by Brian Shea
“Family first.”
“Family always.” His mother gave a half smile and resumed the game show at full volume.
8
From the things he’d seen growing up in his neighborhood to the countless bodies he’d encountered during his eleven years as a member of the Boston Police Department, Michael Kelly had grown familiar with death. But his short time in Homicide had dramatically changed his perspective. If you ever wanted to see the meaninglessness of life, attend an autopsy. The manner in which a body gets evaluated will forever twist your understanding.
Kelly stood outside the pristine glass doors and arched entranceway to the Office of the Medical Examiner. He was a few minutes early, as always. Those quiet moments were critical to setting his mind right for the task ahead. A police officer’s job didn’t always afford that luxury, but when it did, he made sure he allowed for it. He noted the time and location in his pad: Wednesday 0857hrs. ME Autopsy. He’d note more as the morning progressed, but Kelly was thorough. In death, everything mattered.
He stepped up to the main doors and they parted with a whoosh. The sterile air of the lobby had a similar quality to a hospital, but the lobby wasn’t littered with the sick and dying. It was quiet, except for a few personnel in medical coats talking in hushed conversations as they entered the secured area.
Kelly approached the receptionist. “I’m Detective Kelly, Boston Homicide. Here for the nine o’clock with Doctor Best.”
“Have a seat, Detective. I’ll page the doctor. She should be out in just a moment.”
“Thank you.” Just like Deschanel, this woman was the gatekeeper.
Kelly didn’t sit. He hated to sit when he had work to do and equated it to laziness; he paced instead.
“Detective?” A thin woman with straight, shoulder-length blonde hair stood by the open door of the secured area. She wore a bleached white lab coat and carried a clipboard.
Kelly stretched out his hand. “Doctor Best? I’m Michael Kelly.”
“Ithaca.”
“Sorry?”
“Just call me Ithaca. I hate the doctor crap. Sounds too formal. Ithaca is my first name. And before you say anything, I know how bad it is to be a Bostonian named after a New York city. Family name. My grandmother’s.”
Kelly smiled. “It’s nice.”
The pathologist blushed a bit at the compliment before turning. “Shall we?”
“Lead the way.”
The facility was capable of housing hundreds of the dead at any one time. There was a time when unclaimed bodies occupied so much of the space the facility was forced to use cold storage trucks as temporary onsite containment units. In recent years, and after several publicized cases of mishandled bodies, the funding increased to allow for more staffing. Since then, the opioid epidemic had created a tsunami of overdose-related deaths and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner was again playing catch-up.
The air was always cold, and Kelly fought the need to shiver. Ithaca Best kept up a quick pace and her shoes clacked the recurrent cadence of each footstep.
“You’re new?”
“Not to the PD but to Homicide. Been in the unit a little over six months.”
“Where’d you come from?”
“I’ve bounced around a bit in PD. A gypsy so to speak. Did a stint in Narcotics before going over to tactical.”
“A SWAT guy? Not a normal transition to the world of investigations, is it?”
“Well, I did the tactical stuff for a bit and then stepped over to the negotiator side of the house. Thought maybe I could talk some people down before it escalated.”
“How’d that work out?”
“Not so good. And thus, my new path was forged.” Kelly tried to pass off the statement with a touch of bravado, but knew it came up a bit short. Baxter Green’s death still encircled his mind like a low-hanging cloud.
Best stopped at a closed door. She pulled up a lanyard and held it over the sensor pad on the side. The light above shifted from red to green and the door clicked loudly. She depressed the metal handle and pushed.
The room contained ten metal tables, columns of five on each side. The smooth laminate floor was dipped slightly, converging in the center, dividing the room. In the center of the concave floor were evenly spaced drains, similar to what you see at the base of a shower. The shape of the ground and the drainage areas were designed as runoffs for any fluids not captured by the tables’ raised edges and prefabricated drain holes. It also made for a much easier clean-up and sterilization of the room at the end of each autopsy.
The last time Kelly had come into a room similar to this, nine of the ten aluminum beds were in use. It was a madhouse of sawing and cutting, like a scene out of an Eli Roth horror film. Today was different. Two techs stood by the one table occupied by the lifeless body of Faith Wilson. The girl’s hands and feet were still in clear plastic bags.
A smell hung in the room, unlike anything most people could fathom. Most cops didn’t have the opportunity to observe an autopsy. He’d known plenty of thirty-year veterans who hung up their gun without taking in this most private of investigative rituals. Kelly made attempts to describe it to others who’d never experienced it, but always seemed to fall short in conveying the experience. There was a musk of equal parts decay and chemical, like ammonia and a compost pile had a baby. The first time he’d smelt it, he almost turned and left.
The invisible forcefield of stink was too much for some investigators to handle. Some tried to mask it by putting Vicks VapoRub on their upper lip, under the nostrils. Kelly did not. He didn’t shy away from the brutality of death. In fact, the opposite was true. He embraced it, fully and completely. To be the voice for the dead, he felt an innate need to embrace every gritty aspect of the case.
Best walked over to the table and introduced Kelly to the techs who’d be assisting in today’s autopsy. Thomas Robichaud and Dennis Toomey were already masked up and ready to begin.
“Give me a second while I get my overalls and mask on. You can take your initial photographs if you want.”
Today Kelly carried his department-issued Nikon, similar to the one Raymond Charles had used on the previous day’s scene. He noted the time and then slipped his notepad into his back pocket. Kelly was by no means an expert with a camera, but had familiarized himself enough with it to know the basics. He’d put in a request to go to the week-long photography school, but it was still sitting on his lieutenant’s desk. No telling how long until it would get approved, if ever.
Robichaud and Toomey stepped back, giving him a wide birth, as Kelly moved around the body. Kelly began at the head and moved clockwise, snapping photos from both table-level and overhead. Each aim point overlapped its predecessor and would give an overall continuity when he organized them later.
Faith Wilson lay on her back, naked, her skin a pale off-blue, like she was cast in a permanent moonlight glow. His original assessment seemed to be holding true. There were no discernable injuries sustained by gunshot or knife upon first pass. He’d wait for the roll to confirm, but it appeared the injury at the base of the skull was most likely what killed the girl.
Ithaca Best reappeared beside him in full gear. She wore protective glasses which muted the bright blue of her eyes, and her goldenrod hair was hidden beneath the disposable green cap.
“Ready to begin?” Best asked through her mask.
Everybody around the table nodded, including Kelly.
Best set a digital recorder on a tray next to the table and pressed the record button. “Today is Wednesday, March thirteenth, two thousand nineteen. I, Doctor Ithaca Best, pathologist for the Massachusetts Office of the Medical Examiner, will be performing today’s autopsy of Faith Wilson, age thirteen. Pathology Technicians Thomas Robichaud and Dennis Toomey are assisting. Detective Michael Kelly of Boston Police Department’s Homicide Division is in attendance and will be observing the procedure. Time on the clock reads zero nine eleven hours.”
Kelly watched as Best m
oved around the body. She began at the right side, starting at the neckline and working her way down to the feet. Best moved and manipulated the girl’s flesh, looking for evidence of trauma. She then did the same on the opposite side. Best then motioned to the techs. “We’re going to roll her to the left side.”
Robichaud stood on the left side and leaned over, grabbing the girl’s right shoulder. Toomey did the same at the knee. “And roll,” Best said.
Faith Wilson was rigid, her body stiff from the past eighteen hours in cold storage. The doctor moved her hand along the back of the girl’s body. “No sign of any puncture to the girl’s body below the neckline.”
Best had the initial report from Charles’s and Kelly’s documentation up to this point. She knew about the trauma to the skull; the pathologist wanted to rule out any other prospects before focusing on the known. Best’s hand returned to the base of Wilson’s neck. Her fingers inched up to the skull. “Her neck is broken right here, at the base of the skull. Once I get inside, I’ll be able to better pinpoint the extent of the damage.”
“Do you think the broken neck killed her?” Kelly asked. He snapped a photograph of the area Best had indicated.
“Unlikely. It’s very likely this injury may have had a paralyzing effect, depending if the spinal cord was severed.”
“What about the blow to the back of her head?”
“Roll her back into position.”
The two technicians pushed Faith Wilson into her original position. Ithaca Best leaned her slight frame in, hovering over the dead girl’s face. She reached back without looking and grabbed some forceps off of the metal table behind her. The doctor then pried open the girl’s mouth wider. Kelly heard a crack as the rigidity of the jaw gave way to the instrument’s pressure. The sound caused his stomach to knot.
Best activated the light attached to the side of her protective glasses, enabling her to see more clearly into the dark recesses of the girl’s mouth.
“What are you looking for?” Kelly leaned in for a better view.
“Look here.” Best stepped back. Kelly took a small light out of his pocket and illuminated the interior of Wilson’s mouth.
On the girl’s swollen tongue were bits of dirt, similar to the covering over her half-closed eyes. Kelly snapped several pictures and then stepped back. “What do you make of that?”
“You said she was found in a shallow grave?”
“Correct. She was dragged from the rail.”
“I’m going to have to look at her lungs when I take them out, but it looks like this little girl may have been buried alive.”
Best began the Y-intersection of the girl’s chest cavity, a brutal undertaking, gruesome to watch. One by one, the doctor removed each organ, labeling and weighing them. The lungs were heavier than expected, making the doctor’s assertion more plausible. Dissecting them, the interior was coated in a dark gummy substance as dirt, moisture, and blood had mixed. The slurry had effectively suffocated the young girl.
The autopsy took a little over three hours to complete. When it was done, Kelly was emotionally drained. Doctor Best confirmed Faith Wilson’s neck had been broken above the C4 vertebrae, paralyzing the girl from the neck down. The contusion at the skull was superficial, with no cracking of the cranial bone.
Best concluded that Faith fractured the vertebrae on the metal track, generating enough damage to cause significant paralysis but not enough to sever the spinal cord. Dirt could have gotten into her mouth if she was on her belly when dragged through the yard as he’d suggested. Impaired swallowing could have put dirt and possibly blood into the back of her throat, and she could have still had enough muscle function to breathe it into her airway.
Dumping her into the shallow grave would have most likely finished off the already damaged spinal cord, severing it. She would have died of suffocation because she could no longer draw a breath. Her brain would continue to function until starved of oxygen, and that would happen quickly. If she had been rendered unconscious by the fall on the rails, her attacker may not have seen her breathing. The dirt-filled lungs were the culprit. Asphyxiation was ruled as the causative factor in the teen’s murder. Ithaca Best listed the manner of death as homicide.
Kelly’s mind replayed all the images stored in his mental file set aside for Faith Wilson. The blood on the tracks, the torn fabric from her dress on the fence, and her final resting place. This girl was broken, paralyzed, and left for dead. He imagined the girl face down unable to move as she swallowed the earth around her until nothing was left.
Kelly sat in his car with the engine off. He stared at the building he’d just left and wondered how much damage seeing that body would have on his mind. He’d just watched all the contents of a young girl, once analyzed, get bagged up and stuffed back inside her chest cavity with the same care of someone packing for a last-minute trip.
His phone vibrated and he looked down at the text message. Samantha sending a reminder: Don’t forget Embry has her play today at one.
Kelly looked at his watch. He had forty-five minutes to get across town to his daughter’s school. With a little bit of luck, he’d make it. Seeing Embry would be medicine for his aching soul. After what he’d just witnessed, he needed her now more than ever.
9
The parking lot was packed, not one space available. He’d seen the latest text from his ex, asking where the hell he was, with wording that was not as pleasantly phrased. Kelly didn’t waste time typing a response. The speed at which he sent text messages was comparable to a Neanderthal etching on a stone tablet. Plus, he was looping the block for a second time in search of a spot.
He gave up his futile attempts at finding legal street parking and drove his beat-up Impala up onto the grassy median between the sidewalk and the parking lot of Mercy Elementary. He knew his unmarked wouldn’t get towed, or at least he hoped any self-respecting tow company would see the BPD insignia on the plate.
Kelly dashed for the doors, following behind an older couple carrying a bouquet of flowers. He realized he should’ve stopped for something like that. Kelly was positive Samantha would one-up him, or worse, her boyfriend, Martin Cappelli, would come in as the hero. He still couldn’t believe she’d left him for Marty, of all people.
Snaking past the older couple, Kelly navigated his way into the auditorium just as a final announcement to take seats had been given. He scanned the stadium theater seating, a vast departure from the bench seats in the gymnasium of his childhood school. Samantha had somehow convinced him to send Embry to private school, a decision he regretted to this day, even more so now that he was eating most of the cost as part of the divorce decree settlement. He let the frustration reduce from a boil to a simmer as he caught a glimpse of the dark waves of his ex-wife’s hair.
As if she could feel his eyes upon her, she turned and saw Kelly. She gave a relieved sigh and then flagged him over. As the lights dimmed, he deftly took the steps down to the center row. Kelly apologized as he squeezed himself across the already seated parents and grandparents. In situations like this, where a person had to squeeze by a group of people, Kelly was always plagued by the question—what direction should he face? Kelly gave the passing crowd a look at his posterior. Better than jamming his crotch in some old woman’s face.
Kelly dropped into the vacant seat she’d held for him. Samantha was now bookended by her past and present lovers. The awkward trio faced the curtains as music played.
“What’s that smell?”
Kelly dipped his nose to his shirt and inhaled. “Dead body.” His senses were deadened to it and he could no longer smell the funk the autopsy room left on his clothes.
“You couldn’t have changed?”
Kelly tried not to let the jibe take effect, but it was hard. “Came straight here from the body of a dead girl. You should just be glad I made it.”
“It’s not about me. It’s about our daughter. And yes, smell or not, she’ll be thrilled to see you here.”
Kelly le
aned forward and looked at Cappelli. “Hi Marty. Glad to see you brought flowers.”
A second grader came to the podium and began his narration; Embry’s second grade performance of The Wizard of Oz was about to begin. He had witnessed the practice his daughter had put into memorizing her lines as Dorothy, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw Embry traipse out on stage with a stuffed Toto cradled in a wicker basket. For a few moments, the thought of Faith Wilson pushed back into the recesses of his mind.
Polina Deli began to fill with the lunch crowd. Aleksander always tried to make himself available to help his mother with the lunch wave. His older brothers Bartosz and Darek couldn’t be bothered. They’d explained to him that their time was much too important to be wasted on such things. Aleksander understood why they felt this way. They handled the heavy lifting of the other side of the family business. Being the youngest, he was still earning his place.
His brothers were in the back room, engaged in a heated conversation. Whenever the storage room door was closed, Aleksander knew better than to go sticking in his nose. Most of the time, their fights were over money.
Aleksander moved about the kitchen, quickly navigating the cramped space, grabbing spices. Having spent most of his life in and around the kitchen, he could probably have found what he was looking for among the cabinets and stovetops blindfolded.
Today was not just any ordinary lunch, not for the Polina Deli, and not for his mother. The mayor was going to visit. He’d proposed a recent initiative pushing the importance of mom and pop shops in the neighborhoods. Mayor O’Hara was coming up on re-election and somebody in his office must’ve thought it would be good PR to get out amongst the people, press the flesh, and eat some local cuisine.
The Polish community in and around the Boston area was a growing one that had been long established in the Dorchester neighborhood. Some pollster realized their vote mattered and could give him an advantage.
