Page 31 of Criminology of a Character

“Well, I’m happy to have you.” Lina led her down the hall, where they donned their protective gear. Detectives always joined medical examiners at the autopsy’s start to preserve the evidence chain of custody, and with the thick plastic and tape wrapped around this John Doe, Bel had plenty to gather. Staying for the rest of the exam wasn’t required, but in some cases, detectives remained for the entire procedure. They’d found nothing at the farmhouse, but Bel had expected that. The crime was too old for any evidence to remain, and with Harris Walker still in the wind, this autopsy was their only lead.

The women spent the first few minutes photographing the body and preserving the plastic death shroud, and when the evidence was secured, they moved on to the remains.

“He looks worse unwrapped.” Bel was thankful Lina couldn’t see her grimace below the protective masks.

“He actually might’ve been dead longer than we initially guessed,” Lina said. “The level of decay and dehydration has me reconsidering how long he was in that wall.”

“We estimated a few years,” Bel said. “Are you thinking longer now?”

“I’ll need to run more tests, but I suspect our guess is too conservative,” Lina said. “Plus, without knowing the exact weather and temperature conditions of the house, it’ll be hard to estimate the rate of decomposition. His skin is leathery, which leads me to believe he was mummified to a certain extent. I wonder if he was stored elsewhere before he was wrapped. Dry air, good circulation, and heat could achieve this if someone new to act quickly.”

“That makes sense, though,” Bel said. “Unless Walker miraculously had the tools and supplies on hand, he would’ve needed time to shop for the materials and pull apart his living room. He wouldn’t have wanted the body rotting, so he probably dried it out to prevent bacteria.”

“I agree,” Lina said as she rounded the table to examine the head. “It’s what I would do if I had to keep a corpse in my house. That or freeze it. But unless you have a deep freezer on hand, a human male isn’t fitting in a residential refrigerator. Plus, a frozen body melting in your walls would be foul.”

“Not to mention that it’s easier to spot remains in a freezer than in a wall,” Bel added. “People see massive fridges, and they peek inside. No one is looking in the walls.”

“Exactly, so rapidly mummifying him seems the most reasonable… Come here.” She gestured for Bel to join her at theman’s head. “I don’t see any other injuries or defensive wounds on him. I’ll need to run a toxicology report and open him up, but I’m still almost certain this blunt-force trauma was the cause of death. He was struck from behind, and the blow shattered his skull, the bone cracking inward. It looks like one strike with a long but rounded object killed him. Maybe a tire iron? Seems odd that Walker would be the killer, though. He would’ve had to hit incredibly hard to inflict this damage.”

“You suspect the body was in the wall for longer than we guessed,” Bel said. “Walker is seventy-one now, but he would’ve been capable of such an attack years ago.”

“Good point,” Lina said. “At least this poor man didn’t see it coming. I’m going to open him up. Do you want to help?”

“Me, help?” Bel stared down at the shriveled corpse on the slab.

“Oh, come on,” Lina teased. “You can’t be squeamish after everything you’ve seen.”

“I’m not. I’ve just never helped.”

“Time to try something new, then. Let’s get impressions and photos of his teeth first, so we can run his dental records.”

Bel swallowed her anxiety and then gave herself over completely to the medical examiner. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever get the chance to examine a mummified body again, so she might as well learn from it.

The women fell silent as they worked, speaking only to discuss their findings or Bel’s help. Bel didn’t perform any surgical work, but she handled her assistant’s responsibilities with flying colors.

“Whoever this is, they aren’t young,” Lina finally said as they neared the end of their autopsy. “The bones are fused, signifying this is an adult, and if you look at the wear on his skeleton and joints, my guess is this is someone past middle age.”

“A middle-aged Caucasian male, probably around five foot eleven,” Bel said. “I would need to double-check, but I don’t think we have any missing persons for someone who fits this bill.”

“He might not be a Bajka resident, or the only person who realized he was missing plastered him into a wall instead of filing a report.”

“I hope his dental records identify him. I need to know why someone built a man into their home.”

“Maybe the same reason a woman built people into furniture,” Lina said.

“Oh god, I hope we don’t have another one of those cases on our hands,” Bel said.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Lina said. “I’m almost certain this is a one-time incident. Weird, yes, but not a serial killer.”

“Thanks for your help,”Lina said as the women cleaned up. They’d finished the autopsy, and while Lina had more tests and exams to perform, they’d completed the bulk of the work. The middle-aged man had no clothing or ID on his person below the plastic, and his examination determined he was relatively healthy at the time of death. Just like the house, the body offered no evidence.

“I’ll write my full report and share any new findings with you,” Lina continued. “But we have a good start.”

“Which isn’t much,” Bel said.

“Unfortunately, no. Hopefully, the dental records find more than we did. The autopsy took longer than expected. If you have a few minutes, we can check on them.”

“Sure.” Bel nodded, and the M.E. led her into the office where a tech sat before a computer.

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