As the Wicked Watch(15)

I thought about what Simone had said about flooding and water retention in the area.

I had a hunch that the chief medical examiner had already reached out to Dr. Chan for his expert opinion on the time and manner of death. I sent Dr. Chan an email requesting an interview this afternoon. He responded by the time I got out of the shower.

“Sure, come on by today at four o’clock,” he wrote. “You know, Jordan, there is only so much I can say on-camera.”

“I know, Dr. Chan,” I said, remembering how much he enjoyed playing the role of teacher to an eager beaver like me. “I’ll follow your guidance.”

Scott and I decided not to take the station’s van to the medical examiner’s office. Too conspicuous. We drove separately and, as Dr. Chan had instructed, met him on the lower level of the morgue, where autopsies are performed and bodies are kept in cold storage.

When we arrived, Dr. Chan greeted me warmly. He’d lost weight and his face looked a little gaunt. “Jordan! It’s so nice to see you, my dear. How have you been?” he asked.

“You know me, busy as ever. Wow! Look at you! You trying to fit back in the tux you wore to the prom?” I teased.

“Well, of course, I have to work at maintaining my schoolboy figure,” he shot back.

“Well, aside from the usual, I’ve been following the Masey James disappearance. That’s pretty much been my life the last few weeks. You remember Scott Newell?”

“Yes, Scott, nice to see you again,” Dr. Chan said.

The two men shook hands, and Dr. Chan quickly got down to business. “Follow me. Let’s start in the evidence room,” he said.

He escorted us through a cavernous basement hallway with double doors at the far end. Dr. Chan held open the left side door for Scott and me to pass through.

“Jordan, you’ve been down here before?” Dr. Chan asked.

“Yes,” I reminded him. But it didn’t make it any less unnerving to walk among the last remnants of people who not long ago were living, breathing human beings who met violent ends.

Insulated shelves held boxes labeled with victims’ names in bold letters, followed by a series of numbers that included date of death, birth date, and some other numbers I couldn’t discern. Dr. Chan stopped and pulled one of the boxes off the shelf and set it down on a table at the end of the row. He began to speak as he reached inside and pulled out its contents. Each item was wrapped in a sealed plastic bag.

“What you see in these bags is what investigators collected from the body,” he explained.

Scott started to lift his camera, but Dr. Chan held up his hand. “You can’t film this, though. I can show you to help you understand. But you can’t film here,” he admonished.

Scott lowered the camera. “Okay, sorry about that,” he said.

Dr. Chan then held up what looked like it could’ve been part of a T-shirt. It was so soiled that it was anybody’s guess what color it used to be. “This is the only article of clothing retrieved,” Dr. Chan said.

“So, the body was partially nude?” I asked.

“Yes, except for the remnants of this top. Her lower extremities were exposed,” Dr. Chan said. “See this crusty seam along the edge,” he said, pointing to a discoloration in the ragged, soiled cloth. “It was difficult to discern at first, but under a microscope, it’s clear that this is representative of charring. Even in the muddy conditions, the T-shirt fabric, which includes some plastic fibers, preserved this key evidence to help paint a clearer picture of what happened to the victim.”

“Did you say charring?” I asked.

“Yes, it appears the killer attempted to destroy evidence by setting the body on fire,” he said.

I weakened at the knees. “Oh my God!” I said. “I knew it was going to be bad, but . . .” My voice trailed off.

“There’s more. Let’s go sit down in my office,” Dr. Chan said. He returned the contents to the box and the box to the shelf. “This way.”

Inside his tiny office, my first thought was This is the best the city can do for a world-renowned forensic pathologist? Dr. Chan must’ve read my mind.

“I know, it’s swanky, isn’t it?” he joked. “Trust me, what they’re paying me makes up for it. That’s off the record,” he teased.

The lighting was surprisingly not bad in this bland room with cinder-block walls painted a bright yellow and high-beam LED lighting across the ceiling.

While Scott set up, I quizzed Dr. Chan.

“Apparently the area where the body was found had extensive flooding recently. Masey had been missing for three weeks. So I can only imagine what shape the body was in when you got it,” I said.

“Terrible,” he said. “The worst possible scenario for evidence collection. But that is something I absolutely do not want to say on-camera. I don’t want this bastard to think he’s going to get away with this, because there’s not enough evidence to connect him to the victim.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“The conditions. Burning of the flesh, wrapped in heavy duty plastic, in warm, wet conditions for the better part of two weeks,” Dr. Chan said. “Exposed to the elements, insects and night creatures . . . the decomposition was accelerated by three times.”

“Okay, I’m ready when you are,” Scott interrupted.