“That’s terrible.”
“I’m not suggesting that was the mindset down there. But either way, Sid, there’re some things about this case that can’t be ignored. His blood in her room is one of them. Her prints on the boat oar that was used to kill him is another. That her best friend claims she was with Grace Sebold the night Julian Crist was killed is one piece to consider. But I’m sorry, Sid, the forensics trump someone’s drunken recollection.” He drained his scotch. “This friend, is she reliable?”
“She’s a doctor,” Sidney said without conviction.
“Plenty of doctors are liars. Do you trust her?”
Sidney thought back to her interview with Ellie Reiser. “I’ve got no reason not to.”
“What’s the timing? When did Grace’s friend come to her room? Was it late at night, after the murder could have happened? After Grace could have cleaned the room?”
Sidney took a deep breath and shook her head. “I’m not sure. She stayed overnight, but I don’t know what time she arrived. I’ll have to pin down the timeline.”
Her cell phone rang. “Sorry.” She looked at the caller ID and saw a Raleigh, North Carolina, number. “Hold on a minute.” She held the phone to her ear. “Sidney Ryan.”
“Sidney? It’s Livia Cutty.”
“Dr. Cutty? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, sorry to call so late.”
“No problem. I’m still working.”
“Me too. Actually couldn’t sleep after I started looking into the Sebold case.”
“Did you get a chance to look at Julian’s autopsy?”
“I did, and I think we need to meet.”
Sidney hesitated. “Find something?”
“I did. And I’m sure you’ll want to see it.”
“A discrepancy?”
“That’s a polite word for it,” Dr. Cutty said. “Complete incompetence is another.”
“In what way?”
“The skull fracture.”
“What about it?”
“There’s no way it was caused by a boat oar.”
CHAPTER 22
Thursday, June 15, 2017
HER PLANE TOUCHED DOWN IN RALEIGH ON THURSDAY, AT 10:02 a.m., and a cab dropped her at the chief medical examiner’s office just before 11:00 a.m. A nice young man led Sidney past a fenced-off room where the lights were low and a blue overhead projector threw images onto a screen while a doctor presented a case to a full room of his colleagues. A quick glance at the overhead’s photo showed a naked body on a metal table. Sidney quickly pulled her gaze away from the snow-white, bloated body and hurried past the chain link and into the elevator. Her stomach dropped as the clunky elevator jerked and descended into the bowels of the morgue.
When the doors opened, the young man pointed. “Down the hall and to your left.”
“Thanks,” Sidney said as she and Derrick exited the elevator and walked the fluorescent-lit hallway. Peach tiles lined the walls and the smell of bleach and high-school chemistry lab filled the air. Her heels echoed as she walked, loud clanking that reverberated from the sterile tiles around them. She looked down at Derrick’s feet and saw that he wore tennis shoes, quiet as a ninja.
“At least, they’ll know we’re coming,” Derrick said. “May even raise some of the dead bodies down here.”
Sidney gave him a sarcastic smile. “This place creeps me out.”
“Really? I feel right at home.”
They came to a set of boxed windows, the blinds of which were open to offer a voyeuristic view into the morgue. Twelve tables stood in symmetric rows of three. Shiny metal hoses hung from ceiling spigots over each table. Stainless-steel tubs lined the walls. Dr. Cutty stood with two other physicians around one of the tables. She was clearly in charge of whatever was happening, evidenced by the animated way in which she was organizing the scene. One of the doctors spotted Sidney and pointed at the window. Dr. Cutty turned and waved her in.
“Roll?” Derrick asked.
“Oh, yeah. This has to be good.”
“Creepy as hell, anyway,” Derrick said as he set the camera onto his shoulder, flicked his thumb, and adjusted the focus as he peered through the viewfinder. He followed Sidney into the morgue. He didn’t need her direction. After three documentaries together, he knew what she wanted. He angled the camera so the back of her head took up the foreground and in the distance, over Sidney’s shoulder, the three doctors, garbed in long coats and standing morbidly around an autopsy table, were blurred and ominous. As Sidney approached, their images hauntingly came into focus. It would make for a great intro shot, or even a “next time on The Girl of Sugar Beach” teaser.
“Sidney,” Dr. Cutty said. “Good to see you.”
“You too. Thanks for having me down.”
“Of course.” Dr. Cutty opened her arms. “Welcome to my office. It can be a little drab down here, and when it’s empty, we get some echoing. Hope that doesn’t hurt with your video.”
“Derrick is a master. He’ll edit everything down so it sounds perfect.”
“These are Drs. Schultz and Tilly, the other pathology fellows here in Raleigh.”
Handshakes all around as Sidney tried to ignore the autopsy tables on each side of them, and the white sheets that covered in lumpy fashion the bodies underneath.
“I told Dr. Schultz and Dr. Tilly about your request that I have a look at the Julian Crist autopsy. I asked for their help. All three of us reviewed the autopsy—the photos, the reports, the analysis, everything. We all came to the same conclusion.”
“Which was?”
“Somebody screwed up.”
Sidney slowly looked to the corner of the morgue where Derrick was filming. He gave a thumbs-up; he was getting it all.
“And you can prove this?”
“The autopsy report and photos are ten years old, but we’ve combed through them very carefully. Yes, we think we can show without doubt that the conclusions in the report are incorrect.”
Sidney nodded slowly. Tomorrow night’s airing would put her three episodes in, ratings were thin, and the audience was growing at a slower clip than anticipated. She needed an explosive installment. She needed an “aha moment” that caught viewers off guard, and made them talk about the documentary with friends and coworkers.
“Which conclusion?” Sidney asked.
“The one that suggested Julian Crist’s skull fracture was caused by a boat oar. It was not.”
“How were you able to determine this? And how can you prove it?”
“Here’s the deal,” Dr. Cutty said. “Our one-year pathology fellowship runs from July fifteenth last year to July fifteenth this year. That’s a few days from now. So the three of us are all but finished with our training. We’ve written our boards, we’ve reached our autopsy numbers, and we’ve each accepted job offers. That means we’re stuck here for two more weeks and we’re bored as hell. The only thing we have left to complete is our end-of-year projects, which require each of us to conduct an experiment to prove or disprove a theory common to forensic pathology. We’ve all started researching our own projects, but, frankly, none of us has very good ideas. Typically, this end-of-training exercise is a way to kill the last week or two of fellowship and no one, including our chairman, takes it particularly seriously. But after you and I spoke, and we all had a look at the Julian Crist autopsy, the three of us figured we’d take a stab at changing that. We’re going to conduct an experiment to show that it was impossible for the boat oar in question to have caused Julian Crist’s skull fracture. In exchange, you agree not only to give it a prominent place in the documentary, but also to give each of us face time through interviews. Plus, list us as consultants in the credits.”
Sidney lifted her chin. “Better than being published.”
“We’re already published.”
Sidney shrugged her shoulders. “Agreed. Depending on what, exactly, you can show me. And what theory you’re trying to prove or disprove.”
“René Le Fort
created classifications of skull fractures. We’ll use his theories as our guide to refute the conclusion in Julian Crist’s autopsy.” Dr. Cutty lifted her hand to the autopsy table. “We did some experiments on our own to reproduce Julian’s skull fracture. We’ll do them again now, and we’ll show you why that boat oar theory is complete nonsense.”
CHAPTER 23
Thursday, June 15, 2017
DR. CUTTYPULLED THE WHITE CLOTH FROM THE FIRST AUTOPSYTABLE to reveal a cadaver. Sidney had trouble making the connection between the rubbery, bleached thing on the table and a human being.
“I know,” Dr. Cutty said. “Damian here has seen better days. But without a grant to conduct this experiment, we had to get cadavers from anyone willing to donate. Each of the fellows received one for our end-of-the-year experiments. To reproduce the results for you, we needed more. The medical school had two they agreed to part with. Damian is in the worst shape, but his skull is remarkably well preserved.”
Dr. Cutty turned to the other table and whisked away the white sheet like a magician pulling a tablecloth free from a china-lined dining table. “This is Martha. Also, not in great shape anatomically, but, again, her skull is perfect for our purposes. We also have Synbone models if we need to run an exercise twice, because once we crush Damian and Martha’s skulls . . . well, we can’t really do it again.”
“Synbone?”
“A polyurethane model of a skull. It reacts almost identically to the cranium, minus the vascular system, of course. But for the purpose of our experiment, we’re interested only in the skull fracture. So we’ll use the cadavers to reenact the assault, and then reproduce the results with Synbone models to confirm our findings. That’ll be more high-tech, and we’ve got a wiz upstairs who can create computer models for you on what is happening with the skull during the impact. He’ll show you the exact method by which bone fractures and the concussion wave radiates through the entire cranium and brain.”
“Perfect,” Sidney said.
“Which episode will this air on?” Dr. Schultz asked.
“Probably episode four, if I can cut it in time,” Sidney said.
“With my fellowship, I haven’t watched much television in the last year or so, but damn if I’m not hooked on your Grace Sebold special.”
Sidney smiled. “Thanks.”
“So the theory from Julian Crist’s autopsy,” Dr. Cutty said, “was that his skull fracture came as the result of blunt-force trauma. By definition, this type of injury is produced by low-velocity impact from a blunt, or dull, object. Or the low-velocity impact of a body against a blunt surface. So something that is nonjagged and not sharp, moving at a particular velocity that is considered low, struck the skull. In Julian Crist’s case, the argument was made that a boat oar—specifically, a paddleboard oar—was used to strike him from behind.”
Dr. Cutty leaned down on the other side of the autopsy table and produced a long, crusty-looking wooden oar.
“According to the autopsy report, this is the same brand and make of the oar in question.”
Sidney cocked her head. “Where did you find it?”
“The office of the chief medical examiner has an extensive database from our tool analysis guys. We’ve got a guy who knows just about everything about pretty much any device ever used as a weapon. He pulled this oar up on the database and went hunting for one at Play It Again Sports shops around the state. Found this beauty the other day. Sawyer no longer manufactures these.” Dr. Cutty held up the oar. “They’re heavy and wooden. Over time, they became waterlogged and chipped. The newer ones are much lighter and made of composite plastic.”
“Can I?” Sidney asked, holding out her hand.
“Sure.”
Sidney took the oar, surprised by its weight and length. At least five pounds, and more than six feet. She lifted it over her shoulder to see what it would take to swing it. A surge of adrenaline filled her body as she thought of Grace Sebold doing the same.
“Tim,” Dr. Cutty said to her colleague, pointing to the spot in front of her. Dr. Schultz walked from around the autopsy table and stood with his back to Dr. Cutty. “The theory,” Dr. Cutty said, taking the oar from Sidney, “was that the perpetrator approached the victim from behind and swung the oar on an oblique plane.”
She pantomimed the angle at which it was surmised in the autopsy report that the oar had struck Julian’s skull. Sidney watched Dr. Cutty imitate the lethal blow and made a mental note to talk with Leslie Martin and see about creating an animated reenactment of the assault.
“Here’s the problem with that theory,” Dr. Cutty said. “First, the skull fracture was stellate in nature. That means it came from a single source of impact and then spread outward, like dropping a heavy object on a thin sheet of ice and watching the fissures spread through it. Now, no matter how you simulate the oar striking the skull, with either the flat side or the thin side”—Dr. Cutty placed the oar against Tim Schultz’s head, first with the flat end pancaked against his skull, and then rotated as if to chop a tree with the slim side of the blade—“it is impossible for this oar to cause a stellate fracture in the pattern found on Julian Crist’s skull.”
“Impossible or unlikely?” Sidney asked.
“Impossible.”
Sidney imagined the word impossible ringing out on episode four.
“How can you determine that?” Sidney asked.
“Because we’ve tried. Several times. And we’ll try again today on Damian and Martha.”
The other pathologist, Dr. Tilly, hoisted the first cadaver so it was bent at a ninety-degree angle from the waist as though Damian were sitting on the autopsy table. The leather skin cracked and oozed formalin as Dr. Tilly positioned it. With Dr. Schultz, she attached nylon straps to the chest and under the arms, which they secured to the corners of the autopsy table, where holes and fasteners were present, and then fastened the latches onto hanging braces that came from the ceiling. Apparently, sitting a dead body up in the morgue was a common practice.
“You’ll want to stand over there,” Dr. Cutty said to Derrick, who moved from the corner and positioned himself so that the back of the cadaver’s head was visible through the viewfinder.
“Here are the photos from Julian’s autopsy showing the skull fracture. Its epicenter is located in the posterior, superior aspect of the right parietal bone.”
Sidney paged through the graphic photos depicting the top and back of Julian’s skull. Several were taken with blood-soaked hair obscuring the details, then more after the head had been shaved, which more clearly showed the laceration. The last few photos had been taken after the scalp had been peeled away to reveal raw bone that brought clearly into view the caved-in area, which reminded Sidney of a broken china doll.
“I’m going to strike Damian’s skull with the flat end of the oar,” Dr. Cutty said. “Then I’ll do the same thing to Martha, but I’ll use the sharp end of the oar blade. Now, of course, in this experiment we are creating postmortem fractures, which vary greatly from perimortem fractures. But we’re not studying the blood pattern, skin lacerations, or the angles of the fractures. We are only analyzing the pattern of the fractures. The ones we produce on Damian will serve as excellent comparison to the fractures found on Julian Crist.”
Dr. Cutty moved to the end of the autopsy table.
“Here goes.”
Damian sat upright with his back facing her. Sidney glanced at Derrick, who offered another thumbs-up as he kept his right eye trained through the viewfinder. She stepped back a bit when Dr. Cutty raised the elongated oar over her right shoulder. In dramatic fashion, she brought the oar down hard into the cadaver’s skull. A sickening thud mixed with the splintering of bone echoed off the walls of the autopsy suite. Damian jerked forward, but the nylon straps kept him upright and in place. Sidney felt an odd sadness for the cadaver, or the man he once was.
Resting the oar against the autopsy table, Dr. Cutty slipped on latex gloves.
“The first thing you’l
l notice is that there’s no breach to the scalp. No skin laceration. We did this experiment three other times on three other cadavers, plus multiple times on Synbone with pigskin covering, which is a close approximation to human skin,” Dr. Cutty explained. “When using the flat side of the oar, we were never able to reproduce the scalp laceration that was found during Julian Crist’s autopsy.”
Dr. Cutty snaked a gloved finger under the surgically perforated flap of skin near the front of the cadaver’s skull.
“Once we get past the absence of a laceration,” Dr. Cutty said as she peeled the scalp and hair away from the skull, as if removing a mannequin’s wig, “we can analyze the actual bone fracture.”
There was not a drop of blood, Sidney noticed. Damian’s vessels had long been dry. Dr. Tilly pulled a Canon camera from a nearby table and twisted the focus to snap several photographs of the bone damage.
“We’ll make sure you get copies of these.”
Sidney nodded as she moved closer to the table.
“This strike was with the broad end of the oar,” Dr. Cutty said, holding Damian’s skull in her hands. “The first thing you’ll notice is that this type of trauma, blunt-force trauma, caused from a broad, flat object, didn’t penetrate the skull. Fracture it? Yes. But actually penetrate the bone? No. Instead, as you see, it caused a nondepressed fracture that radiated away from the site, but which also stresses the suture lines and often times separates the skull along these margins—the sagittal suture on top of the skull, the coronal and lambdoid sutures in front and back. This wound is much different from the one documented in Julian’s autopsy photos, where the skull is caved inward, or depressed, to a specific diameter and depth—three centimeters deep, seven centimeters wide, as measured by the St. Lucian pathologist—which is what defines a stellate fracture. We will repeat this many times on the Synbone model, with slow motion and still shots, to demonstrate that the flat end of the oar could not have caused Julian Crist’s skull fracture.” Dr. Cutty looked at Sidney. “So that leaves the edge of the oar.”
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