Chapter 8
On the seventh morning, Samuel walked into the autopsy room for one last check before closing the case.
Grace was already there, standing to the left of the table and holding last night's test report. "Samuel, take a look at this."
"What?" Samuel asked.
"The tissue slides are ready. There's a surgical scar on the lower right side of her abdomen. Judging by the location and length, it looks like an appendectomy," Grace explained.
Samuel was putting on his gloves. His left hand was halfway in, his f fingers spreading, when he suddenly stopped. "What kind of surgery?"
"Appendectomy. The scar is about five to eight years old. The stitching is kind of unusual, as if it were done in an emergency, not a regular hospital procedure," Grace replied.
Samuel finished putting on his gloves and walked up to the autopsy table.
He lowered his gaze to the abdominal incision he'd gone over twice already.
He'd noticed the scar during his first thorough check, but at the time, his attention was on the chest and internal organs. He only made a routine note of the old surgical scar on the abdomen, without thinking much of it.
"Grace, do you remember..." Samuel started, but then stopped.
Grace pushed up her glasses. "Remember what?"
"Nothing," Samuel said, flipping to the second page of his notebook and staring at it for a few seconds.
Grace stood quietly beside him, not rushing him. Then she spoke up. "Samuel, did your wife have her appendix removed?"
Samuel pressed his fingers down on the notebook. "Lots of people get their appendix taken out."
"Yeah, I know. Just asking," Grace replied.
"You estimated the victim's age to be between twenty-five and thirty-five. About seven to twelve percent of women in that age group have had an appendectomy. It's not exactly rare." Samuel rattled off the stats.
Grace nodded, set the report down on the table, and went back to her seat.
She didn't ask anything else. As she sat down at the computer, she started wiping her glasses again with the hem of her shirt, still on the right lens.
I had no idea what was running through her mind, but I knew what she was afraid of. She was worried that her suspicions might actually be true.
Winona walked in at ten. "Grace, any word from the dental database team?"
"Not yet. Didn't you say it'd take three to five days? Well, today is the fifth day," Grace replied.
"I called again yesterday to follow up, but they said the system is still being updated and the data migration isn't done yet. They couldn't give me a specific time," Winona said, throwing up her hands in frustration.
She asked, "Should we try another channel? I could reach out to a friend at the state bureau and see if they can help."
"No need," Samuel said, closing his notebook. "Let's wait until the system is back up."
"Alright, let's start drafting the rest of the report," Winona said, turning to the workbench and grabbing a stack of blank forms.
As she walked past the autopsy table, her eyes flicked over the body's abdomen.
It was so quick that if I hadn't been hovering by the ceiling lights, watching her every move, I would've missed it.
She was eyeing the appendectomy scar, not out of curiosity, but making sure no one else had spotted it.
Samuel stood with his back turned to her, facing the sink.
He kept washing his hands for a long time.
The faucet was cranked up to full blast. The roar of the water drowned out the silence in the room.
I could tell he was lost in thought.
Back in the winter of 2018, I was rolling around in bed from the pain in the middle of the night. He drove for forty minutes to take me to the ER. The doctor said my appendix had burst and I needed surgery right away.
He stood outside the operating room for three hours that day.
When I finally came out, still half out of it from the anesthesia, he leaned in and whispered right in my ear, "Emily, promise me this. If your stomach hurts again, tell me right away. Don't tough it out."
Now, he stood there with his hands under the faucet, letting the water run for almost two minutes. He didn't even notice as it splashed all over his clothes.
He'd never let on what he was really thinking.
That was Samuel.
He was the most level-headed forensic expert around.
He wouldn't let a single appendectomy scar cloud his judgment.
He'd use statistics and probabilities to convince himself it was nothing but a coincidence. Like the hairline fracture on the left wrist or the burn mark on the right shoulder blade, they were both coincidences.
He turned off the faucet. His fingers clenched and unclenched in the pocket of his lab coat. "Winona."
"Yeah?" Winona replied.
"Keep pushing on the dental records. I want results in three days," Samuel said.
"Got it, Sam. I'll rush them," Winona replied.
Samuel walked out of the autopsy room.
Winona waited until he was out of sight before slowly turning around.
She reached behind her head, undid her ponytail, and retied it, making sure every strand was perfectly in place. It was as if she was putting herself back together, smoothing out the turmoil that had almost shown through.