The Book of Killowen (Nora Gavin #4) (13 page)

Standing at the foot of a stainless-steel slab in the morgue, Nora gazed upon the bog man, released from his swaddling and roughly articulated upon the table, following the anatomist’s urge to understand everything in its proper place. She tried to take in the whole man, as she had taught her students to do in gross anatomy lab, the whole impression of the person laid out before them on the table. There was a lot more to be gleaned from a cadaver’s life and death than a collection of parts, and it was important for future physicians to understand as much about what went right for people as what went wrong. The fact that the patient had died probably ten centuries earlier was neither here nor there. For Nora, every encounter with a cadaver was an occasion, a chance to increase human knowledge and understanding.

The head, upper torso, and arms were still attached, but they had been separated from the legs just above the pelvis. The weakest parts tended to fall asunder first—which usually meant the unsupported spine in the lower back. The man’s head was only slightly misshapen from the weight of the peat, the features still readable. Eyes and mouth open, perhaps an expression of surprise at his grisly fate.

Wet bog-brown cloth clung to the torso and limbs, following their contours, apparently torn by the same rough force that had dismembered the fragile body. Because this man had not been found in his original place, a lot of information about how he had ended up there had been lost. Had he gone into the bog standing up, facedown, supine? All these details could speak about the circumstances. Had he gone in whole, or already in pieces? The answer to that was likely the former, judging from how the clothing was torn and the fact that he was obviously much later than naked Iron Age bog men who appeared to have suffered perimortem dismemberment as part of their ritual sacrifice. The other detail that stood out was the stretching and pulling of the muscle fibers, which suggested that the body had been intact until unearthed by someone or something with enough force to pull it apart.

Nora paused to check the spray bottle of deionized water she’d brought with her from Dublin. There could be no dillydallying; she’d have to take her photos and measurements and get Killowen Man’s remains back into the container as quickly as possible, to keep him from being exposed to the mold- and bacteria-laden air.

The morgue at the regional hospital was much more used to preparing the remains of elderly patients for removal by undertakers, not so much used to the state pathologist or the National Museum descending upon them en masse. She could see hospital staff occasionally peering through the small window in the autopsy room door.

Nora knew the full team back at the Barracks could probably determine lots of things: when and how his hair had been cut, how much work he’d done with his hands, perhaps even the menu of his last earthly meal, and with it, the time of year in which he’d died. It was a major break that he was wearing clothing; it could be analyzed by experts in fiber analysis, garment and footwear construction, and other arcana of the archaeological profession.

Her job today was to examine the body, take measurements, note her observations while the corpse was still fresh, so to speak. Try to hazard a few conjectures about which types of damage were perimortem and postmortem.

She began to take photographs, starting at the head and working her way down to the corpse’s pointed toes. Even after several years in Ireland, working on remains recovered from the peat, she remained in awe of a bog’s protective power. This man was clearly at least hundreds of years old, and yet a section of his limbs would show nerves, blood vessels, bone and marrow, the same as a person only recently dead.

Although it was digital, her camera shutter clicked and whirred just like the real thing. The thickened sole of the unshod foot again pulled at her imagination, as it had out on the bog. Part of his story was written there, she was certain. Calluses and fallen metatarsal arches spoke to a lifetime of wandering. The ankle showed signs of gout, suggesting a rich diet, and yet his cheeks were slightly sunken, a sign of deprivation. Was he an outcast or an exile?

She worked her way around to the other side of the body, snapping photographs of the right hand, whose thumb and first two fingers seemed stained darker brown along the distal interphalangeal joints. An anomaly of coloration from the bog, or something else? She circled
again to examine the left hand, but it was clenched tight. Setting aside the camera, she began to probe at the clothing that twisted around the man’s torso, her eye drawn to the edge of a hole in his cloak. She gently moved aside the wet wool that shrouded his rib cage. There was not just one, as it turned out, but several holes of similar size, and definitely cut rather than torn through the cloth.

The door at the head of the table swung open, and Catherine Friel’s face brightened when she saw Nora. “Thought you’d have him back at the Barracks by now. Isn’t that the usual protocol?”

“Detective Cusack asked us to hold up here for a while, since evidence from her case could be intermixed with the older remains.”

“Wise choice,” Dr. Friel agreed. “I’m here for the PM on the other gentleman. Maybe you’d give me a hand? I’d be happy to reciprocate.”

After she had Killowen Man safely stowed in the cooler, Nora stood at the other mortuary table, taking in the details on the recent murder victim. In contrast to the ancient bog man, Benedict Kavanagh’s corpse was not only intact but surprisingly unmarked. Of course they were still waiting for final confirmation that this really was Kavanagh, but everything pointed that way. Nora couldn’t help thinking about what Cormac had said last night, that Benedict Kavanagh and Niall Dawson had been best friends at university. Why would he keep silent?

The mortuary technician had already cut the clothes off and removed the personal effects. Because Benedict Kavanagh’s body had just come out of the bog, the limbs were still quite pliable. The corpse now looked like a slightly shrunken effigy laid out on the slab.

A line from a Seamus Heaney poem, the reference to “a saint’s kept body,” circled through Nora’s brain. But by all accounts, this dead man was not a saint, and his face was not the calm visage usually associated with a holy man’s death mask; the eyelids were open, and the somewhat shriveled eyeballs still seemed to bulge slightly from the sockets. His jaw gaped open, the muscles of his cheeks stretched tight. As Dr. Friel turned to mark the autopsy diagram, Nora said, “There’s something inside his mouth.”

“Yes, I saw that,” Dr. Friel said, setting down her clipboard. “First priority, I think.” She worked two gloved fingers between the dead man’s teeth and eventually removed a slightly misshapen black object about the size and shape of a large marble.

“What is it?” Nora asked.

“Not sure, but there’s more than one.” Catherine Friel’s fingers were still wedged between the dead man’s teeth. “At least two more.” She tightened her grip on the corpse’s chin and leaned down to get better leverage.

“Do you think it’s possible that he choked on them?” Nora asked.

“Well, they’d be about the right size to block the airway. We can put obstructive asphyxia on the list of possible causes.”

Nora pulled the magnifier down to examine each small black orb in turn as Dr. Friel removed it. “Looks like a puncture in this first one,” she said, moving on to the others. “A couple of the others, too. No, not a puncture. It’s more like a tiny drilled hole.” She had a nagging feeling that she’d seen something like this before, but she couldn’t say where.

“That’s it,” Catherine Friel said as she managed to extract the last of the strange objects. “Half a dozen whatever they are.”

“Definitely plant material,” Nora said. “Possibly a seed pod.”

“Take a look at this.” Catherine Friel was still holding the dead man’s jaw open. She pulled the lighted magnifier closer and suddenly the presence of the pods seemed to fade into the background. Despite the discoloration of the tissue inside the corpse’s mouth, Nora could make out a thin layer of epithelial cells, the lamina propria and papillae surrounding thick muscle. Benedict Kavanagh’s tongue had been split in half lengthwise, straight down the center.

Stella was about twelve miles from the hospital when she rang Molloy. “I’ve got Kavanagh’s wife on her way to identify the body. How’s Dr. Friel getting on with the autopsy?”

“Almost finished.”

Stella checked her watch. “Can you let her know we’ll be there shortly, see how much longer she’ll need? I’d rather not have to delay once we get there. Thanks, Fergal.”

As Stella drove, she kept glancing at the two figures reflected in her rearview mirror. Mairéad Broome’s car, a black BMW, was much more conservative than her husband’s gold Mercedes. As she checked the mirror again, she could see Kavanagh’s wife in profile, staring out the window and occasionally turning to speak. Stella tried to imagine the conversation going on in the other car.

The regional hospital in Birr was a former tuberculosis sanatorium, a grim complex of single-story pebble-dashed buildings painted pale yellow. As Stella knew from many visits in the course of her work, recent budget cutbacks meant fewer beds, which meant fewer staff, which meant overcrowded casualty departments, and more sick and injured people lying on trolleys in the corridors. You could be bloody sure all the politicians in charge of health services had private insurance and wouldn’t be caught dead in one of these places. Entering the hospital car park, she drove around to the back and led Mairéad Broome and Graham Healy through the back door. Whatever their conversation had been on the road, both were silent now.

“We do appreciate your help with identification,” Stella said. “If you’ll give me just a minute, I’ll just see whether they’re ready.”

Stella pushed through the door to the morgue. It wasn’t set up like some of the more modern hospital facilities, with a video camera or separate viewing room. You had to get close to death here. The body lay on a trolley, covered by a sheet. Catherine Friel stood at the sink, preparing to remove her gloves and apron, with Dr. Gavin beside her, still wearing
protective gear as well, evidently after assisting with the postmortem. It struck Stella that she was in the presence of a pair of women who had chosen to look at the face of death every day.

Dr. Friel lifted her eyes as Molloy quietly entered the room and joined them at the trolley.

“I’ve brought Mr. Kavanagh’s wife to help with an ID,” Stella said. “Any news on the cause of death?”

“The only outward trauma is some swelling in the occipital region at the back of the skull, but I don’t believe it was severe enough to be fatal. No fracture, and the swelling would actually suggest that he was alive after it occurred. And we found these in his mouth” Dr. Friel brought out a tray containing what looked like six small black walnuts.

“You think he choked on them?”

“I’m not sure. There’s no evidence of petechial hemorrhage, but that’s often absent with obstructive asphyxia. There was one of these pretty far down in his throat. Let me show you something else.”

Dr. Friel pulled back the sheet and opened the dead man’s mouth.

Molloy couldn’t manage to stifle a reaction. “Jesus, what happened to his tongue?”

“Split along the median groove, with a fairly sharp blade. But the amount of blood present says it was most likely done postmortem.”

Stella was still trying to figure all this out. “So he was hit over the head, possibly asphyxiated with some of those . . . whatever they are . . . and
then
his tongue was cut? I’m not sure I follow.”

“Neither do I. I’m just showing you what the evidence so far suggests. I’ll have to let you work out the sequence.” Dr. Friel gently closed the corpse’s mouth and replaced the sheet. “In any case, we’re finished here, if you want to proceed with your identification.”

“Thanks.” Stella was poking at one of the black walnut-like things with a gloved finger. “No idea what these are, you said?”

“Dr. Gavin thought possibly some sort of seed, but we’ll let the lab sort it out. You can bring his wife in now, Detective.”

Stella stepped into the corridor to speak to Mairéad Broome and her assistant. “We’re ready for you now.”

Stella knew it was odd, but she always felt strangely energized watching the reaction in situations like this. Most identifications she’d handled were car accidents—there had been a couple of drownings as well—but murder was something entirely different. Mairéad Broome
must have realized that she was going to be under scrutiny, which made her first reaction all the more surprising. When Dr. Friel folded back the sheet to reveal her husband’s face, Mairéad Broome didn’t back away or flinch. On the contrary, she stepped forward. It was as if she wanted to experience her husband’s appearance, with every detail burned into memory.

After a long moment, Mairéad Broome spoke: “This man is my husband.” She continued to stare at the corpse, and Stella noted with dismay that Kavanagh’s mouth was open, the two ends of his split tongue protruding slightly.

Mairéad Broome saw it also and twisted away with an anguished cry, “My God, what’s happened to him?” It was only when Graham Healy moved to place a hand on her shoulder that she darted forward to grasp the edge of the sheet, and with one swift motion, she ripped the cover away, exposing the body in all its gruesome nakedness—the shrunken-looking privates nestled in reddish pubic hair, the bare chest bisected by the roughly stitched
Y
of the autopsy incision. For a moment, Mairéad Broome stood quite still, staring at her dead husband. Dr. Friel and Dr. Gavin stooped in unison to collect the sheet from the floor and pull it back over the corpse.