Page 35 of Identity Unknown
I step closer to look him over, naked on his back, his arms bent at awkward angles. His left leg is broken, the shattered femur protruding, the foot pointing the wrong direction. Sal is hardly recognizable, his face contused and swollen, his eyes barely open, his skin red as Lucy described earlier. The substantial amount of coagulated blood is from his lacerated right temple, and his right collarbone looks broken.
He sustained severe blunt force trauma after dropping from a significant height, and I open my scene case. I find the long glass chemical thermometer, and the ambient temperature is fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit. The storm has cooled things off considerably. My rubber-sheathed fingers are clumsy peeling open the plastic wrapper of a disposable scalpel.
I kneel by the body, the bricks kept dry under the tent and littered with apple blossom petals that remind me of confetti. Making a tiny incision in the lower left abdomen, I focus on every detail of what I do. Trying not to see who it is. Trying not to think. Or feel. Or remember.
I insert the thermometer into the liver to take the core body temperature. It will be more reliable than infrared. Slippingbrown paper bags over the hands and feet, I secure them with tape and rubber bands. Marino watches through his hooded full-face respirator. I tell him I’m ready, and he carries in the cardboard box, setting it down.
He lifts out two transparent plastic body pouches, spreading them open, one inside the other. The sound of the rain is a constant loud patter, the tent sides moving in the gusting wind.
“How long are you thinking he’s been dead?” he asks.
I remove the thermometer, holding it up to the auxiliary light, wiping off blood.
“His liver temp’s eighty-five degrees,” I tell Marino. “Rigor and livor mortis are well advanced, and based on everything else I’m seeing, I estimate he’s been dead six or seven hours. No longer than that.”
“Well, it’s almost three o’clock now. You’re saying he might have still been alive at eight or nine this morning?” Marino asks doubtfully.
“Yes.”
“If the UAP was spotted on radar at six? Then he was alive when he was thrown overboard and slowly died?” Marino’s eyes are startled behind plastic.
“He wouldn’t have bled like this unless he still had a blood pressure,” I reply. “After he hit the ground, he survived for a while. I can’t tell you exactly how long.”
“I wonder how high up he was when he went overboard.” Marino looks up at the stormy sky as if he might find the answer.
“I don’t know,” I reply.
“If the radiation level is normal, why’s his skin so damn red?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You sure the detector’s working okay?” Marino asks.
“I took multiple readings, and it seems fine,” I reply.
Having done what’s needed for now, we grab the body by the ankles and under the arms. His limbs and neck are stiff, and my heart aches as we lift him. Blood seeps from the head and leg wounds, dripping as we set him down inside the spread-open pouches. We begin peeling off the protective backing to the adhesive seals, the distorted dead face showing through the clear plastic.
Using the flat of his hand like an iron, Marino presses down the seam from one end to the other for the first bag, then the second. When he’s done, I spray disinfectant over the pouched body front and back. We spray down our PPE. Taking it off, we stuff it into garbage bags that I hand to Tron through the tent’s opening.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes with the van,” she says as we give her our scene cases next. “Stay here out of the rain. We’ve already taken down the other tent, clearing out as fast as we can because of what’s moving in.”
“This really sucks,” Marino complains.
We wait near the opening, peering out at the empty grassy area where the big blue tent was but moments ago.
“I can’t believe we’re going to fly in this.” He’s not going to stop worrying about it.
“If Lucy thinks it’s okay, then it is.”
“Her idea of okay isn’t the same as mine,” he replies as my satellite phone rings.
I dig it out of my briefcase, the caller IDout of area.
“Who’s calling me? And how did the person get this number. Hello?” I answer, switching to speakerphone.
“Doctor Scarpetta?” The voice sounds female and familiar.
“And who is this?”