Chapter Thirteen #2
Gray’s coach doubles as the hearse. In this case, though, that’s not what he brought, because there’s no way in hell he’s transporting a rancid decomposing body in his daily vehicle.
Okay, actually, he’d totally do that; he’d be too focused on his goal to think it through.
I’m the one who said, “There’s no way in hell,” and then I finished that with a reminder that his coach is the one Isla uses.
That gives him pause, and he had Simon pick up a cart Gray stores elsewhere.
“I’m just glad he did not try to transport it in the coach,” Simon whispers to me as the others arrange the body in the cart.
At my look, he chuckles. “All right. Let me amend that. I’m glad you did not let him transport it in the coach.”
We send Simon off, and we follow in a cab. Once we’re at the town house, the procedure reverses, with the lengthy and careful process of conveying the body to the laboratory.
There’s nothing untoward about bringing the body here.
This is where Addington conducts his autopsies.
Normally, the police surgeon uses the dead rooms—the morgue.
But Addington refuses to do that because, well, there are dead people there.
The premises are dingy, and in the Old Town.
Not up to his standards. Which is appalling for an elected official, but also perfect for Gray, who can offer his pristine office—complete with Mrs. Wallace’s baking—which also means Gray can examine the body all he wants, short of conducting the official autopsy.
It’s still too early to notify Addington.
Yes, that also horrifies me. A coroner isn’t supposed to keep office hours.
But this is Addington—and it’s 1870. Try telling a medical examiner that a body should be looked at immediately, since there’s no cold storage available, and they’ll laugh and say “Why? He’s not going somewhere, is he? ”
The dead can wait.
In this case, the dead do not wait. Because we have an hour until dawn and roughly another two hours until we can reasonably notify Addington, Gray is going to use every second of that to examine the body.
He doesn’t even escort McCreadie and the constables out. That’s my job. McCreadie says he’ll be by for breakfast and an update. I thank them for everything and then scurry back to the lab, where Gray already has his tools out and the lamps all lit.
I grab the notebook I keep in the lab. It’s for my own use.
As Gray grumbles, my handwriting is atrocious.
For the record, it’s atrocious for a Victorian.
In the modern day, my writing is considered decent, even good.
But here, when everything is handwritten, there’s another standard.
Also, admittedly, my cursive is kind of rough.
I was born in the age where it was already being phased out in school.
I got a bit of it there and then my dad taught me, the professor in him horrified by the thought that I might grow up unable to read historic documents.
I write notes for Gray, who then transcribes them for himself. The other part of my job is performing the fetch-and-hold parts of Gray’s examination. Fetch this tool. Hold this body part. I’m an extra pair of hands, really.
That sounds like a complaint, but it isn’t.
I have zero medical training. After getting a C in chemistry, I took one term of biology, decided it wasn’t for me, and dropped it before flunking out.
Actually, in retrospect, that’s why I didn’t continue on in the sciences.
Not for lack of interest but because lack of aptitude meant it pulled my grade average down.
I have to wonder how many modern kids are discouraged from pursuing their passion by a system that focuses on academic achievement over interest, where even one “for fun” course can affect your likelihood of getting into the college of your choice.
I liked science, but I learn best by doing, and so much of the classwork felt like rote memorization.
I know it’s important to start at the basics, with cellular structure; this is what interests me: an expert examining a body and pointing out all the signs that show how she died, in hopes it’ll help find her killer.
I know more about anatomy from a year of working with Gray than I ever got in either school or police work.
We begin by removing Nellie’s clothing, which must be cut off to avoid further damaging her body.
For Gray, the work starts once her clothing is off.
For me, it starts with her clothing. She’s wearing a simple brown dress that’s been mended many times.
Her undergarments are sparse—corset, chemise, drawers, and one petticoat.
Even those are well-worn and likely hand-me-downs.
Any distaste we’d have for wearing used undergarments isn’t a thing here.
You can’t afford to be that picky when most garments are still handmade and thus very expensive.
I note that everything here is consistent with clothing I’d expect Nellie to own and with what her coworkers said she wore.
I also note that it’s the sort of clothing, as a maid, I’d wear if I was slipping out at night on an errand.
In other words, it’s not a “date-night” dress.
Of course, I’ll need to ask her fellow maids whether she had anything fancier before deciding this proves she wasn’t meeting a guy.
I’ll do more with the clothing later. For now, my boss is trying very hard not to drum his probe on the table, impatiently waiting for me to begin.
At the shack, the med students had covered Nellie with a sheet, but they hadn’t undressed her. Now that she’s naked, the unfortunate grotesquery of her condition is worse. I’d formed a rough picture of Nellie in life. This is a caricature of it, and I mentally focus on my mental image instead.
Gray points out a few things found in a body submerged in water.
I’d already noted the wrinkling—called washerwoman changes—of the hands and feet.
I’d also seen the small abrasions caused by scraping along debris.
He shows me the goose bumps—cutis anserina—caused by the erector pili muscles in the skin going into rigor.
One thing we don’t see is adipocere formation.
That’s another hallmark of bodies found in water.
It’s a yellowish-brown waxy substance that can coat the corpse.
I’ve heard a body needs to be in water for months for that to happen, but Gray says he’s seen it develop much faster under certain conditions.
We see none of that here, nor did we expect to.
We check her nails and find some debris under them, which I remove carefully.
Then we conduct a thorough examination for wounds.
That’s tougher with a corpse in this condition.
Her skin has broken in multiple places, along with numerous scrapes and scratches.
We painstakingly note each one. All of them seem to be postmortem.
There are no other cuts on her body. Again, given the condition, I should amend that to “we see” no other cuts.
I ask whether a pinprick would be lost …
or distended. Gray isn’t sure. That goes onto the list of things he’ll want to study later.
Contusions might also be hidden, though Gray feels her scalp for lumps and finds none. None of her bones are obviously broken.
We need to check her back, but that will wait until we’re fully done with the front. Given her condition, we can’t keep flipping her over.
Gray shows me the remains of foam in her mouth, which is one sign of drowning.
Addington will likely find more in her airways.
Gray also points out what looks like bruising on her neck, and I think that means strangulation but the location actually suggests muscle strain—as if she was trying to get her head above water.
There are also broken blood vessels in her eyes, which suggests suffocation.
The foam points toward drowning as that method of suffocation, but an autopsy is required to be sure.
“No signs of external violence,” I say. “No stab wounds. No blow to the head. No manual strangulation. No gunshot wound. So there’s a good chance it was death by drowning. At least, at this point, you don’t see anything to argue against that conclusion.”
“At this point, no.”
“We’d need Isla to check toxicology,” I say. “The other girl who drowned took laudanum. The water was too shallow for her to drown accidentally, and I don’t think anyone’s going to intentionally just lie there until they suffocate.”
“You would be fighting your own body. It’s not impossible, but highly unlikely. Now let us turn her over. There is something in particular l want to see.”
When we flip the body, Gray finds what he’s looking for—a dark patch on her back.
“Blood pooling?” I say.
He shakes his head. “The body was found facedown, and in such shallow water, I doubt it had the opportunity to turn over. That suggests she was facedown when she drowned.”
“Which also makes sense. Like you said, it’s shallow water. Okay, so if that’s not from blood pooling … Oh.”
I move in for a better look. The spot isn’t large. Maybe six inches. That alone should have told me it wasn’t from blood pooling. It’s not that dark either. Light bruising between the shoulder blades.
“From someone holding her down,” I say.
“That would be my initial assessment.”
“You expected that.”
He picks up the measuring tape. “The strain on her neck would argue against the theory that she was drugged.”
“She was actively trying to breathe. Struggling to get her head above water.”
“Yes. The autopsy will tell us more, but I would tentatively conclude this is not a suicide.”
“Someone killed her.”
“I fear so.”