by Denise Gwen
What her therapist had said was true. Perhaps she didn’t belong in the Sheriff’s Office.
At least not with this crew.
Frustrated, she turned off her laptop, grabbed her jacket and her car keys and walked down the hallway to the foyer where Margie was talking to some applicants for concealed carry gun permits.
“Hey, Margie,” Kathryn said, “I’m heading out on patrol.”
“Okay, McGlone,” Margie said. “Now, you have to take this class before you can get your concealed carry gun permit.”
“How long does that take?” the man asked.
Kathryn pushed up against the exit door and emerged out into the bright sunshine air.
But where did she want to go?
She got into her patrol car, started the engine.
I wonder if the Coroner has started his autopsy yet?
She pointed the nose of the car toward the old downtown and drove out of the Sheriff’s parking lot.
A few minutes later
Kathryn walked into the Coroner’s Office and walked up to the counter where a pleasant, plump lady sat behind the desk and chirped. “Welcome to the Rowan County Coroner’s Office. How may I help you?”
“Ah, hi, hello there. I’m Kathryn McGlone with the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, and I was wondering if I could possible speak to Doctor Bradley Chase.”
“He’s in the middle of an autopsy right now, Officer.”
“It wouldn’t happen to be the autopsy of Mrs. Miranda Randalls, would it?”
The receptionist’s gaze tightened and she looked up at Kathryn, really taking her in. “Let me find out,” she said, and got up and left the desk.
A few minutes later
Priscilla popped her head in through the door of the Autopsy Room, where Brad stood over the body of Miranda Randalls, preparing to begin the autopsy.
“Yes, Priscilla?”
“There’s a deputy here from the Rowan County Sheriff, and she says she’d like to talk to you.”
“I’m not having any more dealings with anybody from Rowan County.”
“She says it’s vitally important that you speak to her.”
A grin creased his face. “Oh, she does, does she?”
“She says she’s got some information you need to see.”
An image arose in his mind’s eye of the young woman who’d forced the other deputies to put on proper investigation gear at the scene. McLaughlin, McGowan?
“Her name’s Kathryn McGlone, and she says it’s critical that you see her.”
“Oh, yes, I remember her.”
“Will you see her?”
“Ask her if she’s willing to stand by and talk to me as I perform the autopsy of Mrs. Randalls.”
Priscilla could be heard talking to someone off the mike, and then she came back, her voice sounding odd. “She wants to watch the autopsy.”
“Tell her to put on her protective gear,” he said, and laughed.
“What’s so funny about that?” Paul asked.
“I’m joking with her. She insisted everyone wear protective clothing at the scene. I know she’s going to want to suit up.” He smiled. “It’s a bit of an inside joke.”
A few minutes later.
As the woman went back to check, Kathryn stood in the lobby, her hands shoved in her pockets, wandering around, looking at the décor, thinking how odd and funny and just a little bit sad it was that a Coroner’s Office looked just like any ordinary government office, anywhere in the state. Antiseptic and not too friendly, with gray-painted walls; just another government office with civil servants doing their civic duty.
Dr. Bradley Chase emerged from the back room and approached her with a friendly smile. Once again, she was struck by his height, his raven-haired locks; he looked incredibly handsome, even handsomer than he’d looked a few days earlier at the scene, only now he wore a pair of surgical scrubs. He walked forward and offered her a handshake. “Hello, Officer McGlone? I’m Doctor Bradley Chase.”
“Oh, hello,” she said, shaking his hand. “So good to meet you, uh, again.”
“Yes, indeed.” They dropped hands and he gestured toward the back door from which he’d emerged. “Priscilla said you were here and inquiring about the Miranda Randalls autopsy. Would you like to step back with me and watch?”
“Right now?”
“Yes, I was just getting started when you arrived.”
“Oh, okay.”
“You’ll need to put on some scrubs and gloves and a mask and a pair of booties, first.”
“I can do that.”
“You really arrived at a fortuitous moment. My assistant and I, Paul Ballast, were just getting started on Mrs. Randalls’s autopsy.”
Kathryn’s heart leapt up with hope. “I did some research into that as well,” she said, “and I found some interesting information.”
“Disturbing, more like,” Dr. Chase said, and Kathryn thought she might weep from the bizarre joy of it all. Not only was Dr. Chase doing a through, professional job, but he was treating her like a fellow partner. He respected her.
“Yes, yes,” Kathryn said, growing bolder. “I saw that Mrs. Randalls took out a civil protection order against Mr. Randalls on Friday, March the eighth, and it was still within the ten-day period when he was served and before the full hearing took place, when Mrs. Randalls was found dead on Monday.”
“Let’s not discuss this in the foyer,” he said. “Let’s go back where we can speak in private.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, abashed. “That’s right.”
He led her through the foyer, pulled out a key card, scanned the lock, and opened the door, which led into a hallway. They stood outside a door marked AUTOPSY.
She hung her head. “Oh, Dr. Chase, I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am to talk to you.”
“Why is that?” he asked, with a sly smile.
“Because I think you’re the first person who’s taken me seriously about all this.”
“I see,” he said. “Well, that’s a shame, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said fervently, “it is.”
“I’ll have someone show you to the employee locker-room where you can change into your protective clothing, and then she’ll bring you into the morgue. I’ll wait for you and show you my findings.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Was she finally getting somewhere?
A few minutes later
Kathryn changed into a set of scrubs and walked into the examining room. Instantly, the chilled, sterile odor of decaying flesh attacked her nostrils and she sneezed.
“Here,” he said, presenting her with a jar of Vick’s vaporizing rub.
“Thanks,” she said, taking a dollop and putting it below her nostrils. “I didn’t think it would smell in here, as cold as it is.”
“It does, a little,” he said. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am.”
A few minutes later
With the attractive female deputy sheriff following close behind, Doctor Bradley Chase walked into the autopsy room and nodded at his assistant. He pulled back the white sheet and took a long moment to study the body before him. He knew the history; a reported suicide by hanging. He’d also studied her life; the wife of Rowan County Sheriff Randy Randalls.
That was concerning.
He studied the body for a moment, something he liked to do before every autopsy; he wanted to discern the woman she’d been; a middle-aged woman, a bit of weight on her, porcelain-white skin, with plenty of proof upon her neck to establish she’d died by hanging.
Paul Ballast, his assistant, turned on the tape recorder, so Dr. Chase could dictate the autopsy as he worked.
“It’s Tuesday, March 13, at 9:04 a.m., and I’m here with my assistant, Paul Ballast, who will be working with me to perform the autopsy of Miranda Marie Randalls, a forty-nine-year-old woman who died from an apparent hanging.”
He stopped, studied the defensive markings on the dec
eased woman’s arms.
“What do you see?” Deputy McGlone asked.
“I see defensive markings on the decedent’s arms. She may have raised her arms to avoid being hit by someone, which is completely inconsistent with a suicide, so I have to wonder, did something happen to her earlier in the day or in the week?”
“Her husband beat her the Friday before,” Kathryn said.
“For purposes of making a clean record,” he said. “Deputy McGlone from the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office is here to observer. From what I understand, the Shelbyville Police Department will oversee the investigation, but due to Deputy McGlone’s interest in this case, I am allowing her to observe.”
“Thank you,” she whispered under her breath.
Although he was finding it increasingly difficult to do so, Brad turned his attention to the decedent. “Paul, take a photo of this,” he said, lifting the woman’s right arm and presenting the inside of it, to reveal the mottled appearance and discoloration of the woman’s arm.
“I wonder how she got these bruises?” Paul asked, snapping digital photos of the woman’s arms.
“I don’t know,” Bradley said, “but I don’t think this bruising is due to the hanging.”
“You don’t?” Kathryn asked anxiously.
“Why not?” Paul said.
Brad held his arms up in front of him to demonstrate. “These are defensive moves. She was trying to avoid getting hurt by someone.”
“Do you really think you can tell the difference between a defensive gesture, like her holding her arms up against an attacker, and the struggle she endured as she died?”
“Yes,” he said, “but I can’t now state how she died. It appears as if she sustained a broken neck, but did it happen before the hanging, or during?”
She gazed at him as if seeing him for the first time. “I think that Mrs. Randalls was murdered, and it was made to look like a suicide.”
“What if I can’t agree with that assessment?”
“Then I don’t know what to do.” She gazed down at the body. “Poor lady.”
“Well,” he said. “Let’s get started and we’ll see.”
Paul Ballast stood to one side and showed her the decedent’s neck.
“Do you notice this demarcation here?” Dr. Chase said, pointing to an area on the deceased’s neck. “Do you see this deep purple, discolored bruise here?”
“Yes,” Kathryn said.
“That may be a bruise from several days earlier.”
“How can you tell the difference?” she asked. “Why isn’t that bruise part of the same bruising that happened to her neck during the hanging?”
“Well, the bruises from several days earlier, are of the same age and consistency as the ones that match the defensive bruises on her arms. The older bruises have had time to mottle, but the bruises from the noose are newer, haven’t darkened as much. These bruises,” he said, indicating the bruise at the neck, and at the inside of the arms, “are earlier, by several days.”
“A husband, perhaps?” Paul asked as he finished taking photos of the woman’s arms. “Where else do you think she’s got bruising?”
“Let’s look.”
They rolled the body over onto its stomach, and Bradley did a thorough inspection, but saw nothing indicative of a beating.
“Nothing,” Kathryn said.
Paul pointed at the neck. “You know, she might’ve already bruised in the neck area, but we can’t distinguish between a near strangling by a husband, and the neck burns on a hanging, can we?”
“Why can’t you?” Kathryn asked.
“Hold on,” Brad said.
He studied the deep purple gouge in the woman’s once pristine white skin and winced. “Do me a favor, will you? Call up Jeannine, and ask her to run a check of all the databases, find out if there’ve been any filings against the husband, will you?”
“Sure,” Paul said, and he walked away to make the phone call. “What’s the husband’s name?” he called out.
“Randalls.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“Wait,” Kathryn said. “I’ve already done all that. I’ve got lots of paperwork.”
“Oh, okay, then.”
“What’s the cause of death?”
He grimaced. “Not sure, yet. What was it you wanted me to see?”
“The records from her civil protection order against her husband.”
“Very well, let’s see them.”
“I brought them in my binder, here, let me pull them out.” She set the binder down onto a metal table and pulled the certified copies of the Domestic Violence Orders out of the binder and showed them to Dr. Chase.
“There,” Dr. Chase said, showing the civil protection order to Paul. “She took out a civil protection order on Friday, March the eighth, and by Monday, she was dead.”
“I firmly believe,” Kathryn said, “that her husband committed domestic violence upon her and then killed her on Monday, and made it look like a suicide.”
“That’s a good theory,” Dr. Chase said, finally setting the papers aside with a heavy sigh, “but I’m afraid, unless I find something else additional, I can’t support your theory with the autopsy.”
“But you’ve got the proof right in front of you,” she said. “You’ve got the defensive bruising from the beating she sustained, and you’ve got the bruising around the neck from where he tried to strangle her, and in her paperwork, she said the exact same thing. That he tried to strangle her.”
“Take it easy, will ya?” Paul said.
“Listen to me, pal,” she said, turning on Paul. “This woman was murdered, do you understand?”
“Yeah, but how are you gonna prove it,” Paul said, backing away. “Take it easy, lady. I just work here.”
She stopped at the sensation of a hand on her shoulder. She whirled around to gaze up into the eyes of Dr. Bradley Chase. If she expected to see coldness in his eyes, or a taunting expression, she was mistaken, and surprised again at the man for the look he gave her was one of compassion and kindness.
Tears welled up in her throat.
“I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I’m acting like crazy Kathryn again.”
“Like who?” Dr. Chase asked, cocking his head.
“Crazy Kathy,” she said. “That’s my nickname at the Sheriff’s Office, it’s what everybody calls me behind my back.”
Paul snorted.
“Let’s go into my office for a moment,” Dr. Chase said, and Kathryn followed.
A few minutes later
Kathryn sat in a chair across from Dr. Bradley Chase in his office, and she felt as if she were in any typical doctor’s office, and why shouldn’t that be the case, for he was a doctor, after all, but it felt strange to be in the office of a man who performed autopsies, because she didn’t really think of pathology as medicine, and yet, it was a medical field, of course it was, and only a doctor could tell how someone died, and yet she felt like such a fool, and a moron, yes, a moron, she felt like a fucking moron, because she was weeping uncontrollably at the same time.
Dr. Chase sat across the desk from her and she felt sorry for the poor man. He didn’t say anything, he just kept handing over tissues, until, finally, he simply handed over the entire box of tissues.
“T-T-Thanks,” she choked out.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Where’s the restroom?”
“Here, use my private bathroom.”
“Thank you,” and she fled and locked the door behind her and she wept some more and blew her nose and blew her nose and washed her face in the cool water of the sink, and finally, and slowly, regained control over herself. When at last she opened the door, and walked back into his office, she was surprised to find herself alone.
But then Dr. Chase walked back into his office and smiled at her. “You better now?
“Yes, thank you.”
“Well, come on, then, let’s get this autopsy finished.”
“Oh,
okay.”
She followed him out of his office and back into the morgue and up to the corpse. Dr. Bradley restarted the recording device, and began slicing open the woman’s body, beginning with the first, huge incision down the chest to open it up, and he talked in a neutral, detached voice as he worked, and she calmed down in the presence of his soothing manner and watched the autopsy and all the grotesque things that accompanied an autopsy and watched and listened and learned.
“Let’s take a break,” he said, as he scooped out her liver and dropped it into a measuring pan, “and get back to our earlier conversation.”
“Okay.”
“Of course, we have the ligature marks around the decedent’s neck, which is consistent with a hanging.”
“What do you do with the rope?” Kathryn asked.
“We photographed it first, around the decedent’s neck, then we cut it off her and bagged it up into a Zip lock baggie and put it in our evidence locker.”
“Okay,” she said.
“The decedent died from asphyxiation, but Paul and I got concerned when we noticed the bruise marks on her arms and forearms, and noted how they resembled defensive wounds, and that’s about the time you arrived.”
She flushed, expecting a rebuke for her interruption, but he continued.
“We did note bruising around her neck, that’d occurred earlier than the hanging, and may have been when her husband was strangling her.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Exactly,” Dr. Chase said. “And when you showed us the history of domestic violence complaints, I determined that these older demarcations on the decedent’s body were consistent with defensive wounds.”
“So, what are you going to say killed her?” Kathryn asked.
Dr. Chase winced. “It’s hard to say, just yet. She clearly died from a loss of oxygen, but some of the bruises in the neck area are older than the bruising she sustained from the hanging. She may have been beaten in the same area in the neck and in the arms in the days before the hanging, but she was still alive after the beating. Unfortunately, I’m afraid, I’m going to have to say she died from asphyxiation.”