Juliana had met this client on only one occasion several years earlier. She knew the woman was a doctor and hadn’t been all that friendly. On the positive side, she paid on time and never complained. Juliana marveled at the differences in the way various clients treated her and whomever she happened to be working with. Some people were openly condescending, others remarkably friendly, and others indifferent. Luckily the nature of the clientele was such that she didn’t have to interact all that often.
Once she got the door unlocked, she opened it and then gave it a shove out of the way. Picking up the vacuum cleaner once again, she stepped into the room. The moment she did, she noticed a stale odor that she couldn’t place. As Antônia followed her into the room, Juliana put her head back and sniffed the air. As someone perceptive to the ins and outs of cleaning, she sensed that there had to be something that needed attention but had no idea what it was. She was about to ask Antônia if she smelled an odd odor, when she realized that the client was home, seated in the chair directly in front of her but facing away so that she couldn’t see the woman’s face.
“Hello!” Juliana called out. She immediately regretted she’d not rung the bell or even knocked on the apartment door. Never before had this client been home. “Hello!” she called out again, only slightly louder. When there still was no response, she put down the vacuum cleaner and stepped around the chair. The second she caught sight of the woman’s face, she screamed, causing Antônia to do the same by reflex. A moment later Juliana had recovered enough to get out her phone and call 911.
Okay,” Jack said to Vinnie. “Armed with all the information we have from this masterfully done autopsy and the superb MLI investigative report, what do you think the OCME can tell the police about this case?”
It was now well after nine and the autopsy room was full, meaning all eight tables were in operation. Chet had appeared a little after eight and had come over to Jack’s table to ask if Aria Nichols had shown up as she was scheduled. When Jack had said no, he’d merely rolled his eyes before moving off to do his own case.
“I assume you’re asking about the manner of death,” Vinnie said in response to Jack’s question. He straightened up to stretch his back. He and Jack had been involved in a rather lengthy and tedious dissection of the victim’s neck, which was only done on cases like the present one, where neck trauma was expected. The main part of the autopsy, including the contents of the chest and the abdomen, had shown the victim to be free of disease, congenital malformations, or signs of trauma. The only abnormal finding had been some partially dissolved capsules in the stomach, suggesting the victim had taken some kind of medication or drugs along with his reputed alcohol. What the capsules were would have to wait for Toxicology, same with the ethanol content in his bloodstream.
“Well, it’s definitely not homicide,” Vinnie said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“With all the hemorrhage in the neck muscles, he wasn’t dead before he was suspended by his shirt collar,” Vinnie said. Vinnie enjoyed these sessions he had with Jack and felt that he’d learned an enormous amount about forensics over the years. “And I’ve never heard of a homicide done with a shirt collar.”
What he and Jack had found with their careful neck dissection was that the hyoid bone and the thyroid cartilage were both intact, both of which were often damaged in hanging situations. Besides the hemorrhage in the neck muscles, the only other pathology they found was the occlusion of the left carotid artery and left jugular vein, which coincided with a deep furrow or groove on the left exterior aspect of the victim’s neck that angled upward toward his right ear.
“I agree with you that the chances of this being a homicide are negligible,” Jack said. “So, what are we going to tell the police?”
“I don’t know,” Vinnie said. “The investigative report mentioned that his friend thought he was depressed. I suppose it could be suicide.”
“With no note?” he asked.
“That doesn’t influence me,” Vinnie said.
“I’m glad to hear that, because you’re right,” Jack said. “It’s estimated that two thirds of those who commit suicide don’t leave a note. If this guy was drunk and depressed, he certainly wouldn’t have searched around for pen and paper. But after doing this autopsy and rereading Janice’s investigative report, do you want to hear what I think happened here?”
“Lay it on me,” Vinnie said.
“I think this poor guy was so inebriated that when he tried to open the garden gate, he just sank relatively straight down, not falling over backward, but just collapsing like his legs became rubbery, and in the process the collar of his shirt caught on the gate latch. It didn’t completely suspend him, but it provided enough pressure to occlude the left carotid and the left jugular. End of story.”
“That means the manner of death was accidental,” Vinnie said.
“That’s going to be my interpretation,” Jack said.
“Dr. Stapleton,” a voice called.
Jack turned to face Sal D’Ambrosio, another mortuary tech.
“Excuse me, Dr. Stapleton,” Sal said. “Sorry to bother you, but I’ve been asked to let you know that Bart Arnold is here and needs to speak with you right away.” He pointed back toward the doors to the hallway. Through the wire-mesh-embedded windows, Jack could just make out Bart’s face, and that he was waving at Jack to come out.
“Why the hell doesn’t he throw on an apron and come in?” Jack questioned. As head of the MLI Department, Bart was a long-term employee who’d been in the autopsy room on multiple occasions.
“I wouldn’t know, Doctor,” Sal said. “But he’s pretty upset about something.”
“Oh, for Chrissake,” Jack muttered. One of his pet peeves was to be disturbed in the middle of an autopsy. At the same time, he knew he’d taken longer doing the current case than usual, trying to draw it out in case there wasn’t going to be another assigned to him. In many ways the autopsy room was Jack’s sanctuary.
He put down the blunt-nosed scissors he’d been using for the neck dissection, told Vinnie to go ahead and remove the skull cap, and headed for the exit door.
“What’s up?” Jack asked when he confronted Bart. Bart was a heavyset man with a mostly bald pate and just a tad of grayish straggly hair that ran around the back of his head from temple to temple. Although normally remarkably calm since he’d seen just about everything in his career as a death investigator for the OCME, he was noticeably agitated.
“Something unexpected and distressing has happened,” Bart said. “One of the NYU residents assigned this month to the OCME is either in the cooler already or on the way in.”
“My God!” Jack murmured. “Which one?”
“The woman,” Bart said in a forced whisper, even though no one else was in earshot.
“Are you talking about Dr. Nichols?” he said with disbelief.
“That’s exactly who I’m talking about,” Bart said with a nod of his head. “The call came in about an hour ago that the victim had overdosed. I mean, talk about this fentanyl-opioid epidemic getting close to home; I’m blown away. This is like one of our own. Anyway, knowing the potential repercussions and all, I handled it myself rather than assigning it to one of my team. I visited the scene and found it a typical overdose with drug paraphernalia out on the coffee table, including the syringe she’d used. My estimate is that she’d been dead eight to ten hours with her algor mortis and her full rigor mortis.”