Forty Words for Sorrow

The technician readied the machine and closed the door. Then he flipped a switch, and a faint mosquito-sized whine filled the room. The bones of the feet materialized on the fluorescent screen. The beam traveled up the body, but Dr. Gant remained silent until the rib cage appeared on the screen. "Obviously massive trauma, there: fractures to the seventh, fifth, and third ribs. No foreign objects so far."

"The dark blur," Delorme said, pointing to a round dark spot on the screen. "It's not a bullet, is it?"

"Probably a medal or a crucifix."

The image changed, and the bones of an arm began to appear. "Examining extremities, now," Dr. Gant noted. She pointed to a long white line that broke in two like a highway breached by earthquake. "Defensive wounds to the left forearm, fractures of the ulna and wrist bones. Right forearm shows similar injury to the ulna. Collarbone is snapped right through."

The head was still sheathed in its bloody cover, but now the shattered sphere of the skull appeared on the X-ray screen. "Well," Dr. Gant said softly. "Multiple trauma there, obviously." She spoke into an intercom. "We're getting some kind of white line down the middle, Brian. Can you adjust it at all?"

"The image is fine, Doctor. You've got something in there."

Dr. Gant moved closer to the screen. "It could be an ice pick. Possibly a screwdriver blade. It must have been driven down into the top of the skull and then the handle broke off."

Several facial bones had been broken. Dr. Gant summarized these quickly, all of them blunt-force trauma possibly caused by a hammer.

The machine was switched off and the high thin whine faded, leaving a ghost of itself in the room.

A sadness hung in the air. They were looking at a small person who had tried unsuccessfully to ward off terrible, killing blows. And the death had taken time. However bleak Todd Curry's sixteen years may have been, however dissolute and unavailing, he hadn't deserved to die like that.

Vlatko Setevic from Chemistry joined them. "Cops of the Great White North," he said. "You ever get any victims that aren't frozen?"

Setevic unrolled white paper from a reel at the end of the table. Carefully, they lifted the body, still in its wrappings, and placed it on the sheet.

"Okay," Setevic said. "Let's get the cover loosened around the head. Then I'll take the cover off and place it on this table behind me. I have to do this gently. It's going to take time."

Setevic worked delicately at this task, while Dr. Gant and an assistant removed the plastic sheeting, blackened with soot and blood, from the torso. Another assistant took photographs. The plastic was tied with thin cord of the type used in venetian blinds. The inside of the sheeting was covered with a thick cracked paste of old blood. The camera flash went on and off like a strobe.

The body remained perfectly still, curled up.

"I've taken some hair and fiber from the outside of the seat cover," Setevic said. "I'll look at them next door."

Delorme took one glance at the face and turned away.

Dr. Gant moved around the body but did not touch it. "Left parietal region shows blunt-force trauma, a depressed fracture caused by a heavy instrument, possibly the side of a hammer. Right anterior parietal shows a circular depression about an inch in diameter, possibly caused by a hammer, hard to say. Tissue is partially peeled away from the left cheekbone, also probably by blunt force."

"Frenzy?" Cardinal asked. "Looks like overkill to me."

"Definitely a frenzy, judging by the ferocity of the attack. But there are aspects of control here, too, if I'm not mistaken. The wounds are fairly symmetrical, notice. Both cheekbones, both sides of the jaw, both temples. I don't think that symmetry is accidental. And then there's this." She pointed to the top of the head. "You've got a hole in the occipital crown approximately ten millimeters in diameter, a puncture wound, judging by the puckering at the edges. That'll be the blade we saw on the fluoroscope. You don't drive a screwdriver into someone's head in a frenzy."

"True."

"Any one of these injuries could be the cause of death, but we won't know for sure until we do a full autopsy, and we can't do that until he thaws out."

"Great," said Cardinal. "How long will that take?"

"At least twenty-four hours."

"I hope you're kidding me, Dr. Gant."

"Not at all. How long does it take to thaw out a twenty-pound turkey?"

"I don't know. Four or five hours."

"And this patient was in a surrounding temperature of what, minus forty? The inner organs are going to take at least twenty-four hours to thaw, possibly longer."

"There's something in here." Delorme was standing to one side, peering into the body bag.

Cardinal came over and looked into the bag, too. He put on a surgical glove and reached into the bag with both hands like an obstetrician. Moving slowly and holding it gingerly by the corners, he extricated the object- cracked, bloodstained, and covered with soot.