Smoke and Glory

•16•

I knock on the door, begging that Nola will open it and all will be fine, no answer so I knock again, harder and quicker and the sound of the door unlocking gives me a small sense of relief as Nola opens the door and I kiss her. "I'm sorry" I say leaning back as Nola smiles at me, she enjoyed it to, "Umm you look like a wreck come on in" she say pointing to my face and the tear marks that are still visible on my face. "What are you doing here? How did breaking up with hope go?" She asks and I look up at the ceiling to stop myself from crying again, "it went disastrously but that's not why I'm here, he called me again and this time he threatened your life" I say as Nola looks at me, mostly nervous and afraid the same way I feel, "what did he say" she asks as she summons me to sit on the sofa next to her, and I do. "He said something along the lines of Nola will be next, or something like that, he knows your name, how is that possible??" I say looking at Nola as I drag my hand down my face and try to get my brain to work. "I don't know, I don't know I never really reveal my name expect to other police officers and other forensic teams and well courts, but then that could mean that the killer is a worker at one of these kind of places and that just doesn't really make any sense what's so ever" she says and I nod my head in agreement, it wouldn't make sense for someone for say, to leave the prescient at like 9pm and then at 11pm be brutally murdering the captain they spoke to less then 3 hours ago. That makes no sense, which is just like this whole case, it doesn't make any sense. "Let's not worry to much about it we can figure it out together" Nola says and my phone interrupts her by going off which makes both of us jump and I look at the number and I breath a sigh of relief, "it's doctor grant," I say as I pick up the phone and walk out the room, "hey what's up?" I ask hoping that he's going to tell me that not a lot is happening today and that I can stay here, where it's safe and where I'm with Nola. But sadly not, "the 3 body's have arrived" he says "where do you want me to take them?" He asks and I think for a second, this is the suspected suicide victim and then the old grandpa who I think could be natural causes but no pre existing medical problems were recorded and it's a 38 year old woman who died in hospital after being attacked by someone. "Autopsy room 1 and 2 and I want to perform them all so can you get the rooms ready?" I ask hopeful that he can take out some time and get the room ready for me to do 3 separate autopsy's, "yeah will do thanks Lucy" he says "thanks Thomas" I respond with as I hang up the call and return to Nola's living room, "I need to go I've got 3 autopsy's to perform you want to come?" I ask praying that she'll say yes and I won't have to go on my own because I'm afraid of what's going to happen to well, both of us if we separate. "Yeah sure I'll come let's go, and hey don't worry about me, trust me I'll be fine, we will both be fine. I promise luc, i promise." Nola says as she walks over and kisses me again, and I kiss her again, before we get into me car and being The long drive to the morgue as Nola's house is at the other end of the city, the roads are mostly quiet, the few cars that drive by ignore us as if we are nothing but a small fly voyaging down the road. We pull up to the morgue, it's oddly calming smell of death greets us in a rather unsettling way, as we climb out of Nola's car and walk across the car park that lays no ah my desolate except for the blue car that belongs to Thomas and the 3 herses that belong to the funeral care homes whom I am assuming are collecting some bodies ready for there funerals. We enter the building to find the bottom floor empty, each of the hallways empty and all of the offices also empty, expect for the few dead bodies that lay in the fridge for collections, the rest are upstairs along the next few floors where people should hopefully be, along with the 3 bodies I have expectation to perform autopsy's on. I head upstairs and into my officer where I slide into the white scrubs I'm expected to where and grab the items I need, including the recording device that I'm going to use as I'm far to lazy today to write down notes and it's probably easier to just speak to this thing and then listen to myself afterwards. I throw one of the shrubs at Nola who also gets into it as I adjust the shoe coverings that I've just slid on before walking only a few doors down the corridor and entering autopsy room 1 where Thomas is waiting for me and 2 of the body's lay on the cold metal tables. "That's the suspected suicide and this is the  old grandpa and next door I'll put the attack victim whom I'm going to go and get now." He says leaving the room as I gather up my tools and place on the small moveable table next to me. "Hey give me a hand" I say to Nola as she rushes over and helps me lift the first body up and place a small concret slab behind his head and I begin. "Victim is a young male identified as Pete Johnson, age 26 at time of death, suspected cause of death is suicide. Outward examination reveals a gunshot wound to the side of the head similar to that of a 38 caliber, the wound is roughly .4 inches." I speak into the recording device as I admire the gunshot wound, I hold the ruler to it as Nola takes a photo of it, "what looks like gunpowder residue is on the hands and around the wound which means it was done at close range with is another link to suicide." I say using a cotton bud to collect some evidence of the powder before placing it in a test tube and in a test tube rack ready for further examination from another member of my team. "There are no more signs of trauma on the body except for 3 healed scars, one of the leg, one of the torso and one on the back of the head, I will check medical records later to determine when these were caused and how but these are the only signs of trauma seen during the outward examination." I say as I grab the camera that Nola was holding and I begin to take a few photos myself, I take some of the scars, and some of the face and many of the wound itself. "I'm going to begin the inner examination, creating the Y incision now" I say using the surgical knife to create the incision as I open up the body. Everything inside the body looks normal as I begin to remove the organs. I start with the stomach and filter the contents through a sieve. "From the look of the stomach contents he hasn't eaten anything in the last roughly 12 hours ish, I think he knew he was going to die so didn't bother eating, another link to suicide." I say as I place the bucket of hydrochloride acid and disintergrated food over with the test tube to have further examination run on both. But it's as I got further into the body I get a little bit of a surprise. "The immune system cells in the bone marrow are survey depleted and some of them appear damaged, this is the same for almost all bones in this body, nola do me a favour check his medical records the computers literally behind me, I have a suspicion that something wasn't right." I say looking at the white blood cells and red blood cells that should be within a thick and solid bone marrow unlike this one which is weird and almost putty like. "It says here in April 2019 he was diagnosed with HIV" she says which makes sense in terms of my suspicions, "the victim was HIV positive which could have been the reason he took his own life, if he were to say embarrassed by it or felt as if he couldn't speak to anyone about it he could have picked up the gun and then killed himself. It makes sense" I say into the recorder as I recover up the body having finished my examination. I then remove my shrubs and place on another set as to not contaminate any evidence on the next body that I walk over to with Nola following me. I take some pictures walking around the video say a few good times as I do so. "The victim is a male aged 83 who has been identified as Raymond Haste by his family, I believe the death to be natural causes however there was nothing medically wrong with him before his death." I say again into the microphone, I decide to start with a cotton swab to get some blood to run toxicology reports, "Doctor Thomas Grant has entered and collected the blood in order to run the toxicology." I say as Thomas grabs the small test tube that the swab lays in, and I continue on with the autopsy. The outward examination doesn't wheel many results, "there is a bruise on the left leg but it looks old and would have nothing to do with his death, livermortis has set in so upon death he was lying on his back for a few hours after so I would recon time of death to be 5 hours before his wife found him which was at 11am so I'm going to say fine of death is 7am." I say into the microphone. "Time to begin the inner examination, I am making the y incision." I say as I create the y incision using a surgical tool, and I open up the body, removing each of the organs, weighing them and recording more information about them. I open the stomach up to look at it's contents and decided what his final meal was, although from the looks of things his final meal was coffee probably only an hour before he died. "The last things he drank was coffee less then an hour before he died, but there's no showing off poison or scaring to the liver so no poison was injected or eaten, and upon doing a closer examination at the heart there is a large build up of fat around the pulmonary vein which would have stopped blood flow to the left atrium which would have limited oxygen so cause of death I believe was lack of oxygen to the heart before his heart shut down and he died, it's a surprise actually that he didn't show any Symptoms of this before because of the amount of fat and glycerol I would say he should have had heart burn and maybe have even been on the edge of a heart attack multiple times before so death was off natural causes." I say, replacing each of the organs and sewing back up the body before zipping up the black body bag and wheeling the metal gunsey out of the way as I walk into autopsy suite 2 which is one room along separated by the large fridge that currently hums a simple tune as the fans try to keep the bodies cool to stop rigormortis from processing further and to slow down the rate of decomposition. The third and, what I hope to be, final autopsy of the day is off a woman who was brutally attacked but died in hospital a few hours upon arriving. "Victim is a 38 year old female who has been identified as Lauren Mianda by her husband, according to the police she was attacked at 8.27 pm last night outside Shamans bar in Times Square and was taken to hospital where she died at 6:19am due to the injuries. The external examinations reveals multiple stab wounds, one which nearly severed the corroted artery however due to the lack of blood around the victims neck I would say that this is not the cause of death. There is also bruising around the neck and crescent moon shape cuts which could be from her nails if she was trying to free herself from her attacker who was strangling her, there is patricidal hemmoging noticeable in each eye so from that I believe that cause of death could be from manuel strangulation." I say as I snap photos of each wound I identify, I continue on with looking at the stab wounds, "all stab wounds are 4cm in diameter so this could be a regular kitchen knife but whatever knife it was it was used to cause all 17 of the cuts the victim sustained. Looking at the flow of blood from each wound I should be able to piece together which one was done first and the order of which they were committed and if they were done posmortem or premortem." I say taking photos of each wound and holding the ruler up to the wounds for some of them. Nola still stands watching, emmersed watching me as I work as my colleges walk in and out of the suite. "I am going to begin the inner examination I am making the y incision now" I speak as I do as I say and cut into the body with the sharp cold surgical knife that I use for each and every autopsy I perform. "Removing the organs, the last thing she ate from the looks at stomach contents was a thin biscuit kind of thing so I'm going to say crisps which she probably brought at the bar and I will be running toxicology to discover how much, if any, alcohol she has in her system, along with traces of the medicine she was given in the hospital so we can compare if there was anything else she was taking that wasn't you know legal." I say trying not to be flat out and say drugs but instead be more reserved and say wasn't legal. I zip up the body bag and me and Nola return to my office, "alright now that's done why don't we talk" Nola says sitting herself down on the sofa as I sit down next to her, "yeah... lets."