Smoke and Glory

•2•

As I pull onto the crime scene I can see many things, each one trying to draw my attention as many flashing blue and red lights flash repeatedly on and off from a mixture of police cars, fire engines and ambulances. I park my black Audi a few doors down from the house and not too far from the police tape, I open the boot of my car to remove my metal briefcase that is filled with my medical supplies and some forensic items and i slide into the white overall and boot coverings as not to contaminate any evidence once im on the scene and to also protect the clothing i am wearing under neither and I begin the walk over. I quickly get out my phone and slide along to Annie's name where i send her a quick message "sorry i wont be able to make it tonight there has been a really important death of a policeman and i am currently at the crime scene. Rain check tho?" I press send quickly and then slide my phone back into my pocket, not wanting to be on it at the crime scene as I adjust my mask to make it fit around my head as I prepare to investigate the body. I'll phone Annie when I'm back home to apologise correctly. The building that is sealed off by the tape is destroyed and smoke is still visible: rising from the ashes and creating an ominous thick black cloud that covers the already ominous crime scene. A few reporters are gathered around the outside of the police tape desperate for an exclusive for, what will probably be, one of the biggest stories of the decade and as i walk through the crowd multiple flashes of cameras start to blind my vision, the reporters are all yelling at me but i'm trying to ignore them, fixed on the body i can see laying on the floor with a blue plastic sheet placed over it, but due to the wind the sheet keeps flapping up revealing the disturbing sight underneath. I hold up my bronze plated medical badge to the police officer who is guarding the crime scene as he holds up the tape in a polite way as i duck under the yellow police tape that in big black capitals has crime scene do not cross written on them on constant repeat down the road as far as the eye can see in the darkness that has since befallen the state of New York. I walk into the scene and begin looking around trying to guess which officer called me but soon give up standing by the body instead just looking down at it and at the surroundings until a police officer comes over. "Hi Doctor Snow if i'm not mistaken" the officer says and i look at her and smile, "yes im Doctor Lucy Snow and you are?" i say shaking her soft hand that she willingly holds out to me,"Detective Nola Griffin, i was the one who phoned you earlier, we haven't touched the body but we did cover it in this plastic sheet because of the press and also the paramedics told us to do so as to not lose evidence." she says gesturing over to where a reporter has engaged in a shouting match with the police officer who let me in moments ago. I nod my head and turn my attention back to Detective Griffin and I look at the body, lying on the floor covered in a blue sheet, that seperates us. "Okay well thank you" i say as we kind of awkwardly smile at her and she kinda awkwardly smiles back. Detective Griffin walks away as i sit down on the floor and open my briefcase and look at the supplies within, i feel my phone buzz inside my pocket and i quickly slip it out and see that Annie has replied, i read it quickly "no worries, i understand and i heard about Captain Quill im really sorry Lucy, but i'll come by the office tomorrow and we can out for lunch if that's okay with you? Annie xx" the message read as I slid my phone back into my pocket. I use the camera from my briefcase to begin taking some photos, because of the time it's rather dark and I'm counting on the dimly lit street lights to provide me with enough light to see the photos later on. I take them from different angles, getting closer for some and further away for others. I then get out tweezers and begin scanning the bodies for any loose hairs or fibers, and upon looking under the fingernails, around the arms and legs and along the torso i find nothing and i get out a small bottle of luminal and look on the ground around the body to figure out how he got over here before collapsing and finally dying. I shine a bright torch light over the ground and see maybe 2 or 3 footsteps before it becomes one long line where I'm assuming Captain Quill fell to the ground and while trying to save himself dragged himself along the floor before finally his burns overtook him and he died where his body is currently lying. I take some photos holding the torch in one hand and my camera in the other. I then walk back over to the body. It's obviously its Captain Quill for a few reasons but there's a lot of black areas where the skin has been badly burnt and so bad in some areas there is no more skin and the skeleton is showing in multiple places most of which are above the torso where the body clearly contacted the flames, 3rd degree burns cover his legs and his left arm so im assuming the fire started on the right due to the excessive burns and skin loss the right arm has experienced. I take a few more photos and signal the paramedics who are sitting in the warm ambulance to come collect the body and take it back to the morgue as I slip off the gloves I'm wearing and I place everything back in my briefcase. "Umm Detective Griffin did you say that was your name?" i ask quickly having completely forgotten her name, "yeah that's me what do you want?" she asks walking away from who i believe to be the wife of Captain Quill, she's clearly terrified and is also covered in burns sitting in an ambulance waiting to be taken to the hospital and her jumpy actions and constant crying show just how scared and sad and also just how much sadness and grief she feels for her now late husband. "Are you going to be the main Detective on this case?" I ask and she nods her head while trying to direct another officer as to what to do. "So can you come down to the morgue at some point tomorrow preferably before lunch so we can discuss the results of the autopsy as i will have to perform it now so we don't lose any evidence, if there is any that is." i add and she nods her head again, and looks down at the body, "its awful and wrong that someone would do this, did you know Derek? I mean Captain Quill" she corrects herself and I'm a little taken aback, she must have known him well to refer to him on a first name basis, I was always told to refer to him as Captain or Captain Quill but never as Derek. "I met him whenever he came to the morgue but he was very sceptical of me, from the way he behaved i don't think he believed that a woman should have been doing what i was doing, and i know this because he always showed his opinions and never really tried to hide them." i say trying not to sound like a completely selfish person but he was a total dick and so uncaring and in his mind women should only cook, clean and care for their husband and i do want to say this to Detective Griffin but that feels wrong considering the fact that his body was laying on the floor in front of us less than 5 mintues ago. And along with the woman thing im like i have a financee and its a she, i think that could have been another reason he didnt exactly like me, ive been openly gay for about 9 years now and he clearly knew that and also clearly despised me for that fact. "Yeah he showed me those opinions as well and a lot of other opinions but he was a good mentor, a great captain and he was an exceptional leader." she says and i come to the conclusion that she worked in the same president as him, he could have even been her captain and i try to look at her police badge to get some indications of what prescient she works ar, considering the fact that he was Captain of the 74th prescient of New York and i assume that's her precisent too. "Yeah anyway i'm going to go, i need to start the autopsy tonight before any more of the body decays, if you find something, i mean anything, please give me a call" I say, passing Detective Griffin a small little card with my name, number and the address of the morgue on. She takes the card and nods her head as I climb back under the police tape and through the now even larger crowd of reporters all shoving their microphones and cameras in my face and the repetitive flash of light as each photo is taken is starting to get blinding and annoying. I quickly hurry back to my car, open the boot and i slip out of my shrubs and place my metal briefcase in the boot and then i climb into the car and lock the door, not wanting a repeat of when a crazy reporter opened the door and tried to climb into my car to find out some more details on some case or other. I sit in my car for a minute thinking about everything thats happened as i gave upon the burnt house of the police officer, at the burnt remains that are still smoking and the body that laid on the ground a few inches away from the front of the house where he tried to save himself and get out but he didn't make it and at the same time he didn't want to give up and i think to myself was it an accident? Or was it arson? As the smoke continues to rise from the ashes i check the time quickly on my phone, 8:49pm and i go into contacts and ring annie, she almost instantly picks up, "hey Lucy" she says her voice cheery and happy, "hey Annie" i say happy to hear her voice as her high levels of optimism always makes me happy, "i'm sorry we had to cancel dinner, i was really looking forward to spending time with you" i add giving the actual apology instead of just sending one via text, "hey no its fine i understand, i get it, it's your job and i just heard about the police captain im really sorry did you know him? I mean you might have done yet you know a lot of people mostly because of your job meanwhile i'm rambling so let me stop so you can do your work" she says and i find myself laughing a little, Annie once gain brings a little bit of joy to the job where death is simply the main thing you see on the job. I start driving towards the morgue following the ambulance that is carrying Captain Quill's body. "Yes i did know him but he was sort of a dick... don't quote me saying that... anyway can we just take a rain check for tomorrow lunch which i can do but i do really have to go so goodbye" i say as i pull up into the dingy morgue car park and park in the place reserved for the Chief Medical Examiner and i get out the key to unlock the morgue as by now everyone would have left. "Yes of course we can take a raincheck i'll text you tomorrow when im on my way now you go do your job" she says laughing as she hangs up the call, and i walk over to the morgue and using the key open the door, it's rather dark for 9pm and i walk into the quiet dark morgue, there are no assistants there and no doctors, they would have left 2 hours ago probably depending on when they leave. I walk into my office and grab some white overalls which I slip into ready for the autopsy and I grab a notebook and a pencil ready to write down all the facts I discover during the autopsy. I then walk towards the autopsy suite which is only a few doors down from my own office meanwhile i walk into the night janitor, Luke and security guard, Evelyn, "Hi luke, hey Evelyn" i say to the both of them who are standing around having a conversation, luke holding a mop and evelyn leaning against the wall,and luke smiles at me before saying, "Doctor Snow what are you doing here so late?" Luke asks as he begins to once again mop up the floor trying to clear all evidence of the deceased. "Well Captain Derek was just kiled, we think probably murder, he was burnt to death in a fire at this home but i didnt want to lose any evidence so I came to do the autposy now.'' I state matter of factly as both Evelyn and Luke look at me shocked. "What oh my god, i'll go unlock the door" Evelyn quickly says, "and i'll bring the body into the suite, you go and get ready" Luke continues as evelyn runs down the corridor and luke places the mop on the wall Evelyn was leaning against moments agi as he runs back down the way i came following Evelyn. I continue down the corridor and enter the autopsy suite and I grab a few items which I place on a little silver tray that I move closer to the steel table that I'm waiting for Captain Quill's body to be placed on. I hear my phone go off in my pocket and I remove it to check who's calling me, it's an unidentified number and I answer it wondering if it could be Detective Griffin regarding the crime scene, "hello this is Doctor Snow, who is this?" I ask and I listen to the blurry sound in the background waiting for someone to say something and then the voice finally speaks, "i hope you like the gift, smoke and glory and all." it says, as the call ends, the voice is rather computer generated and it does sound more like a male but i can't tell at all, it's just a stone, cold, toneless voice, the same one that rang me on the way to the scene. I place my phone down on the table a bit lost in my own thought,what does that mean, smoke and glory and all, and what gift are they talking about... Detective Quill's body? Was I just talking to the murderer? Or maybe it was some crazy person? But that wouldn't make any sense. My thoughts then get interrupted as the body is wheeled into the room and the paramedics lift him onto the cold table. "Thank you" I say as they all walk out the room, leaving me along with the body of the former police captain who used to stand in this exact room looking down at me as I did this exact job on bodies that looked exactly like this. I write down the basic notes, name: Derek Keneith Quill, age: 48, profession: police captain, Pre examination cause of death: burnt to death and i then move on to the rest of the body, writing down little facts such as things i see on the body and which areas are more burnt then others and areas where the skeleton shows through the now burnt off skin. I then cut open the Y incision along his body, little bits of charred skin flake as i cut down with surgical precision. I'm not sure what I'm going to find, I mean the cause of death is obvious: he was burnt to death during an arson. I remove each of the organs and check through the basics, the stomach contents are what i'd expect a person like him to eat, and from the way it's still mostly solid in his stomach i can say that he most definitely ate roughly 20 minutes before his death, his final meal was a hamburger and fries which are covered in a brown like fluid that i'm assuming is coca cola. I then look around the outside of the body again, looking for any other pieces of evidence I may have missed but there isn't anything except more charred and broken skin. I look into his eyes, they are still open but barely, he looks so afraid yet so ready, as if he knew it was coming, as if he knew that he wasn't going to make it and expected it to end this way. I use my gloved hand to close his eyes, bringing down his eyelids, letting him finally rest in peace as I close my eyes for a second, taking a breath and thinking for a second before I replace all his organs and I return his body into the freezer. I hang the tag over his ankle, the wrists too charred that the moment i would have put it on it would have just fallen off, and the label seems to stay on the foot labeling that this body is an emergency due to the fact i'm wanting to have him analyzed for evidence hoping to find any evidence of whoever did this. I get out my phone again as i'm walking back to my office. It's 11:30 at night, there's no point in me even going home and so I get out of the shrubs and remove my lab coat as I lie down on the sofa and quite quickly fall asleep. When i wake up i forget where i am and roll over falling off the sofa and onto the floor, i splash my face with some water and sort out my hair, applying a bit of lipstick and putting back on my lab coat that i thought i threw at the chair but clearly missed as its lying in a heap on the floor. I check my phone again, its 8:21 am and i ring up the police, "hi yes, this is Chief Medical Examiner Doctor Lucy Snow please may i speak to Detective Nola Griffin."