2020-05-04 - Cause of Death - Susan and Darcy

Susan McKinney stowed the John Doe in the basement.  They had a small morgue with only 4 ‘freezers’ and two ‘slabs’.  Even though she knew Josh wanted results immediately, he could wait.  She still had living patients that took priority.  But she did take care of George Arnett and, when she found the time, she gave Darcy Lynch a call to be in on the autopsy.  Gloved and masked, she stood ready for Darcy to arrive.

Darcy suited up appropriately and then stepped into the room. Dr. McKinney was already looking at the John Doe. She had brought her CSI kit for fingerprinting and collecting any evidence from the body.

“Good Morning Doctor.” She always began formally with respect to Dr. McKinney’s role and Darcy’s immense respect for her work.

Susan was looking at the body with raised eyebrows.  “Morning, Darcy.  Shall we begin?”  she went into her lab coat pocket and pulled out something that looked a bit like a pen but flatter and wider.  She pinned it to her coat and began.   “This is Dr. Suasn McKinney, here with Officer Darcy Lynch of the Alexandra Police Department.  We are commencing examination of John Doe, who was apparently washed ashore on the morning of May 4th, 2020.  Mr Doe was found by a dog and his owner and police were immediately called in.  Death was called by EMT’s at the scene and confirmed later by myself.  That time of death was 10:34 a.m.  Doe was dressed in what appears to be very nice, expensive clothing, but nothing identifiable by type or label. Clothing has been removed, tagged and bagged.   Time of death is difficult to determine because of submersion in water, but I will say time of death was between 48 and 78 hours ago.  Officer Lynch will now take fingerprints.  No other evidence was on the body at the time of its discovery.  It was clean.”  she looks at Darcy and nods for her to go on.  “Officer Lynch.”

Darcy nods and begins to print at the thumb of the left hand “Beginning with the left thumb.” After a few minutes and some careful work she says “Left hand complete. Moving to the right hand.” She tilts her head looking at the hands “I observe no defensive wounds on the victim at the time of this examination.”

Susan nods and looks at the body, now naked on the slab.  “Doe is Caucasion, 6’2 inches in height, weighing in at 244 pounds.  Age appears to be in the late 40’s.  He has black hair, olive skin and brown eyes.”  She inhales and exhales.  “We will now commence external examination of the body.  Corpse was wet from submersion of the body and it will take internal examination of the body to see if drowning was a possible cause of death.  I say possible because external examination suggests that this man had several ways he may have died.”  she clears her throat and looks over the body at Darcy.  Even though her voice remains professional, her face registers interest and even surprise.  “Body has evidence of burn marks, which did not have time to heal before death occurred.  I estimate 35-40% of his body was affected.  Plus he has a cigarette burn it looks like on his right pectoral region.  SOmeone put a cigarette out on him.  Also not healed, plus there is also a single gunshot wound to the lower left quadrant of the abdomen and …”  she looks at Darcy.  “Help me turn him and see if there’s an exit wound.”  she asks.

Darcy nods along and puts her hands under to turn, hoisting the corpse “Cause of death is possibly...multiple..” She says even though it’s stating the obvious. It’s just so unbelievable to her still. Darcy looks at they turn him “Doctor there doesn’t appear to be an exit wound. Which means we can retrieve the bullet for identification. Also there’s the stab wound up here...Logan noticed that…..”

Susan shrugs.  “Only one actual cause of death, but there can be contributing factors.”  she states.  “Say he was burned but also shot.  He may have survived the burns, but not the gunshot wound.”  she blinks and looks here Darcy indicates.  “Um….  Wow …”  her professionalism slips a notch.  “Victim has in addition to the burns and gunshot wound a single stab wound through the fourth and fifth rib on his right side.”  she glances up at Darcy with her eyebrows raised and an incredulous look on her face that won’t transfer to the recording.  “Lets lay him back down, Officer Lunch and I can begin the internal exam.”  she does sound a little … uneasy ….

Darcy just keeps nodding and again states the obvious “This is a highly unusual case. It’s possible some of these factors are post mortem?” She’s not sure why someone would do any of these things to a body once it was already dead but you just never know.

Susan blows out another breath.  “Possibly…”  she looks the body up and down.  “I can’t imagine Mr Doe walking around with a gunshot wound only to get stabbed further down the street only to get burned later.”  she picks up her scalpel.  “Making our Y incision….”  she opens up the body and spreads the ribs with her equipment and stares in the body and then over at Darcy. “And then fall in the water and partially drown.  The lungs have quite a bit of water in them, but it looks like it in itself was not the cause of death.”  she shakes her head.  “Help me with the x-ray machine, Darcy.  Let’s get the whole body.  At this point I half expect to see he has a broken leg on top of everything else.”

Darcy assists “I’m almost hoping for breaks...I mean why not?” She's joking around a bit but what else can you do? “We’ve alerted the coast guard because he sure didn’t swim here….and there was no craft shipwrecked….it’s just odd…..”

Susan nods as she takes x-rays up and down the body.  “Why not, indeed.”  she half scoffs.  “Break for x-rays and bloodwork.”  she says into the mic and then taps it, as if she was on the Enterprise.  Then she looks at Darcy.  “Just got out from under coronavirus tasting and I thought Kitty could go back to part-time … but noooo.”  she chuckles and taps some controls on the screen.  “She can develop these in almost no time, plus the blood work.  The upside to being in a small lab .. not a lot of wait time…”

Darcy exhales “Ok….good on Kitty and the lab. Susan I gotta tell you...I don’t even know what to think here. It’s like some mafia hit gone wrong?”

Susan snorts.  “The Mafia isn’t THIS sloppy.”  she quips.  “Dude is stabbed, shot, burned AND drowned?  Who DOES that?”

Darcy grasps into the abyss, trying to make sense of it all “Maybe a murderer with some serious psychological trauma or illness…..you hear about mutilations and famous serial killers…..or maybe he killed their entire family….burned down their town and...god I don’t even know. It’s like a horror movie. And this wasn't even in the Olin!!!”

Susan nods and turns, taking a pyrex container with a rubber lid off of the counter.  “I have no idea, but it just feels strange to me that this DIDN’T happen at the Olin.  I mean .. we’re used to those fucked up murders and suicides.  This is just … not like the mainland.”  Moving around to Darch she opens it and holds it out.  “Seaweed chips?” she offers.  Susan is a doctor … this wouldn't be the first corpse she's eaten around.

Darcy disposes of her gloves and pulls down her mask and takes a chip “Mmmm thanks.” She’s eaten her lunch rations in some grim places back in her military time in Afghanistan. “Have you tried the Wasabi flavour of these? They really give you a  little oooomph!” she lifts up as she says it to emphasize.

Susan takes off her gloves and lowers her mask, taking a few steps from the body.  “Yes.  I stole half a bag of Josh Greene’s while we were in with the Health people just before the lockdown.”  she looks at Darcy, who she knows and likes but doesn’t KNOW .. just the usual things like how she helped Vincent D’Antoni and town gossip.  “You like oooomph?”  she asks with raised brows, preparing to be impressed.

Darcy looks amused by this. She’d never dare to steal from the chief but Susan could get away with it. That was some serious stealth she suspected. Darcy grins “Ooomph is good. Just the little zing, the clearing of the nasal passages…” She glances at the body “Did we check up his nose for anything?”

Susan takes a mouthful of ships while Darcy speaks. Then she nods.  “No ..  I think I developed a block the last few weeks…”  she brushes off her hands and dons new gloves.  Moving to the body, she taps her recorder.  “Nasal passage check is …”  she peers in using a penlight.  “Negative.”  She moves the light and opens the corpse's mouth.  “Ame with the mouth and throat…”  she straightens and taps her recorder again.  “No and thank goodness.  That's getting into Silence of the Lambs territory.”  she snorts and a landline telephone rings.  Susan moves to pick it up.  “Dr. McKinney.”  she listens and her brows raise.  “Uh … yea .. thanks Kitty.”  she taps her phone and looks at Darcy.  “That was Kitty.  You know .. from across the …”  she raises her voice.  “Fucking hallway!”  then she lowers it again.  “She said John Doe here has a high amount of arsenic in his system.  If none of his other injuries killed him, that may be our cause of death.  Right now I’m thinking it may have actually been the arsenic … someone gave it to him, he ingested it and then … he seems to have been stabbed, shot and burned .. not necessarily in that order .. then dumped in the water where he started to drown before the arsenic killed him.”

Darcy observes the nasal and oral checks while she snacks a bit more on the seaweed chips. She almost chokes laughing when Susan cracks a silence of the lambs joke and yells across the hallway Then she also wipes off her hands and dons fresh gloves “Arsenic? Wow…..I was thinking drug use….but arsenic. Who kills people with arsenic? Are we looking for some kind of medieval witch?” She just stares at the body now “Who did you screw over buddy?”

Susan sighs and shakes her head, also looking at their John Doe.  “Clearly he, at the very least, pissed off someone who can appreciate the classics …”  she shakes her head and holds up her finger for silence.  She taps her pen recorder again and repeats all of the information into it, along with her hypotheses of the modes of death.  Then she verbally signs off on it and taps it again, turning it off just as Kitty walks in the room with the x-rays.  Kitty doesn’t say anything and just nods at Susan’s thanks, leaving a room looking a little chastised .. apparently she heard Susan’s yelling just a minute ago.  Then she takes out the film and snaps all of them into the light boxes.  “His bones are fine … thank goodness.  He doesn’t need anymore wrong with him.”

Darcy looks at Kitty a little sympathetically. As amusing as it was she can see Kitty’s discomfort. Susan is formidable, delightfully so, but nonetheless. She tunes back into the bone conversation “Yes well he had one thing going for him at least.” Darcy takes her camera from the kit and snaps a few more pictures. She had taken some initially at the beach but now that he was opened up, she took some more.

Susan arches her brows as Darcy takes more pictures.  “What?  It sure wasn’t his charming personality if these wounds are any indication.”

Darcy clicks through the pictures seeing if she got what she was after “I’m desperately curious for the story behind all this. Maybe we should write a book about him when we get all the details….the weirdest murder ever committed.” She looks at the hands, fixating “No defensive wounds. He knew his attackers…...well enough to let them do all this. Unless they all snuck up. Maybe they did it all at once like some kind of gang initiation?”

Susan nods and begins to close the body up.  “And he has no ligature marks on any of him.  I’m sending the body to Vancouver.  They have more and better equipment than I do.  I bet they can tell us if he was blind, because unless he was … I don’t see how all of this could be a thing.”  she muses as she works.  “I mean … he could have been … burned with the cigarette and … upon backing up … that stab wound is consistent with throwing, but stabbing … and then … maybe the … smoker or someone … torched him, because the cigarette burn is minor .. the torch is major .. very different marks.  But what about the poisoning and drowning .. all I DO know is the shooting, stabbing and burning all probably happened at around the same time.”

Darcy looks impressed “That’s actually the most reasonable explanation so far. He didn’t see it coming! Because how else?” Darcy slumps a little under the weight of it all “Around the same time on 3...but the other two far apart. So we could be looking for 3 suspects or one psychopath…..”

Susan is a quick worker and has closed up the Y incision.  In Vancouver they can examine his brain and all the other tests Susan simply isn’t equipped to handle.  “Three .. or 5 ..  I don’t know, but I am putting in a note for the Vancouver coroner to keep me informed.”  she straightens and covers the body, then rolls it back in the freezer.  She turns.  “Thanks for the help, Darcy .. and I’ll keep YOU informed, also.  If nothing else .. this will be interesting to watch ... from the sidelines.”

As the freezer door snaps shut Darcy just nods. The door was closed on the corpse but the case and the possibilities were wide open.