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The autopsy room was cold. It was always cold to preserve the bodies, but it felt even chillier that wintry morning. The medical examiner pulled on her gloves with apprehension while suppressing a shiver that trembled her nerves. Later, she’d check the thermostat to see what the temperature was set to. But not right now. She was busy.
As if it were patiently waiting for her, a long, black bag sat on the autopsy table. Even though the examiner had performed countless autopsies on every kind of body from a simple heart attack victim to the unfortunate casualty of a grisly accident involving a wood chipper, she was nervous to see what was inside the bag. The gruff men in the office upstairs demanded her specifically for this case. This body was once a very dangerous man and they needed to extract every ounce of information possible from it. Thus, they requested the most experienced examiner on staff; which was her. With cold fingers, she unzipped the bag, a cringe already on her face.
To her surprise, the body was that of an ordinary looking man.
She guessed he was no older than thirty five, about 190 centimeters tall, and weighing around eighty kilograms. He wore a neat suit that appeared to be tailored to his exact measurements. The fabric was a nice silk blend that suggested he was a man of sufficient but not extravagant means. He would’ve looked like any other man she sometimes saw walking around the business district of Berlint, sleek suitcase in hand on his way to an important meeting. That is, if it weren’t for the large blotches of dried brown blood clinging to his suit. Even without undressing him she recognized the telltale signs of a gunshot wound.
The examiner carefully categorized everything of note about his clothes–the slight tear on his sleeve, the white animal fur sticking to the pants, the unusual scuff marks on his leather shoes–before undressing him. If it hadn’t been for the SSS agents who informed her that this man had been a criminal, she would’ve assumed that he was a regular law abiding citizen. But upon undressing the body, her mind quickly changed. As she snapped photographs of the man at every angle, she catalogued a wide variety of scars. She counted at least four more bullet scars, one of which presented itself as a deep divot on his right bicep. A long keloid stretched across one of his shoulders to his back. Another, fainter scar that was only visibly upon closer inspection was on his left temple near his eye. The more she looked, the more she found.
Not an innocent businessman, the examiner deduced then. Probably a soldier at some point, then a criminal.
Despite his scars, the man was handsome. He had a defined jaw, a pronounced Adam’s apple, strong shoulders, and a trim waist. His muscles were partially obscured by his slimmer frame, but his flesh had probably felt firm and healthy while he was alive, before rigor mortis had hardened his body to a cold stiffness. She took a small snippet of his neatly cut blonde hair, swabbed from different parts of his skin, and trimmed a sample from his nails. His fingers were elegant but clearly well-used. Based on the residue the examiner found under his nails, she guessed he often wore gloves. She took note of the thick skin around his knuckles; the man had frequently found himself in fist fights.
With the body on its stomach, the examiner inspected the two gunshot wounds on his back. Based on everything she’d seen so far, she would guess he’d been killed about twelve hours ago. One gunshot wound was on his lower back near his spine. He likely could’ve survived that shot if he’d gotten immediate medical attention, although he might’ve lost the ability to walk. The second was just under his left shoulder blade. That shot was undoubtedly the one that killed him; it led straight to his heart.
The examiner didn’t like to think about the bodies she examined as people. It helped to think of them as puzzles to solve rather than someone who had once been alive. Getting too emotionally invested in a case made focusing difficult, and she couldn’t afford to make mistakes. However she couldn’t help wondering what kind of life this man on the table had lived. From what she’d overheard the SSS agents whisper to each other, he’d been found in an abandoned lot on the south side of Berlint. She shuddered to think what sort of monster this man had been, what sort of horrific things he’d done to deserve being shot in the back and investigated by the secret police.
With a scalpel, the examiner made a neat cut from his shoulders to his solar plexus, then down to his waist. She then peeled back the flesh like it were pages in a book revealing his chest cavity. There were several hairline cracks in his rib bones from where they’d broken and mended again. One of the ribs was broken from where the fatal bullet had ripped through his body. As the examiner set about removing his ribs and organs to weigh one by one, she took more samples of his blood and the contents of his stomach and sent them to be tested. Usually it could take weeks to get the results back, but she suspected with the SSS breathing down the lab techs’ backs, it would get moved up in the queue.
The man’s lungs were slightly scarred, the tissue a mixture of a blotchy gray and healthy pink. He’d been a smoker, the examiner deduced, but not a frequent one. Perhaps he’d only smoked when in the company of other smokers. It was also likely that he’d quit and his lungs had begun to recover. His liver, however, was brown and somewhat lumpy, suggesting that he’d frequently consumed alcohol. It was impossible to know for sure now, but it probably would’ve taken an absurd amount to completely intoxicate him.
The examiner found nothing else of note in his intestines, save for the clear path of destruction of the two bullets. She similarly found nothing unusual when she made an incision across his forehead and removed his brain for inspection. She couldn’t help but wince as she made the cut. It was a bit of a shame to cut up such a beautiful face, even if he’d been a criminal.
With the organs preserved in jars of formaldehyde and the body stored away, the examiner took a quick break for lunch. This autopsy had taken all morning, far longer than she usually took. There had been so many scars that it’d taken her an entire hour just to catalogue and photograph them all. She was also scared that if the SSS somehow found an error in her work that they’d haul her to jail under suspicion of collusion. It’d be best if she took her time.
To her surprise, the reports from the samples she sent to the lab were finished by the time she was done eating. With any other case, she would’ve marched over there herself and demanded that they redo the testing, but she empathized with the technicians’ desire to get the police out of the way. In her office, she read it over.
There was no trace of alcohol in his blood, nor any other poison or stimulant. The examiner was slightly surprised based on the sorry state of the man’s liver. Nevertheless, she read on.
They’d found nothing out of the ordinary in his stomach. They had detected some organic material–possibly potatoes, carrots, and pork–in the reddish sludge she’d gathered from his gut. But even criminals need to eat and finding one’s last meal in their stomach was far from surprising.
The rest of the report was similarly unenlightening except for that the white hair she’d gathered from his pants legs belonged to a canine. It was interesting to imagine the man with a pet dog, but the examiner supposed even criminals had pets.
At the thought of the man’s clothes, she sat up in her desk chair. She remembered feeling something in the man’s pockets as she undressed him. Driven mostly by her curiosity, the examiner quickly returned to the autopsy room where she’d stored the clothes in a paper evidence bag. With gloved hands, she felt around the fabric. For some bizarre reason, the man’s pants, shirt, and suit jacket had dozens of hidden pockets that she’d never seen on any other clothes, but only two of them actually contained anything.
Her fingers enclosed around something small and hard in the man’s right pants pocket. When she pulled it out, she found she was holding two rings shining in the harsh lab lights of the autopsy room. One was a thick golden band, the other a thin silver ring adorned with a small, modest diamond. The examiner frowned. Were these wedding rings? The man hadn’t been wearing one and his ring finger didn’t have the usual indent to suggest he ever did.
In his breast pocket, she found a neatly folded piece of paper. Most of the paper was brittle with dark dried blood that made it difficult to unfold. With a steadied hand and two pairs of tweezers, she managed to unravel it to reveal that it was likely a sheet ripped from a notepad. It contained a list written in elegant handwriting, although most of it was drowned out in the blood.
Dish soap
Diced tomatoes
Bread
Potatoes
Below the list was an incomprehensible jumble of symbols written in a waxy red. The examiner would’ve had no idea what it said if it were not for a third set of loopy handwriting next to it.
← (Peanuts)
Have a good day!
There was a shakily-drawn heart next to the loopy writing, like the author hadn’t been sure of themselves when they’d drawn it.
The examiner stared at the note and the rings.
It was possible that he’d stolen these items. Lifted them off an unsuspecting couple and accidentally swiped their shopping list while he was at it. This man was a criminal as the SSS had insisted.
However, the thought felt wrong to her.
Yes, the man had scars, but most of them were old. He’d had the beginnings of smile lines and crows feet on his face. And, if these items belonged to him, then…
Well, perhaps he’d just been an ordinary man, one with a family.
Suddenly, she thought of the man’s gunshot wounds, how they suggested he was shot in the back from a distance. Last night, when he was killed, was he running? Was the first shot the one near his spine? Did he fall to the ground, suddenly unable to run? Was he able to look back to see his attacker raise their gun for the killing blow? Was he scared?
Did he think about the child who had written peanuts on the list? The other person who had drawn him a heart?
The examiner sighed and put the items back in the evidence bag. She hadn’t allowed herself to speculate about a body since the early days of her career. It always made her feel like this; like mourning a stranger she didn’t know. There were too many strangers for her to feel sorry for.
She made her way back to her office, notes in hand and typewriter at the ready to begin her official report. She was determined to work on this for the rest of the day and into the night if needed; anything to get the SSS out of her hair and that body out of the morgue. She didn’t want it to be there anymore. The body would haunt her if she let it and she didn’t know if she’d ever forget that heart-broken look on his face.