Outstanding Subject
Part 9

Vero


For reasons already forgotten for years, in the main doors there were two small stone effigies. Every time that he saw them, they made him think, "I don't know why, some esfingues in a pathology building remind me of Egyptian cameras of embalm".. The suit looked horrible on him, the jacket exhibited small stains here and there, provoked, without doubt, and by for the ice cream that he was eating, and that detail was how the receptionist of the municipal Morgue recognized him.

-That should be him - whispered the receptionist who looked like she stepped out of a Doris Day movie from the fifties.

A meter fifty tall and ninety five kilos of weight, his voluminous figure gave him the look of barrel of beer provided of arms and legs; a solid jaw hanging below the wide rude features they completed his entire attractiveness.

- Shane Karlie, detective of homicides, Washington - he took a badge, fastened in the cracked imitation leather, out of his wallet. - I come to witness an autopsy.

The receptionist puckered her brow. -I knows, I recognized you. They are waiting for you, you're late, and the autopsy already began. They are in the laboratory at the end of the lobby.

- I'm sorry, young lady, it was not my intention to be late, but the traffics is terrible.

But the whole appearance of Shane was diminished when an immense smile covered his face, with his two brilliant blue eyes. Suddenly, to the receptionist it seemed that that rude creature he had become a man with sex appeal.

Shane Karlie made his way toward the two swinging doors that the receptionist had indicated to him, while he savored his ice cream. Passing by the place where the bodies were stored in low temperature, he also passed the neat sign that said: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

He entered the autopsies room, existing four situations in which an autopsy would be required by law: if the patient arrived to the hospital dead; if he died within the first 24 hours of their admission; if the patient died outside of the hospital or without cares of any doctor; or for the reason that Shane Karlie was there- if the patient died in violent or strange circumstances.

The room was gloomy, painted with cold monotonous green; the cement floor and the water pipes made it drafty.

- Didn't get any money for interior decoration yet? - Shane Karlie said as he entered to the room; two men looked at him. They were discussing a case, while a body occupied the most distant of the five stainless steel tables, where water constantly flowed in form of a thin cap.

-Hello, Shane - Tom Hendricks said - How the hell are you?

Shane finished his ice cream, reached into his pocket and extracted a squeezed package of Kleenexes. He wiped his hands and responded.

-I adore Washington in spring, there are ice creams tracks on every corner. - The voice of Shane agreed with his type, low, rough, and hoarse, as if the words had to cross rocks to leave his throat.

Tom agreed he knew Shane too well; despite his rude countenance, inside he was a boy who loved the ice creams. Extremandly, Shane, was able to shut in to his father if he arrived to the convincing that had made some crime. Tom knew that.

-She told me that you began our tanned friend's autopsy.

-Not yet, I was waiting for you. Seems you are right, our friend had crispy tan, and forget to use sunscreen. I will begin in few minutes.

The body on the table had chewed and blacks flesh. The meat exposed was burnt. The white eyes without lids seemed larger and the smiling rictus of the lips was noticed.

Shane Karlie was standing several steps away from the corpse. The medic forensic put the camera directly on its head. The camera was placed on a device that hung of the morgue's roof and it rotated on an articulate arm. There was a black cable that connected the device to a plastic control that the forensic surgeon sustained in the left hand.

The flash exploded in lights every time that the forensic surgeon pressed the control button. Tom took pictures of the head and shoulders, then drew nearer, first plane; left profile; right profile. To Shane he looked like a photographer of Top Models, quick and mechanic.

- The autopsies are never pleasant, -Shane said, - they are particularly depressing.

- I understand you, especially in cases like this.

After each picture, the forensic surgeon rotated the camera looking for a new angle. He didn't stop for one second, continuing moving the camera, pressing the button, and encircling the body slowly. In the mechanical arm with the camera there was a microphone that turned on with a pedal under the table. Tom dictated while he moved the arm and took pictures with the flash.

- What do you know about this case?

-Not a lot, but in the crime scene I have found haulage marks, I suspect that somebody dragged him below the hill.

Tom took a scalpel. The usual incision in the autopsy is twice made cut in forms of Y that goes from two shoulders meeting in the middle and in the borders of ribs, and later continuing until the pubic bone. He separated what little skin the body had, pushed away the burnt muscles, cut the ribs exposing the heart and lungs, and proceeded to extirpate his viscera's. The extracted organs would be analyzed with calm and samples would be selected for the microscope exam. The viscera's exam took him more than forty-five minutes

While the forensic surgeon was doing the extraction and viscera's exam, the another doctor opened the hairy skin, cracked the skull and extracted the brain. Then he continuous with the extraction of molars and went directly to the other table where was the computer stood. While Tom proceeded to close the body with a suture, the another doctor, appeared with dental registrations that computer detect. The registrations of the body belonged to Arthur Grutt.

part 10

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