Free Abandoned Prayers by Gregg Olsen

Room—investigators called it simply the “autopsy room”—is a surprisingly bright and cheerful room at the end of a long, white corridor. By the time Young arrived, a crowd had assembled: Jack Wyant and a team of state patrol investigators, a forensic odontologist, a University of Nebraska anthropologist, and coroner’s physician John Porterfield and his assistants Bill Cassel and Sue Carlson. The group’s objective was twofold: first, to determine cause of death; second, to collect evidence that might assist in the identification process.
    At nearly six feet six inches tall, the gray-haired Dr. Porterfield, age 58, was an imposing figure, yet his demeanor was far from intimidating. His voice carried thetrace of an accent he had developed growing up in the hills of Missouri, although Nebraska had been his home for better than twenty years.
    The evidence seal was cut, and the small, pajama-clad corpse was lifted from the 40-degree cooler where it had been slowly warmed. After a day and a half in the cooler, the dead boy had defrosted to the extent that his limbs were slightly flexible and his body tissues were no longer rock-hard.
    In the bright light, it was obvious that the child’s hair was blond, not dark brown or black as it had seemed in the field. The freckles on his face were also more distinct. The skin on the boy’s hands looked wrinkled and wet, as though he had stayed in a bathtub too long.
    The marks on the neck and head were darker and even more horrifying than they had seemed when Gary Young first set eyes on the body.
    “Poor kid,” someone said softly.
    Wyant took a series of pictures, and over the course of the hour-long procedure, the staccato strobe of the investigator’s camera never let up.
    Gary Young stayed a bit to the side of the group and drew a deep breath. Young had observed other autopsies, so he knew the rules: stay out of the way—and listen to the doctor as he does the grisly job. Wyant took a decidedly converse approach. He liked to be in the thick of it. Wyant was a participant, not an observer.
    The basics emerged quickly. With bone development as a primary guideline, Dr. Porterfield fixed the age of the victim at approximately 10 years.
    “What would a 10-year-old be doing wearing pajamas with feet?” Wyant wondered aloud.
    Sue Carlson stretched a tape measure the length of the boy and noted 131 centimeters (51.5 inches) for his height. The corpse’s weight was estimated at fifty to sixty pounds. Porterfield told the investigators that the boy appeared to have been in good health and was well nourished and clean.
    Wyant speculated that perhaps the boy’s mother hadabandoned him because she could no longer provide for him. Desperate circumstances might have forced the mother into doing the unthinkable.
    Credible or not, at least it was a story and it was better than nothing.
Sometimes a story leads to the truth
, Wyant thought.
    Next, the doctor and his assistants measured and documented the animal activity that had left the child without a nose, right cheek, and upper lip.
    “Field mice,” Wyant offered, not one to hold back a comment or a question. Porterfield’s staff knew to expect that from Wyant. There were investigators from the state patrol who never said a word during an autopsy. Then there was Jack Wyant, always at elbow’s length, looking for the answer, voicing his opinion. Porterfield had learned that he was worth listening to.
    Often he was right on the money.
    The only possible identifying marks discovered on the corpse were a circular scar the size of a cigarette burn on the boy’s right forearm and a small tan birthmark on the inside right calf.
    The doctor moved on in a quick and mechanical manner. Finger-, palm-, and footprints were inked onto paper. Full-body X rays were taken. Finally, fingernail scrapings were taken from each digit and put into an envelope for analysis at the crime lab.
    Bill Cassel made an incision through the child’s chest and