City of the Dead

»20«

Konig sits in a small laboratory off the autopsy suites, a jeweler’s loop screwed fiercely , into his eye, the hand with the lacquered fingernails propped on a desk before him. The hand is rigored now. Hard like stone, frozen into its gesture of beatitude, a curiously penitential expression to it, like a hand broken off a plaster saint.

The hand has soaked all morning in a mild alkali solution, and while the skin has shriveled, the cuticle has softened to the point where Konig’s small, jewel-like dissecting knives can begin to work on it.

Through the magnification of the loop Konig can see that the damage to the epidermis around the fingertips has been massive. There’s no doubt that a strong abrasive—a rasp, or possibly a file—was used to obliterate the digital and palmar patterns. But by carefully cutting away the totally lacerated outer tissue, he is able to dissect out several small swatches of dermal tissue bearing faint patterns of whirls and ridges.

Konig has been up against this kind of situation before, a situation in which the epidermis has been shed from the fingers through putrefaction or through deliberate mutilation. He knows what the mutilator of the fingers doesn’t—that the characteristics of the exposed surface of the dermis are identical with those of the actual fingerprints. Also that the ridges of the papillary layer, just beneath the dermis, are the primary cause of the ridge pattern on the epidermis, which is molded like a glove upon them, thus reproducing their pattern exactly on the surface.

Even under great magnification these dermal impressions are fainter than ordinary fingerprints, but nevertheless, they are there. Extracted painstakingly, several tiny swatches of dermis hang drying now like old laundry on a line of tautly strung black thread. Here a bit of thumb tissue with papillary ridges intact; there a somewhat sharper print found on a bit of dermal tissue taken from the forefinger.

Later, when the swatches have dried, they will go to the police lab, where they will be reversed, photographed and enlarged. Hopefully, the police will be able to establish that the prints from the hand are identical to some of those found in the shack near Coenties Slip. Thus the site of the crime will be firmly fixed.

Like a lapidarist, Konig screws the loop tighter info his eye and bends once more to his work, his tiny blade carefully lifting out the shredded cuticle of the ring finger in order to get at the dermal impression below.

“Chief”—young McCloskey’s tousled head pokes through the door—“care to have a look at what we’ve got so far?”

“Among limb segments, no single region is represented in more than duplicate.” Pearsall lounges before the five trays, briefing a handful of staff. “So, we’ve got four upper arms separated at shoulder and elbow—two right and two left which appear to match in pairs. We’ve got three forearms and hands—two right and one left, including a pair. We’ve got four thighs separated at hip and knee—two right and two left which appear to be matchable in pairs. Four legs—two with feet which look like a pair, two without feet which also look like a pair. Attached to each of the thighs forming one pair, we’ve got a patella; two other patellae, also a pair. In addition there’s—Oh, hello, Paul.” Pearsall turns to greet the Chief. “Just doing a rundown of what we’ve inventoried so far.”

“Good. Flynn send over the new stuff?”

“Arrived about a half-hour ago,” McCloskey says. “Two more feet, badly mutilated—”

“Probably match that set of footless legs,” says Strang. “No doubt,” Konig snaps. “Flynn mentioned something about another trunk.”

“Right.” McCloskey nods. “An upper half with three cervical vertebrae—”

“Looks more and more like two people,” Delaney murmurs quietly to himself.

Konig’s eyes range avidly over the trays. “I’ll buy that, just as long as we’re absolutely certain there’s not a stitch of evidence that implies more than two—a spare bone, an extra limb that goes to neither. The minute we’ve got that we’ve got nothing.”

“So far we’ve found no odd parts. We’re in pairs on everything.” Bonertz stirs from a far corner. “At least with the bone, and it seems unlikely we’ll find it in the soft parts. We’ve already sent out a dozen samples of bone tissue for age determination.”

“Fine.” Konig rubs his hands eagerly. “Well, let’s see if we can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.”

“We’ve already started with the trunks,” McCloskey says. “Looks like we’ve got an upper and a lower half matched already.”

The group now converges on the tray containing the three trunk portions. Hakim now takes over. “Two upper trunks,” he begins in his thin, clipped enunciations. “Trunk number one comprising two cervical vertebrae, the full twelve thoracic vertebrae, and two lumbar vertebrae. Trunk number two comprising three cervical, twelve thoracic, and three lumbar. The only lower trunk portion we have contains a pelvis and three lumbar vertebrae—”

“So you matched the lower with your upper trunk number one to get the full five lumbar vertebrae.” Konig nods in agreement.

“Yes, sir. When we brought these two sections of trunk together, the lower vertebra of the upper portion articulated perfectly with the upper vertebra of the lower portion.”

“So,” Konig rattles on, his mind computing, anticipating, “the trunk was divided by cutting through the intervertebral disc between the second and third lumbar vertebrae.”

“We even found the knife marks on the bone at that point,” Strang says.

Konig cocks a somewhat jaded eye at him. “How many?”

“Three,” Strang replies. “The first cut through and broke off the tip of the articular process. The second took off another piece of the same process, which we don’t have.”

“Probably broke off,” says Konig. “Still in the mud down there on the river. Go ahead.”

“The third,” Strang continues, “cut through the elastic ligament joining the two vertebrae.”

“Fine,” Konig goes on brusquely, the memory of Strang’s treachery still rankling him. “Any X rays?”

“Over here, Paul,” Bonertz calls from a far corner where a radiographic scanner, already lit, has the first X-ray print mounted on it.

In the next moment, the assembled group clusters before the ghostly gray-white pattern of a human spinal column showing the lumbar region of a reconstructed trunk.

“Not the most perfect fit, I’m afraid,” says Hakim apologetically.

“Still”—Konig scours the screen—“there’s little doubt they’re from the same body. Reason they’re sitting a little lopsided like that is because of that clumsy cut at the tip of the articular process in the second lumbar vertebra. Hand me my dissecting kit, somebody.”

The light of the scanner is flicked off and moments later the group is assembled around Konig, bent over the separated upper and lower portions of trunk. Jeweler’s loop screwed back in eye, small dissecting knives flashing beneath the harsh white glare of fluorescent overheads, Konig proceeds to carefully extract the small, broken-off slivers of bone. In a setting of absolute silence, he works deftly and swiftly before a rapt audience, a situation he loves.

In a matter of moments he has carved out several minute slivers of bone, then taken the small slivers of extracted bone found on each vertebra and attached them to the articular process of the other vertebra to make a precise fitting—broken-off pieces of bone, one taken from each trunk portion and fitting, respectively, broken surfaces on the other portion.

Removing the loop from his eye, Konig looks up smiling at the assembled group. “I think you’ll find now, Hakim, when you X-ray again, that you have here a true anatomical picture.”

A small murmur of admiration ripples through the crowd. It is an admiration not only for Konig but for themselves. For it is the rather unique gift of the Chief’s to make a group of widely disparate men feel a common sense of pride and self-respect in work well done, the potent combination of skill, knowledge, and a kind of reverence.

Konig’s smile beams from one man to the next, until that smile reaches Carl Strang, whereupon it turns into a grin of spiteful malice, and for a moment they regard each other thusly.

“Well,” Konig booms cheerily, “now that we’ve got one whole trunk together, why don’t we give it some arms and legs?”