The outer door banged shut and we both looked up as Dr. Jonathan Lanza walked in. He dumped his keys and phone on the desk in the outer office and then continued in to the cutting room, grabbing gloves and smock without breaking stride.
“Morning, Kara, Carl,” Dr. Lanza said, yanking protective gear on as he moved to the table. He peered at one of Carol’s wrists, then shook his head as his gaze traveled over the rest of the body. “God knows I’ve seen stupider ways to die, but this sure isn’t a way I’d want to go.” He shook his head. “It’s definitely a homicide,” he continued, stressing the word, “but I’m inclined to agree with the sex-play-gone-bad scenario. The ligature marks are fairly light, and I’m not seeing any signs of struggle, though I’ll run a full tox screen to make sure she wasn’t drugged up first. Negligent homicide, perhaps? I’m not the one who decides how the charges go. I just tell you guys how she died.” Then he gave a small sigh. “Not that it matters if Brian did this.”
“I’m keeping an open mind as far as that goes,” I said.
Doc nodded, then his gaze shifted to me, taking in my attire. “I see Carl conned you into helping out. Keep this up and I might hire you away from the PD.”
I wrinkled my nose. “No thanks, Doc. This one’s fine, but if this had been a week-old decomp, you and Carl would be on your own.”
He laughed. “Oh, so that’s how it is?”
“Yup. That’s how it is.”
He grinned and picked up his clipboard, beginning his examination of the body.
Carl took a hypodermic syringe and held it out to me. “You said you wanted to help,” he said calmly. “Do you want to get the vitreous?”
“Ugh! No. Way.” I shuddered as Doc laughed, and even Carl cracked a smile. Getting the vitreous involved sticking a needle into the eyeball and drawing the fluid out. At the first autopsy I’d attended, Carl had made a point to show me how the needle could be seen through the pupil after it was inserted. I could handle a lot of things, but the needle in the eye always squicked me out.
Carl gave a soft sigh and shook his head as he swiftly and expertly slid the needle into the side of each eye to extract the clear fluid. “I have to do everything myself,” he teased.
How had I ever thought this man to be dour and humorless?
He squirted the fluid into a tube, then dropped the syringe into a Sharps container. Meanwhile, Doc set his clipboard aside, and pulled a black case out from beneath a cabinet. He popped it open and pulled out three pairs of colored goggles and a device that looked like a complicated flashlight. I recognized it as an ALS, an alternate light source. “Kill the lights, please, Kara.”
I obligingly flicked the lights off, then put the yellow-tinted glasses on as Doc began to shine the ALS carefully over Carol’s body.
“Look at that,” Doc said, as the bruising on her neck stood out in stark contrast to the rest of her skin. “There may not have been much showing, but here you can see where the scarf dug in.” He scanned it over her torso and thighs next. “And there ya go.” Several bite marks stood out clearly. “Just a few love nips. Nothing too hard or too deep.”
I bent closer, frowning at the marks. “Wait,” I said, and pointed to a mark on her right breast. “Shine the light on this one.”
Doc complied. “See something?”
A flutter of excitement wound through my belly. “Would you say that the teeth that left those marks are in good shape? All of them there?”
He shrugged. “I’m no dentist, but it looks like there are impressions from all the front teeth, at least.”
I straightened. “Brian was missing a tooth in the front. Got it knocked out during a pickup basketball game last week and hadn’t had it fixed yet.”
Carl let out a low whistle. “And if Brian didn’t kill her, why would he kill himself?”
“Exactly. If he didn’t kill her, then I rather doubt he pulled the trigger.” The thought of a fellow officer being murdered was hideous, but it was a damn sight more bearable than the thought that he’d been a murderer. I peered again at the bites as Doc bent his head for a closer look. Unfortunately, the marks weren’t nice and clear, and I couldn’t tell for certain if there was a gap in the bruising or not.
After a few seconds Doc sighed, shaking his head. “I can’t tell. They’re not hard bites. We’d have to consult a forensic odontologist. Or we can find out for sure another way. Kara, can you get me a swab, please?”