Free Crime Machine by Giles Blunt Page A

and the youthful, robust air of someone who has just won a game of tennis. A memory stick dangled from a cord around his neck.
    The two bodies were already laid out in the autopsy room, with the heads, which had been flown down earlier. “We put them through the X-ray this morning,” Dr. Spork said. He snapped on the light boxes, and ribcages, femurs and arm bones lit up. “As you can see, we didn’t pick up anything unusual. No blade or bullet fragments.” He snapped off the light again and went over to the male body.
    “I have a dumb question,” Delorme said. “How do you know a particular head belongs to a particular body? How do you know there isn’t some other corpse somewhere minus a head?”
    Dr. Spork pointed to the neck area. “Skin tone is the first thing we go by. As you see, we have a perfect match here. Also, the width of the neck. Again a perfect match. Plus, we already took blood samples from each part and we have a match in blood types. That’s not definitive, but we’ve sent the samples to the lab for DNA analysis. But the crucial thing, at least with well-preserved bone and tissue, is the matching trauma.”
    He tipped the head neck-up, and Delorme’s stomach did a half turn.One minute the body looks like a young woman, then he’s turning the head upside down without moving the trunk.
    “We can pair up the damage on both sections of cervical spine,” Dr. Spork continued, “same as a broken chair leg. Severed between C5 and C6, in this case, with matching damage to 5. Obviously with decayed remains it’d be a different story.”
    Dr. Spork switched on his overhead mike. He announced the date and time, case name and number, and the names of those present. “I’m sure your coroner already noted that the severing of the heads took place post mortem. There’s no bleeding into the bone.”
    He examined the female first, from head to toe. He raised his voice to say, “Lividity indicates she was killed where she sat.” Then he made the Y incision and removed the organs. By the time the chest was turned inside out, the body ceased to look human and Delorme’s stomach settled down. Dr. Spork didn’t address them directly again until he had finished with the torso and extremities.
    “Negative for disease or trauma,” he said. “The head, obviously, is going to be another matter. We have two bullet wounds—entry wound in the left parietal region nine millimetres in diameter, ragged exit through the right parietal approximately fifteen centimetres in diameter.”
    His assistant started up the Stryker saw. Dr. Spork removed the cap of the skull with its beautiful hair. Smell of burnt bone. Dr. Spork placed the brain in a pan and dissected it with a few swift strokes. “Bullet ricocheted around in there, crossing both hemispheres and ripping a hole in the brain stem. That would have shut down pretty much all the vital organs, so that’s our cause of death.”
    He turned his attention to the male, muttering into the mike, raising his voice when he had any finding of interest. Lividity again indicated death in the seated position. “Liver’s enlarged. This guy liked a drink.” A little later he held up a cross-section of heart. “Left ventricle’s virtually closed. Short of a transplant, he didn’t have a lot of time left.”
    Once again the finding was death by gunshot wound to the head.
    “Not much so far,” Delorme said as they got into the elevator. “Hardly worth coming down here.”
    “Ah, but now we get to see Cornelius Venn,” Cardinal said. “The wizard of firearms and toolmarks. I think I’ll let you handle Mr. Venn.”
    “I can’t believe we’ve got that guy for both ballistics and toolmarks. He’s such a dork. And you always make me deal with him.”
    “Because you look so cute when you’re upset.”
    “That’s inappropriate in so many ways I’m not even going to count them.”
    “I know. I’ve been studying under McLeod.”
    Outside, they breathed in deep