell - The Scarpetta Factor

“I’m sorry if I’m causing problems, Brian.”

He was probably the finest forensic pathologist Scarpetta personally knew and was perfectly clear about his mission, which was somewhat different from hers, and there was no way around it. He viewed forensic medicine as a public health service and had no use for the media in any manifestation beyond its role of informing the public about matters of life and death, such as hazards and communicable diseases, whether it was a potentially deadly crib design or an outbreak of the hantavirus. It wasn’t that his perception was wrong. It was simply that everything else was. The world had changed, and not necessarily for the better.

“I’m trying to navigate my way along a road I didn’t choose,” Scarpetta said. “You walk the highest of roads in a world of low roads. So, what do we do?”

“Stoop to their level?”

“I hope you don’t think that’s what I’m doing.”

“How do you feel about your career with CNN?” He picked up a briarwood pipe that he was no longer allowed to puff inside the building.

“I certainly don’t think of it as a career,” she said. “It’s something I do to disseminate information in a way that I deem is necessary in this day and age.”

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

“I’ll stop if you want, Brian. I’ve told you that from the start. I would never do anything, at least not intentionally, to embarrass this office or compromise it in the slightest.”

“Well, we don’t need to go round and around this topic again,” he said. “In theory, I don’t disagree with you, Kay. The public is as badly misinformed about criminal justice and all things forensic as it has ever been. And yes, it’s fouling up crime scenes and court cases and legislation and where tax dollars are allocated. But in my heart I don’t believe that appearing on any of these shows is going to solve the problem. Of course, that’s me, and I’m rather set in my ways and from time to time feel compelled to remind you of the Indian burial grounds you must step around. Hannah Starr being one of them.”

“I assume that was the point of the discussion at the staff meeting. The discussion that wasn’t about me, per se,” Scarpetta replied.

“I don’t watch these shows.” He idly toyed with the pipe. “But the Carley Crispins, the Warner Agees of the world, seem to have made Hannah Starr their hobbyhorse, the next Caylee Anthony or Anna Nicole Smith. Or God forbid you’re asked about our murdered jogger when you’re on TV tonight.”

“The agreement with CNN is I don’t talk about active cases.”

“What about your agreement with this Crispin woman? She doesn’t seem to be known for playing by the rules, and it will be her shooting off her mouth live on the air tonight.”

“I’ve been asked to discuss microscopy, specifically the analysis of hair,” Scarpetta said.

“That’s good, probably helpful. I do know a number of our colleagues in the labs are worried their scientific disciplines are fast being viewed as nonessential because the public, the politicians, think DNA is the magic lamp. If we rub it enough, all problems are solved and the hell with fibers, hair, toxicology, questioned documents, even fingerprints.” Dr. Edison placed his pipe back in an ashtray that hadn’t been dirty in years. “We’re comfortable with Toni Darien’s identification, I presume. I know the police want to release that information to the public.”

“I have no problem with releasing her name, but I certainly don’t intend to release any details about my findings. I’m worried her crime scene was staged, that she wasn’t murdered where she was found and may not have been jogging when she was assaulted.”

“Based on?”

“A number of things. She was struck on the back of the head, one blow to the posterior aspect of the left temporal bone.” Scarpetta touched her head to show him. “A survival time possibly of hours, as evidenced by the large fluctuant and boggy mass, and the hemorrhagic edematous tissues underneath the scalp. Then at some point after she died, a scarf was tied around her neck.”

“Ideas about the weapon?”

“A circular comminuted fracture that pushed multiple bone fragments into the brain. Whatever she was hit with has at least one round surface that is fifty millimeters in diameter.”

“Not punched out but fragmented,” he considered. “So, we’re not talking about something like a hammer, not something round with a flat surface. And not something like a baseball bat if the surface is fifty millimeters and round. About the size of a billiard ball. Curious as to what that might have been.”

“I think she’s been dead since Tuesday,” Scarpetta said.

“She was beginning to decompose?”

“Not at all. But her livor was set, the pattern consistent with her being on her back for quite some time after death, at least twelve hours, unclothed, with her arms by her sides, palms down. That’s not the way she was found, not the way her body was positioned in the park. She was on her back, but her arms were up above her head, slightly bent at the elbows, as if she might have been dragged or pulled by her wrists.”

“Rigor?” he asked.

“Easily broken when I tried to move her limbs. In other words, rigor had been full and was beginning to pass. Again, that takes time.”

“She wouldn’t have been difficult to manipulate, to move, and I assume that’s what you’re implying. That her body was dumped in the park, which would be rather difficult to do if she was stiff,” he said. “Any drying? What you might expect if she’d been somewhere cool that had kept her well preserved for a day or two?”

“Some drying of her fingers, her lips, and tache noir-her eyes were slightly open, and the conjunctiva was brown due to drying. Her axillary temp was fifty degrees,” Scarpetta continued. “The low last night was thirty-four; the high during the day was forty-seven. The mark left by the scarf is a superficial circumferential dry brown abrasion. There’s no suffusion, no petechia of the face or conjunctiva. The tongue wasn’t protruding.”

“Postmortem, then,” Dr. Edison concluded. “Was the scarf tied at an angle?”

“No. Mid-throat.” She showed him on her own neck. “Tied in a double knot in front, which I didn’t cut through, of course. I removed it by cutting through it from the back. There was no vital response whatsoever, and that was true internally, as well. The hyoid, thyroid, and strap muscles were intact and free of injury.”

“Underscoring your speculation that she might have been murdered in one location and dumped where she was found, at the edge of the park, in plain view during daylight, perhaps so she would be found quickly this morning when people were up and out,” he said. “Evidence she might have been bound at some point? What about sexual assault?”

“No contusions or impressions from bindings that I could see. No defense injuries,” Scarpetta said. “I found two contusions on the inner aspect of each upper thigh. The posterior fourchette shows superficial abrasion with very slight bleeding and adjacent contusion. The labia are reddened. No secretions visible at the introitus or in the vaginal vault, but she has an irregular abrasion of the posterior wall. I collected a PERK.”

She referred to a Physical Evidence Recovery Kit, which included swabs for DNA.

“I also examined her with a forensic light and collected whatever was there, including fibers, mostly from her hair,” she went on. “A lot of dust and debris in her head hair, which I shaved at the edges of the laceration. Under a hand lens I could see several flecks of paint, some embedded in the depths of the wound. Bright red, bright yellow, black. We’ll see what trace says. I’m encouraging everyone in the labs to expedite things as much as possible.”