A Simple Lie

by Mary Bush

  “He has every right to be an egotistical bastard. Did you hear who he works with?”

  “Who?”

  “It’s someone big. The criminalist, Thomas Hayden!”

  “The Thomas Hayden?” Val nearly dropped her empty glass.

  20

  Val paced back and forth in the decomp room, biting her nails. She stood beside a burn victim who had not only been torched, but also had a large irregular injury over his eyes, probably due to some type of firearm.

  The new digital X-ray equipment was positioned next to the gurney, equipment Julia had wanted to get for the office. Val grew sad at the thought of Julia, but it was short-lived. Val missed her a little less each day, mostly due to her friendship with Gwen Carmondy. Her relationship with Gwen was taking a turn she would have never expected. Since their evening out, several days ago, the two began spending more time together. Val really liked her. Now, the issue of Oliver Solaris had taken another costly twist. Not only would she lose her job, she could lose her friend if this secret got out.

  But after today’s mishap she might not need the help of the Oliver Solaris lie to lose her job.

  She was so mad she could spit and she wanted to strangle Dr. Blythe for doing this to her.

  Though he didn’t say it directly, he was testing her with this victim. She was convinced of it. He had instructed her to get dental X-rays and provide a complete preliminary report of her findings about this individual. Except for the X-rays, this was an unusual request since this victim was already at the morgue. Everything else she would have performed at the crime scene. The only reason Blythe would ask her to do this now was so that he could evaluate her skills as a death investigator. He had every right to use any poor performance as grounds for firing her.

  Val looked at the dead man on the table, trying to figure out how to fix the problem, cursing herself for not taking more time to understand the equipment. But in all honesty, taking dental X-rays was something she could do in her sleep.

  Seeing as she thought it would be the easiest part of the examination she decided to get these first. This was a digital system however, and the part that went into the mouth was an electronic sensor, which was quite a bit thicker than typical dental film. Getting it positioned so that she could take the pictures was something she thought she’d learn by trial and error. Unfortunately, today’s experience had been entirely error.

  Though she’d been as careful as possible, while trying to put the sensor in, she broke off four of the lower front teeth.

  She had several textbooks open and quickly glanced through the chapters that dealt with burn victims, trying to find out what to do. But this body didn’t look like any of the ones in the pictures. Skin shrinks when it’s burned. She knew that, and the photos showed the typical appearance of charred flesh around the oral cavity as the tissue pulls back from the teeth, exposing what’s left, and what was left in the photos wasn’t much. According to the book this person should be devoid of front teeth: they should have disintegrated in the fire. This wasn’t what had happened here.

  The left side of his face appeared unaffected, and the lips were mostly closed. All of the front teeth had been there before she touched them. Now, the fractured pieces rested on the man’s tongue.

  She read further, panicking. The next few paragraphs in one book did warn to be careful in the circumstances where the teeth seemed to be intact, stating they may be fragile and breakage was a possibility.

  “Great, it’s a little too late to see this now.” She slammed all of the books closed and was still assessing the situation when the door opened and Jack Styles casually walked in.

  Val stared in disbelief and then quickly jumped, grabbing a few stray paper towels that were lying on the countertop, hiding the textbooks as best she could with them.

  “Who let you in?” She spoke with authority. This certainly wasn’t the time to be anything less than assertive. With a catastrophe on her hands the last person in the world she wanted to be standing with her was Jack Styles. Surely he’d see how inexperienced she was. Plus, what would he think of her if he noticed that she, a dentist, couldn’t take X-rays without screwing up? She cringed at the thought of Jack Styles telling the renowned Thomas Hayden that they hire idiots at the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office.

  “I was told I could find you here.” He waved his visitor ID at her. “See, I even have permission.”

  “Dr. Blythe’s in autopsy room one. You’ll want to speak to him.” Val resumed her work. Maybe he would just let her be and leave quickly if she didn’t engage him in conversation. She couldn’t risk him staying in the room long enough to notice anything wrong.

  “He’s busy. I was hoping you’d keep me company while I wait.”

  “I’m busy too,” she said, knowing that Blythe must have blown Jack off again. She continued working, though really not doing much.

  Jack made no motion towards the door. He wasn’t leaving. Val took a deep breath, trying to focus, but it didn’t help with him in the room. She couldn’t think of what she needed to do next.

  He watched her as she busied herself doing absolutely nothing at all. She had a partially written report in front of her and could see Jack trying to read what was on the paper. Val picked up a pen and added new findings to her report, but each time she wrote something, she quickly crossed it off. She let out a frustrated sigh and attempted to write something again. The pen stopped mid-sentence.

  “So, what happened here?” Jack asked of the charred body.

  “He was found in the trunk of a burning car.” Her words were clipped, hoping to not give him any latitude to venture into a discussion that would make it obvious that she had no idea what to do with burn victims. Her heart began to pound when Jack circled around the body, quietly examining what lay on the table.

  “Why they use fire is beyond me,” he stated.

  “Excuse me?” Val asked, struggling to keep her tone even and uninterested as she broke out in a nervous sweat.

  “It’s just that it doesn’t work. Or I should say, rarely works. Some criminals do manage to be successful, but I think that’s more out of luck than skill. Don’t you feel the same way about this tactic?”

  “Uh huh.” Val held her breath and purposely didn’t lift her head to look at him as she feigned focus in her report. She had no idea what to say and prayed Jack wouldn’t keep asking questions.

  “If you wanted to hide something about your crime, wouldn’t you use something that did a better job?”

  “Honestly, Mr. Styles, fire can work well if it burns up the evidence,” she said, her eyes still on the report, convinced that he was pressing her intentionally. Her nerves were already worn thin and she didn’t know how much more she could take if he kept tugging at them.

  “Please, call me Jack,” he said and then pointed to the victim. “Did fire work well here?” The tone suggested that he already knew the answer to the question.

  Perspiration rolled down Val’s neck, but she was determined to be unaffected by this attack. She put down the pen, looked up and locked eyes with him. “That depends. If the cause and manner of death are incorrectly determined then yes. But as you can see, I’m not finished with my examination. So, Jack, I don’t have any answers yet.”

  He nodded in agreement. It was a fair answer and Val felt relieved. The relief lasted only a few minutes.

  Her eyes opened wide as Jack reached into the box of latex gloves, grabbed two and put them on. He placed a finger over the jagged opening on the forehead. “Now, where did you come from?” He spoke to the injury. Then turned towards Val and pointed out the obvious wound on the forehead, grinning as he did so. “This was caused by a bullet, not a fire.”

  “I know that already!” Val snapped, “I didn’t need to have it pointed out to see he died from a gunshot wound to the forehead. The big hole kind of gives that away.”

  “Not a gunshot wound to the forehead, Dr. Knight.” He picked up the man’s head, inspecting the
back of it. This time the joking nature was gone when he spoke. “The hole on the forehead is an exit wound. Obviously, we would expect to see an entrance wound somewhere else, and this is it.” He pointed out a small opening at the base of the man’s skull and then explained further as Val just stared, mortified at making such an error. This examination had just gone from bad to worse.

  “You see, this well-defined marginal abrasion is characteristic of an entrance wound, while the irregular larger injury on the forehead is the exit wound. The manner of death is homicide, but I think you already knew that, especially with the way this body was burned.” Jack’s tone was serious. He spoke as if he were discussing possibilities with a colleague, not pointing out that colleague’s deficiencies. There was no sarcasm in his voice.

  Val did have homicide written down. Obviously, the man didn’t shoot himself in the head, get into the trunk of a car, and then set himself on fire, but she would have gotten the direction of the bullet wrong. She was too worried about the broken teeth to even think of looking anywhere else.

  Jack set the head back down. Next, he reached for the victim’s mouth and pulled back the lips. Val became light-headed and for a second she thought she was going to pass out. Here it comes, he’s going to see my other error; the broken teeth.

  “Most people think fire will destroy the evidence. It doesn’t. Look at this poor soul’s teeth. Except for these on the right side, they look in good shape. My guess is he was lying face down in the car.”

  Val was surprised that Jack said nothing about the broken incisors. “That’s a very nice theory,” she managed to say.

  “Not a theory, Dr. Knight. You see, this man was shot in the back of the head, execution style. Then someone tried to cover up the crime by setting a fire. A drug deal gone wrong, he owed someone money… a scorned lover? Those are theories. Why he was shot is a theory. Why he was killed, at this point, is speculation. How he died is not.” Again, Jack had no derisive tone in his voice.

  “Of course, it’s not speculation. He was shot, that’s how he died,” Val said.

  “Now, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions with the cause of death. Just because he was shot doesn’t mean that’s what killed him. He could have survived the bullet to his head and then died from the fire. The only way to tell is with an autopsy where you would expect to see soot in the mouth, esophagus and lungs, since he would have been breathing when the fire started, plus carbon monoxide would be in his blood. But I will confirm that he was face down in the car, left side down to be exact. Everything we need to decipher that is right before us.”

  Val said nothing. Everything about this examination, she either managed to do wrong or get wrong. If Jack didn’t point out her errors, she would have failed Dr. Blythe’s test miserably. She made rapid mental notes, preparing to add Jack’s facts to her report as soon as she could.

  “His face is barely damaged by the fire on the left, so he must have been face down with his head turned to the right, exposing the right side to the flames. I told you just a few minutes ago that fire is a very poor way to cover a crime. Do you know why?” He lingered on the words temptingly.

  She took the bait. “Why?”

  “It draws attention to what you’ve just done. Someone commits a crime, pours a flammable liquid all over the scene. Then puts a match to it and what happens next? Smoke. Smoke goes up in the air and alerts everyone within miles to what has just occurred. Very good citizens that see the smoke call the fire department and the firemen come and put the fire out. So, your crime scene doesn’t get the opportunity to burn long enough to destroy everything. The victims are usually still in great shape for dental ID since the lips and the cheeks protect the teeth, especially the back ones. The parts of the body in contact with the floor or some other surface are also protected from the flames and have little damage, that’s why his face looks pretty good on the left side but not on the right.”

  Jack let out a heavy sigh. “Now if they had just put the body up on something, got it off of the ground, that would have given a whole lot more oomph to the burn process. It would have gotten some oxygen underneath it. If you’re going to use fire, you really should learn some mechanics of how it all works. Face down in a trunk of a car is fairly amateurish.”

  Val had to admit she was impressed with his knowledge. And Dr. Blythe would be impressed with her report. She needed to write down everything Jack said before she forgot the details, and had to get him out of the room so she could do so. “Well, Jack, this visit has been interesting, but I really must get back to work.”

  “As you wish.” He stripped off his gloves, washed his hands and walked towards the door. “By the way, charred teeth break easily because they’re so fragile. It would almost be expected if anyone tried to X-ray them.”

  Val shot him a look, but said nothing about his remark. He didn’t seem to be going any further on this issue, and at this point, neither would she. Instead, she decided to ask another question, one she wanted the answer to. “You said face down in a car is amateurish, what did you mean by that?”

  “There’s just no way to hide the fact that a crime was committed. It’s obvious. The dead person is in the trunk of a car. Really, I can think off the top of my head several effective ways to get rid of a body that would be considerably better. Plus, one ought to be mindful when using fire, the hydrocarbons that tend to be used in these circumstances are so easy to detect with lab tests. It all just screams set-up,” Jack said.

  Val stood silent for a moment, thinking.

  “Oh, I’m sorry if you don’t understand. People that set fires like to use gasoline,” he said, smiling smugly. “Gasoline is a hydrocarbon.”

  “I know what a hydrocarbon is, Mr. Styles!” Val shot back at him. “Since you seem to know it all what do you suggest then?”

  “Something that burns clean and then disappears. A strong vodka would do the trick.” He smiled broader and then stared at her. “It tackles many problems. Perhaps I can interest you in one.”

  Jack’s invitation still lingered in the air. No response came from Val as Gwen burst into the decomposition room and shouted, “They found another skull!” Her eyes opened wide as she focused on Jack.

  “Holy crap.” Then Val held her tongue. Not saying more out loud. What in the hell is going on? Did they find Julia’s skull?

  “Perhaps I can interest you both in a drink, and possibly dinner? Tomorrow night?” Jack offered. “I think we ought to compare notes. Because, ladies, you need to hear my side of the story. What I know. This latest discovery doesn’t make me surprised. It makes me concerned.”

  “We’d love to join you,” Gwen responded.

  Val didn’t say a word.

  “I don’t see what the problem is,” said Gwen.

  “It’ll get us fired for a start,” exclaimed Val. She wanted to kill Gwen. Talking with Jack outside their professional capacity of the medical examiner’s office was grounds for immediate firing. “Thomas and Jack aren’t official investigators. Discussing details with either of them is no better than talking to the media when we’ve been told not to.”

  Though Val would do anything to put Julia’s killer behind bars, she couldn’t afford to rock the boat with Dr. Blythe. He was out to get her, that was obvious, but Val didn’t want that lynching to happen as early as tomorrow. If he was going to fire her, he’d need just cause to do so. Her inappropriate involvement in this high-profile murder case would be all the cause he needed. The way she saw it, if she talked to Jack outside of work, she’d only be giving Blythe the rope to hang her with. And if Val was fired, there was no way she’d be able to help Julia. She needed her position at the medical examiner’s office for that.

  Gwen was adamant that they were doing the right thing and after Val finished lecturing, got the opportunity to explain why—Dr. Blythe might need to have the boat rocked.

  “They found another skull, but he didn’t seem interested in it at all. In fact, he was being really dismissive about t
he whole thing,” Gwen said.

  “How do you know this?”

  “I overheard him talking about it. I don’t know Val, something isn’t right. The teeth were all missing and he didn’t seem concerned.” Gwen added, “I was concerned and I have nothing to do with this investigation.”

  “Then you should talk to Detective Gavin, and not Jack Styles. Another victim could have a big impact on this case.”

  “Detective Gavin knows about it. That’s who I overheard Blythe speaking to.”

  Val heard the words but they didn’t make sense. “What did he say?” she asked. “He must have challenged Blythe.”

  “No. He didn’t. In fact, he agreed with him. Dr. Blythe was so convincing that I’m not surprised.”

  “You must have misunderstood.”

  Gwen shook her head. “The post-mortem interval on this skull is well over a year. This person died long before the murders of Jeanne Coleman, Francine Donohue and Julia DeHaviland; too long to be part of this case. He thinks it’s not connected.”

  “I can’t believe this! What about the possibility of an earlier victim?” Val could barely contain herself. So much in this entire case didn’t add together. This was just one more thing.

  “This is what I heard from Blythe. Due to where the skull was found, Blythe was confident that the extensive injuries came from that source. There was more trauma than just the missing teeth, which is unlike the other victims. Plus, with Colin already in jail, and all the ironclad evidence against him, why speculate about another victim until there’s reason to believe there is one? It would be a different matter if they’d found another set of teeth. The media attack with this type of information could be nightmarish at best, and quite damaging to already strong evidence against Colin.” Gwen added, “See what I mean, it all sounds convincing.”

  “Why wouldn’t Gavin investigate this? Who cares if Blythe sounds convincing?”

  Gwen paced back and forth. “Blythe also told Gavin that if the media gave the public reason to believe Colin might be innocent and that the wrong steps were taken for the arrest in this case, the lead detective would look like an asshole and probably get demoted or at very worst, fired. That lead detective is Gavin.”