Death of a Cure

by Steven H Jackson

  We took an elevator down two levels. It opened into a small hallway leading to several prep rooms identified by stainless steel tables visible from the passageway. The air smelled of antiseptic and embalming fluids. Entering one of the rooms, Franklin apologized without meaning it, “We do not usually have visitors in the prep rooms because they can seem to be an uncaring place. But if you must see the body now, here is where we do our work to maintain the dignity of the remains.”

  The time had come. I walked up to the table where the small, pale, damaged body of an approximately 50-year-old man lay with a sheet covering him from feet to chest. The body had been partially cleaned of the blood from the injuries and the trauma of the sidewalk impact was still very visible. Two sets of eyes looked at me as I stepped up to the table. Franklin’s looking for some shocked reaction so he could say “I told you so,” Marilena’s looking for some sign that I needed support, protection from the reality of my only brother’s death. I surprised them both.

  It was a body. It was just a body. It may have once been Ron, but it wasn’t anymore. It held for me no source of pain. It caused no sense of loss. I was not the brother of this object, and my interests were forensic. Demonstrating this, I yanked the sheet off unceremoniously letting it fall to the floor. Two people in the room inhaled sharply as the broken body was fully exposed. I wasn’t one of the two. Starting at the head, I carefully examined the damage — proof of our human frailty. Without warning, I pulled the body up into a sitting position, rigor having left the corpse days before, no resistance offered.

  “Really, Colonel Briggs! Is that necessary?” Franklin demanded. I ignored him again. That was getting easier.

  I looked at the back of the dead body, studying the back of the head and the areas of the torso that had absorbed almost all of the visible damage. The rib cage that normally did a superb job at protecting the organs of the stomach and chest had failed. Broken cartilage had pierced the back tearing open the skin exposing damaged inner tissue.

  It was confirmation of what I had read in the crime lab’s report. I had needed to see it for myself, and it was my real reason for being here, one I had not shared with Marilena. The basis for an important fact that I would tell her about later. Her lips compressed together, eyes moving back and forth between Ron’s corpse and the wall to her right as she struggled between her loyalties to me, and her desire to look anywhere but at this disfigured and grotesque form. As tough as she was, this was far from a routine event and understandably disturbing to anyone of normal sensibilities. My sensibilities were abnormal. I was sorry she was here, but I could not have prevented her from coming. Easing the body back down, I continued my examination with the limbs, paying special attention to the hands and feet. She re-focused on me, watching my every move, not saying anything that might jeopardize the composure she was fighting to maintain.

  “Do you have the clothes that he was wearing?” I asked Franklin without looking up.

  “No, this is how he came from the city people.” His voice laconic and not at all upset by what I had been doing proving that his earlier outburst was just part of the show. He lived with dead bodies, and they didn’t bother him in the least. As a New York operator, he had seen them folded, spindled, and mutilated. This one wasn’t a big deal. At best, it had been just another body that would net a fee for services and a commission on a box. The business of death.

  HEART AND SOUL

  We were sitting in the bar at the Carlyle. Although I didn’t tell Marilena, this was a regular stop for me, even though I had never been there during the day. It was a good place to come for a quiet conversation without being overheard. The bar seating area is extensive, yet the tables, almost all deuces with high-backed leather upholstered chairs, are separated by large plants and floor to ceiling dividers making each one an intimate setting. Small rooms flowed in several directions, each a little dark and trapping any sounds from escaping. The service is exceptional and unobtrusive. It almost makes you overlook the forty-dollar just-because-you-walked-in-the-door fee that they add to the overpriced drinks, miniature hors d’oeuvres, and automatic tip. And, I’ll admit that when in the city with a date that needed a little encouragement to move the evening along, this was the place that helped me close escrow. It was classy and comfortable, guaranteed to put anyone at ease. It would give Marilena a chance to catch her breath.

  After signing a cremation order, I had steered her out of the funeral parlor holding her arm, and we moved quickly out the front door to the street. I hailed a cab and instructed the driver to take us to East 76th and Madison. Marilena was slowly regaining her color but was still a little pale and uncharacteristically quiet. I stayed close in case of a misstep or a wobble.

  After we got settled, she calmly ordered a glass of Chablis. It was just after noon and early for me to have a drink, but I ordered a glass of the same so Marilena would not have to drink alone. Three and a half ounces of wine would help her gather in the last of the frayed ends. Sipping, but not really drinking, would give me something to do with my hands. There would be some tense moments ahead.

  “I’m sorry. I let you down,” she said, surprising me for I didn’t think that she had. “I don’t know why I did not prepare myself better. I’ve seen dead bodies before. On one occasion it upset me, and I should have known that this was not going to be easy.”

  “Do you want to tell me about the other time, the one that upset you,” I asked gently.

  “I have seen several bodies as part of one investigation or another, once at the scene, the rest of the time in a hospital or morgue. With the exception of that one time, they were all what I had anticipated — cold and pale. One had an entry hole from a small caliber pistol, and the rest had not died from physical violence. I don’t want to make viewing a body seem routine, it is not, but the times I had to do it, it was what I had guessed it to be. That one time it wasn’t, the one time that still gives me nightmares, happened three years ago. That one surprised me, caught me off guard, like today.”

  “What was different about it?”

  “A family of five had died in a house fire set by an arsonist,” she said bitterly. “The bodies were completely burned and charred.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anymore. I’ve seen it myself. It’s pretty horrific if you’re not used to it, if anyone could ever get used to it.”

  “I still have terrible nightmares that I haven’t admitted to anyone. I need you to keep this between us. The Bureau would have me in front of a staff psychiatrist in an instant.”

  “Might not be a bad idea to talk to someone,” I said carefully.

  “I am. I’m talking to you.”

  She continued, “It was silly of me not to think that your brother’s body would be horrible to see given the way he died. It caught me by surprise. Again, I am sorry. It had to be incredibly worse for you. It did not help that you had to deal with a silly girl.”

  “You handled it OK. The exam I did didn’t help. I should have asked you to step out, or not come in at all.”

  “No. I wouldn’t have let you do this alone. I won’t let you down again.” Having talked about it had already helped. Changing direction slightly, she asked, “What were you looking for?”

  “What was left out of the crime lab’s report. The report I was given by the crime lab did not mention injury to the limbs, the hands and the feet. There were no pictures of the limbs.” She smiled for the first time, keeping the thought of any pictures out of her mind while being amused at my reference to the report as a gift.

  “Why is that important?” she asked.

  “Either they failed to mention injury to the limbs because there was none or because the trauma to the head and torso was so bad that it was the obvious cause of death and why waste the time on the extraneous. It turns out that there was no trauma of any significance to the arms, legs, feet, or hands.”

  “What does that mean to our investigation?”

  “He was pushed backwards through the
window,” I said quietly, but with certainty.

  “Please explain to me why you believe this,” she said while giving me one hundred percent of her attention.

  “I’ve jumped out of a lot of planes. I’ve seen the remains of those who have died from falls. The trauma to Ron’s body is not consistent with that of a suicide.”

  She lifted both eyebrows, asking for more.

  “When a skydiver goes out of a plane, he puts his body into what we call a hard arch. Both arms and both legs spread out and back. This causes you to come down face first. I’m sure you’ve seen this on TV or in the movies. This is important because when the time comes to deploy your parachute, it works best if it comes out of the pack that is on your back unobstructed by your body. Face up can be a mess.

  “When someone commits suicide,” I continued, “the person almost always goes out face first but feet down. Sometimes they will bicycle, pumping their legs all the way down. Almost always, there is considerable damage to the feet and legs and sometimes to the hands and arms as well. These are the parts of the body that strike first. Ron took it in the back. He went out the window backwards, his legs and arms trailing behind him — his body a ‘U’ shape, stable all the way down. It’s not how he would have done it if indeed he had wanted to kill himself. He was pushed. What I don’t know is why didn’t the crime lab draw this conclusion?” I asked.

  She thought this over trying to fit what I had said in with her specific knowledge of forensics experts with whom she had worked. I left her to her thoughts without interrupting.

  She looked up at me and continued, “Forensic specialists like to make objective and quantifiable assessments like blood type, DNA analysis, a bullet’s path through a body, or the identification of chemical residue. When they give expert testimony or have to defend their report, this keeps them on safe footing. It is safest for them to limit their pronouncements to cause of death and whenever possible although sometimes their hands do get forced, letting the detectives deduce the manner of death. The manner of death can require speculation and is most often impacted by other evidence at the scene.”

  “What’s the difference between cause and manner?” I asked.

  “The cause is the pathology — why the body no longer is alive. The manner is constrained to four defined states: natural, accidental, suicidal, and homicidal. How a body hits the ground after falling from twenty-four stories might lead them to believe something about the manner with a high probability of certainty, but there would be no lab test to confirm it. A sharp lawyer would make them look foolish, and they don’t like that. In a case like your brother’s, it’s better to state that the cause of death was physical trauma due to the impact with the sidewalk and then let the police figure out how he got there — on his own or with help.

  “As much as I would hope that bureau people would state facts as facts and then opinion as opinion, providing both, I would probably be disappointed. Given how you described the city crime lab, I don’t think they would go out on a limb. It’s good to have some physical evidence to support our position that this was a murder. I’m glad you did the examination even if I have new material for my nightmares.”

  She was again quiet for a few minutes. She was wrestling with whether or not to ask me a question, one that I had been expecting. I decided to give her a little push. The sooner we got this out the better.

  “There is something else bothering you.”

  “Well, actually, I did want to ask you something.”

  “Then you should.”

  “When we were in the prep room, your behavior surprised me as much as the condition of the body. You didn’t even acknowledge that it was your brother. You did not show any grief or even any emotion. Then, when you started the exam by throwing the sheet to the floor and roughly moving him so you could see those terrible things, it upset me. It wasn’t the you I have come to know. I was having a very hard time reconciling these clinical and uncaring actions with the man who just last night told me so many things about the brother he loved.”

  “It wasn’t Ron,” I answered evenly, without emotion.

  “What?” That wasn’t your brother?” Her eyes grew wide.

  “That was just a body. At one time Ron was in there but not any more.”

  “Is this a religious perspective? A spiritual position?” she asked.

  “No. You know me well enough to know that I have no religious or metaphysical perspectives.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She looked around as if I was about to reveal one of the Universe’s secrets. “You’d better explain.”

  “In the middle 1800s, a French physician name Broca studied the brain looking for a relationship between anatomical features and mental capabilities, specifically intelligence. He was not successful. I’ve seen the insides of enough craniums to understand his frustration. I don’t think that is what made Ron, Ron, what makes you, you, has anything to do with the body that carried him, or carries you, around. You know that I don’t subscribe to any religion and that I am certainly not some kind of deep philosopher, but I do think that what we think of as self, transcends the body. I will think that way until someone can show me the part of the brain, or whatever, that contains your essence. I don’t know the answers. I’m not even sure what to call it. Is it sentience, soul, spirit, self-aware consciousness, sapience, identity? To me, it is our certain knowledge of who we are and that we exist. But, it’s not the body. I wouldn’t have treated Ron that way. I believe a body is like other support equipment. It’s like dive gear or an astronaut’s suit. What I saw was Ron’s space suit that he had stepped out of. It was in a pile on a stainless steel table. I was looking for the damage that caused it to fail. Its failure caused Ron to leave me. It’s that simple for me. Being in that room with Ron’s remains was an objective exercise. Ron wasn’t there.”

  “Well, Thomas Aquinas, I’m learning more and more about you each day. The facade you maintain, Mr. Marine, is a sham. You, whether you like it or not, are a lot more complicated than you want people to think.”

  She smiled at me over the glass she held in two hands. She took the index finger of her right hand and rubbed it along the edge of the glass as if she could produce some musical note. She felt better. I was back in the classification of people she understood.

  “Thomas, do you remember the head of the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team, Andrew Felton? I brought him with me on a trip to Tampa.”

  “Vaguely.”

  “He observed one of the exercises that you were in — the one where your team penetrated an urban setting so you could get to a priority patient held hostage in a restaurant kitchen.”

  “I know the one.”

  “We watched from an observation tower. He was extremely surprised to learn that you were a doctor, the supposed follower who was to be delivered to the site, and not the team leader. He said you were a natural. You had the instincts and the moves. Others reacted to this and followed, looking to you. He said you were fortunate to have an outlet for what he called your bad boy behavior, the rest of us fortunate that your parents were not in the mob. That was when I decided I wanted to know you better. Sometimes, however, the funny, caring, easy-going guy I know becomes someone completely devoid of emotion and capable of whatever violence is necessary. Sometimes, the bad boy scares me a little.” She paused and the smile returned, “But not enough to scare me away.”

  GALA PREP

  We had some errands to run prior to the evening’s society fundraising gala — an event that I wasn’t really looking forward to. I thought that spending a few more moments at the Carlyle was a good use of time. Marilena had her feet back under her, an interesting metaphor given that she had been and was still seated. I tried to convey verbally and with my body language that I was in no hurry at all and was perfectly happy to continue sipping the Chablis. My energy level was fully reigned in and set on simmer. Someday, she would discover that I was not a fan of white wine and take me to task about today’s gra
pe juice pretense. I’d deal with it then.

  Her wobbles had been replaced with her customary self-confidence. She had not only overcome her anxieties about our stop at the funeral home but also seemed comfortable to have exposed herself to me. There was that comfort issue again. And again, too comfortable. All the same, I was glad that she was here. Her answer to my question about the crime lab demonstrated once again how little I knew about civilian police posturing and procedure. Her contribution explaining what motivates the behavior of forensics people proved again that I needed her. Her reaction at the funeral home helped delineate our roles. I’d handle the ugly; she’d guide the process and do the analysis. In the nonmilitary world of the good guys vs. bad guys, she was an excellent Sherpa.

  She asked to see the suspect list that I had gotten from O’Dale. Explaining, I think unnecessarily, the color-coding while she studied the names, titles, and company affiliations. She asked me some questions about whom I knew and whom I had talked to since arriving in New York. I don’t think that I was much help. She made notes and annotated the list drawing boxes around groups and adding arrows to include some outlying names into some of the boxes. She made a list of questions that had to be answered about the names on the list and wrote down the working assumptions to further reduce the number of names. She added weighting factors to her additions. She had already crossed some names off the list — I didn’t know why. I could easily see her leading a team in an FBI war room complete with whiteboard walls, mapping out the plan to catch public enemy number one, her focus a little daunting. After about twenty minutes, I suggested a change of direction. She would have happily spent hours on this, planning how to eliminate names from the list, finally reducing it to the killer. I got her to relent because for the rest of the afternoon we had a challenging mission completely outside of our quest to find a murderer. We had to buy a dress — two dresses.

  We both could use a break from the stress. I was glad that we had something to do that, when compared with finding Ron’s murderer, was a more normal task, a fun task for the female half of the team. Marilena got a mischievous look on her face. She was planning to enjoy watching me in an uncomfortable environment and would have fun seeing me stumble through the process. She was certain that I was forcing myself to tolerate our new mission. I had other plans.