CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE AUTOPSY INTRIGUE #3
Percy stopped pacing and bent to examine the body himself. He inhaled in small intervals as he moved from the mouth to the stomach. He shook his head and addressed the class.
“In the case of ingesting toxic substances, you’ll note a stronger scent in stomach tissues. Which is precisely what I’ve noticed here. The garlic odor is overwhelming near the victim’s stomach. Does anyone know any other signs associated with intentional or accidental poisoning?”
Vincenzo raised his hand so violently he nearly knocked himself over the railing. His brother latched on to his arm, steadying him.
“Yes, Mr. Bianchi?”
“More… er… mucus will be evident,” he said, Italian accent strong as he searched for the English words. “As the body’s natural defense against… a… foreign attack.”
“Excellent,” Percy said, gathering up toothed forceps and passing them to Noah. “Where else might one find indications of poison?”
Cian cleared his throat. “The liver is another good place to check.”
“Indeed.” Percy motioned for Noah to remove the organ in question and handed him a specimen tray.
I knew what it felt like, sticking one’s hands deep within the abdominal cavity and coming away with a liver that squished ever so slightly between one’s fingers.
The weight of it was difficult to manage with only forceps.
Noah showed no emotion, though his hands weren’t as controlled.
The liver slid onto the tray, smearing it with rusty liquid. I swallowed revulsion down.
Percy held the tray up, then walked slowly down the line of students, allowing each of us an opportunity to inspect the organ from our first-row seats. “Note the color. Yellow is commonly found after exposure to…”
My heart sped up with my thoughts. “Arsenic.”
Percy beamed, tray of liver proudly displayed before him as if he were serving us tea in fine china.
“Very good, Miss Wadsworth! Both the garlic odor and presence of yellow liver tissues are indicative of potential arsenic poisoning. Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, it would behoove you to note the following: arsenic is found in most everyday items. Our drinking water contains trace amounts. Ladies used to mix it with their powders to remain youthful in appearance.”
I gripped my hands together, mind churning with this new information as I thought back to the first victim we’d encountered in Romania—the man on the train.
His mouth had been stuffed with garlic, but the smell was too overwhelming to have resulted from such a small amount of the organic substance.
I should have investigated that further.
The murderer clearly used real garlic to mask the telltale scent of arsenic.
I focused on breathing correctly. Inhale. Exhale. The steady flow of oxygen fed my brain. I thought of Wilhelm’s symptoms. How quickly he’d gone from a healthy seventeen-year-old to a cadaver lying beneath my blade in the laboratory. Highly unnatural.
No cause of death had been noted in Wilhelm’s case.
The missing blood served as a distraction.
And it was a good one, too. I’d been so preoccupied by the thought of scientifically proving vampires impossible, I’d never checked his liver.
Percy, too, had let the obvious drag his attention away from inspecting other organs.
I thought of other symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Discoloration or rashes on the skin. Vomiting. It had all been there, present and waiting for someone to add up the symptoms. A simple math equation, nothing more.
Whoever had planned these murders had done so brilliantly.
Even Thomas hadn’t found the thread binding it all together.
The culprit likely knew Thomas would not be as sharp as he normally was, the fear of his lineage being exposed hindering him in a way he was unused to.
My head spun. This murderer was more cunning than Jack the Ripper.
We hadn’t examined the maid’s body, yet apparently she’d also shown no outward signs of murder, according to the Bianchi twins. It wasn’t hard to deduce that she’d also been poisoned.
Anastasia. Wilhelm. The man from the train.
The maid. All seemingly unrelated because of the outwardly different causes of death—impalement and blood loss.
Those were both simply provocative distractions, created either postmortem or close to death to inflame emotions in a highly superstitious community.
We did not have more than one murderer. We had someone blessed with a knowledge of poison and the opportunity to offer it to each victim. I swallowed hard. Whoever had done this was smart and patient. They’d been waiting a long time to execute their plan. But why now…
“Miss Wadsworth?”
I jolted into the present, cheeks burning. “Yes, Professor?”
Percy studied me closely while threading a large Hagedorn needle. “Your stitches the other day were exemplary. Would you like to assist with closing up the cadaver?”
The class didn’t so much as breathe. It was a far cry from the sneers and snickers of earlier days. We were now bound together through loss and determination.
For now.
I glanced down at the girl who’d been my friend and stood. “Yes, sir.”