Douglas Preston - Relic

“Fred, clean the edge of the thoracic cavity. The viscera that are clearly exposed and fully protuberant are the stomach, small and large intestines. The retroperitoneal organs appear to be in situ.

“Sponge the neck off, Fred. The neck area shows signs of trauma, some bruising, perhaps indicative of extravasation, possible spinal dislocation.

“Now for the head ... dear God.”

In the silence, Fred cleared his throat.

“The head is decapitated between the axial process and the atlas. The entire occipital portion of the calvarium and half the parietal process have been crushed, or rather seemingly punched through and removed, by means unknown, leaving a hole perhaps ten inches in diameter. The skull is empty. The entire brain appears to have fallen out or been extracted through this hole ... The brain, or what is left of it, is in a pan here to the right of the head, but there is no indication of its original position vis-à-vis the body.”

“It was found in pieces near the body,” said D’Agosta.

“Thank you, Lieutenant. But where’s the rest of it?”

“That’s all there was.”

“No. Something’s missing. You got full scene-of-crime series for this?”

“Of course,” said D’Agosta, trying not to show his annoyance.

“The brain is severely traumatized. Fred, bring me a number 2 scalpel and transverse speculum. The brain [62] appears to have been severed at the medulla oblongata. The pons Varolii is intact, but separate. The cerebellum shows surface lacerations but is otherwise intact. There is little evidence of bleeding, indicating postmortem trauma. There’s the body of fornix, attached. The cerebrum has been completely severed from the mesencephalon and the mesencephalon has been bisected and—look, Fred, there’s no thalamoid region. And no pituitary. That’s what’s missing.”

“What’s that?” asked D’Agosta. He willed himself to look more closely. The brain, sitting in a stainless-steel pan, looked a hell of a lot more liquid than solid. He turned away. Baseball. Think about baseball. A pitch, the sound of a bat ...

“The thalamus and the hypothalamus. The body’s regulator.”

“The body’s regulator,” repeated D’Agosta.

“The hypothalamus regulates body temperature, blood pressure, heartbeat, and the metabolism of fats and carbohydrates. Also the sleep-wake cycle. We think it holds the centers of pleasure and pain. It’s a very complicated organ, Lieutenant.” She looked fixedly at him, anticipating a question. D’Agosta mumbled dutifully, “How does it do all that?”

“Hormones. It secretes hundreds of regulatory hormones into the brain and bloodstream.”

“Yeah,” D’Agosta replied. He stepped back. The baseball soaring deep into center field, the center fielder dropping back, glove raised ...

“Fred come over here and look at this,” Ziewicz said sharply.

Fred bent over the pan. “It looks like ... Well, I don’t know ...”

“Come on, Fred,” Ziewicz coaxed.

“Well, it looks almost like—“ Fred paused. “Like a bite was taken out.”

“Exactly. Photographer!” Delbert rushed forward. [63] “Get this. Looks just like when one of my kids takes a bite out of a cake.”

D’Agosta leaned forward, but he could see nothing special in the gray, bloody mess.

“It’s semicircular, like a human’s, but it appears larger, more ragged than you’d expect. We’ll take sections. Let’s test for the presence of salivase enzymes, Fred, just in case. Take this to the lab, tell them to flashfreeze it and microsection here, here, and here. Five sections each. Stain at least one with eosinophil. Stain one with salivase activating enzyme. Anything else you or they can think of.”

As Fred left, Ziewicz continued. “I am now bisecting the cerebrum. The posterior lobe is bruised, consistent with removal from the cranium. Photograph. The surface shows three parallel lacerations or incisions, approximately four millimeters apart, about half an inch deep. I am parting the first incision. Photograph. Lieutenant, see how these lacerations start wide and then converge? What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” D’Agosta said, peering a little closer. It’s just a dead brain , he thought.

“Long fingernails, maybe? Sharpened fingernails? I mean, do we have a homicidal psychopath on our hands?”

Fred returned from the lab, and they continued working on the brain for what seemed an eternity to D’Agosta. Finally, Ziewicz told Fred to put it in the refrigerator.

“I will now examine the hands,” she spoke into the microphone. She removed a plastic bag from the right hand and carefully resealed it. Then she lifted the hand, rotated it, examined the fingernails. “There is foreign matter under the thumb, index, and ring fingers. Fred, three well slides.”

“He’s just a kid,” D’Agosta said. “You’d expect his fingernails to be dirty.”

“Perhaps, Lieutenant,” Ziewicz replied. She scraped [64] the material into small depressions in the slides, one finger at a time. “Fred, the stereozoom? I want to look at this.”

Ziewicz placed the slide on the stage, peered down, and adjusted the instrument.

“Normal fingernail dirt under the thumb, from the looks of it. Same with the others. Fred, full analysis, just in case.”

There was nothing of interest on the left hand.

“I will now,” Ziewicz continued, “examine the longitudinal trauma to the anterior portion of the body. Del, photographs, here, here, and here, and whatever else you think will show the wound best. Close-ups of the areas of penetration. It looks like the killer has done our Y-incision for us, wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?”

“Yeah,” D’Agosta said, swallowing hard.

There were a series of rapid flashes.

“Forceps,” Ziewicz continued. “Three ragged lacerations begin just above the left nipple in the greater pectoral, penetrating and eventually separating the muscle. I am opening and probing the first laceration at the point of entry. Clamp there, Fred.

“I am now probing the wound. There is unidentified foreign matter here. Fred, a glassine? It looks like clothing material, perhaps from the victim’s shirt. Photograph.”

The flash popped, and then she held up a small piece of what looked like bloody lint, dropping it into the glassine envelope. She continued probing in silence for a few moments.

“There is another piece of foreign material deep in the muscle, about four centimeters directly below the right nipple. It is lodged on a rib. It appears to be hard. Photograph. Stick a flag in there, Fred.”

She extracted it and held it up, a bloody lump poised at the end of the long forceps.

D’Agosta ventured forward. “What is it? Rinse it off, maybe, and see?”

[65] She glanced at him with a slight smile. “Fred, bring me a beaker of sterile water.”

As she dipped the object in and stirred, the water turned brownish red.

“Keep the water, we’ll see if there’s anything else in it,” she said, holding her find to the light.

“Jesus H. Christ,” said D’Agosta. “It’s a claw. A fucking claw.”

Ziewicz turned to her assistant. “That will be a charming snippet of monologue for our tape, won’t it, Fred?”

= 11 =

Margo dumped her books and papers on the sofa and glanced at the clock perched atop the television: ten-fifteen. She shook her head. What an unbelievable, horrible day. Staying all those extra hours had only netted three new paragraphs on her dissertation. And she still had to work on the display-case copy for Moriarty. She sighed, sorry she’d ever agreed to the project.

Reflected neon light from a liquor store across the avenue struggled through the lone window of Margo’s living room, throwing the room into electric-blue chiaroscuro. She turned on the small overhead light and leaned against the door, scanning the disorder slowly. Normally, she was neat to excess. But now after just one week of neglect, textbooks, letters of sympathy, legal documents, shoes, and sweaters were scattered across the furniture. Empty cartons from the Chinese restaurant downstairs lay neglected in the sink. Her old Royal typewriter and a fan of research papers were spread out on the hardwood floor.