Participants:
| Scene Title | No Candy |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | When Martin Crowley comes to oversee Lashirah Lee's autopsy of the Central Park murder, he does not get what he was hoping to find. |
| Date | March 5, 2010 |
Fort Hero, Labs
There's a flickering buzz as the fluorescent light kicks on, and the scene that it illuminates is an unfortunate one.
For the last sixteen hours, Lashirah Lee has been subsisting on a diet of slushies, coffee and caffene of whatever source can be obtained. The whirr of a centrifuge creates a dull background noise within the morgue several hundred feet below ground level in the subterranean concrete chambers of Fort Hero. Here, three morgue trays are laid out on wheeled tables, two of the more grisly remains covered with black plastic, the bodies so liquefied that displaying them would be cruel to her guest for the evening.
Squinting against the glow of the lamp as it kicks on, Assistant-Director Martin Crowley looks down at the cadaver laid out on the table. His body is twisted in its unclothed state, rigor keeping one of his arms across his chest awkwardly, mouth open and lips contorted into a silent scream. He looks like a mummy, like the kind that would be found in the Smithsonian, if only less dry. Chalk white hair sprouts forth from his head, lips are peeled back away from teeth, and flesh is pulled taut to bone, wrinkled and liver spotted.
Checking a liscense in his han, Martin Crowley furrows his brows when he sees a nineteen year old boy on the liscense. "Christ," the director breathes out looking at the corpse, brows raised in a piteous expression as he turns towards the sound of clicking keys, and the sharp white outline of a dark haired woman wearing a labcoat, slushie in hand.
Lashirah looks up from the terminal as she sets down the slushie. "Assistant-Director…. Been a looong day. I hope you don't me seeming a little… used to the sight by now." She pauses and taps her fingers on the desk. There's a checklist there, including odd items like 'carbon dating' 'SLC check' and '
"N— No I understan' completely." Clearing his throat, Martin looks askance at Lashirah with a furrow of his brows. "This ah…" he lays down the ID card on the table. "I read the initial report saying that e'wasn't Evolved…" There's an uncertain tone in Martin's voice as he looks back down to the body, warily. "Is there anything you might've been able to pick up from this, I mean— DNA samples, anything we can use? I know none of that was ready when I got the initial report." Swallowing dryly, Martin brings a hand up to his mouth and steps away from the body, breathing out his nose.
"Toxicology, anything? A'need t'know what we're dealin' with 'ere… an' tha's going t'mean a lot of diggin' inta' who this fella' was." Brows furrowed, Martin traces his tongue over his lips, looking back at the body with an uneasy expression.
Lashirah shakes her head slowly. "Toxicology reports about what you'd expect. Traces of marijuana, blood alchohol just high enough to be over the legal limit to drive… DNA wise? There was some foreign traces in the saliva in his mouth. He likely kissed someone recently. Whoever it was though isn't on file." She sighs. "I haven't gotten to cutting him open yet for internal examinations, and the machine spinning there, when it's done, will tell us how long ago, roughly, he died… at least, according to the carbon in his body."
"Oh, wonderful," Martin grouses about the comment of the internal examination. Swallowing awkwardly, he circles the table with a wary stare down at the corpse, as if concerned it will leap up at him with a craving for the soft meat inside of his head. Tugging at the collar of his suit, Martin moves to stand up near one of the morgue lockers, as if that were somehow better. Brows furrowed, he eyes the centrifuge quietly before looking back at the body. "I— take it you're going to see if there's candy inside, now?" His eyes wander to the centrifuge, "While— we wait for the merry go round to stop?"
Full on grimacing now, Martin couldn't be any more uncomfortable in this situation than he already is. Swallowing anxiously, he looks towards the corpse and shakes his head slowly, breathing in a deep breath before rubbing one hand over his mouth and exhaling a sigh. "A'guess we've to see this through then don't we?"
Lashirah shrugs. "There's a reason I keep a bucket by the door, sir." She grins, and puts on goggles, and picks up a scalpel to make an careful cut to open the chest and gut cavity to the world.
"You did remember not to eat dinner yet, right?"
The noise Martin makes as Lashirah merrily goes about slicing through rubbery old man flesh is indicative that perhaps maybe he had a full lunch. Swallowing noisily, he looks down at the floor and away from the body. What Lashirah sees and what Martin misses, are the finer details of an internal examination. When the body is sliced open and skin butterfly cut aside, the components of Timothy Harper's internal organs tell an unusual story.
Whatever happened to the externa of his body did not fully effect the internal. Some organs close to the outside of Timothy's body — Liver, lungs, small and large intestine — all look to be partly traumatized by age, much like the exterior of his body. However, it looks like the process was stopped early, prematurely, and that not all of whatever effect was going to transpire finished.
Martin looks up, askance, at the corpse abd breathes in through his mouth with his hand covering it, exhaling a shuddering breath through his nose.
Lashirah tilts her head, and says three words that you never want to hear out of a medical or forensic investigator "What the hell…". She tilted her head and notes into an audio recorder. "Subject's internal organs show less signs of aging the closer to the center of the body." She digs a bit more, to look at the heart in particular.
Martin's grumbling noise behind Lashirah can only be construed as lovely when he moves a step back and away from the table again. Wrist deep in surgical tools and organs, Lashirah boldly plums the depths of the cadaver to find that the heart, tucked away beneath the breastbone and the backs of the lungs all seem perfectly intact without signs of aging. Initial inspection of the underside of the skin shows that surface veins suffered severe deterioration, including blood vessels and likely fluids as well.
Whatever was happening to this man, was happening from the outside in and very slowly. It's reminiscent of sucking up a puddle of water. Put a straw in the middle and drink, and the outside edges become dry. But the clear indication here is that whatever was done, didn't get finished, but it still seems to have been enough to cause enough trauma to kill the victim by means of heart failure.
Lashirah huhs. "Cause of death appears to be trama to system, overworking the heart. Trama seems to be mostly evenly spread over the surface of the body in the form of extreme aging of tissues. Internal organs not effected." She pauses for a moment. "Similar to an attack from a mythological creature known as a succubus, drinking the life out of someone?" It's outloud musing as she tries to think of something to compare this to.
"Succubus?" Martin offers with one brow raised, "Like— a succubus, succubus?" There's a worried expression on his face, eyes darting from Lashirah to the body and back again. There was even foreign saliva on the victim's mouth. That, more than anything, makes Martin's back stiffen and a hand wipe over his mouth again, as if trying to brush away the scent of the corpse's innards.
A beep and a click coming from one of the desks gives Martin a thankful reprieve as he steps away from Lashirah with one hand raised. "I'll— get it." There's a flip of that hand in the air, and Martin's backpedaling over to the centrifuge where the gas chromotagraphy device has stopped spinning. He leans over, eyeing it with a squint, before reading the display on the front.
"It— it says zero." Martin projects from where he leans, straightening up and arching one brow, turning to look over his shoulder at Lashirah. "Is… is zero good?" One brow quirks up, hopefully. He has no head for science.
"Succubus?" Martin offers with one brow raised, "Like— a succubus, succubus?" There's a worried expression on his face, eyes darting from Lashirah to the body and back again. There was even foreign saliva on the victim's mouth. That, more than anything, makes Martin's back stiffen and a hand wipe over his mouth again, as if trying to brush away the scent of the corpse's innards.
A beep and a click coming from one of the desks gives Martin a thankful reprieve as he steps away from Lashirah with one hand raised. "I'll— get it." There's a flip of that hand in the air, and Martin's backpedaling over to the centrifuge where the gas chromotagraphy device has stopped spinning. He leans over, eyeing it with a squint, before reading the display on the front.
"It— it says zero." Martin projects from where he leans, straightening up and arching one brow, turning to look over his shoulder at Lashirah. "Is… is zero good?" One brow quirks up, hopefully. He has no head for science.
Lashirah looks up a bit. "It means that the aging was done in 'normal' time. As in, he wasn't shoved into some kind of odd 'accelerated time' space." She looks at the corpse. "ANd yes, like a Succubus, succubus. Little creepy. We got anyone in the database known for draining people's life away?" She asks with a mild curiousity… She hides her worry well. This isn't exactly what one would call a 'normal' night for her.
"Can't explain them all but… short of Evolved interference, I'm at a loss on how one could even do this."
"Nnh— well," Martin scrubs his palm beneath his chin, "there's a life-force manipulator we 'ave on file, but 'is victims came out lookin' a bit more crispy than this fella'. Lots've ash, different witherin', even on the minor injuries. Might be somethin' similar, can't say for sure." Hesitantly treading back to the bodies, because the melted ones under the black plastic are even more unsettling, Martin worries his teeth at his lower lip.
"I've got Agent Ayers lookin' into th' archives for anythin' that matches; MO, victims, anythin'. E's not goin' t'be done until next week, a'scheduled a meetin' t'go over our findin's and see what we can pull t'gether." Scratching at the side of his jaw, Martin looks down at the body again. "We won' know any more until Ayers is done with 'is investigation. Nothin' concrete anyway, but this— this gives us a lot t'go on."
Lashirah nods a little. "I'll look the other bodies over to see if there's any similarities to what happened to the three. If I find anything, a memo direct to you, or would you prefer a phone call?"
"If you find similarities in the melted ones?" Martin's brows shoot up to his hairline, "You give me a call straight away, because tha' means very bad things." There's a look over towards the covered bodies, and Martin's lips downturn into a frown. Despite that, what he says seems encouraging. "You did fine work here, Agent Lee." There's a mild attempt at a smile to accompany the thought, and Martin's head slouches down into a more tired gesture.
With a sigh, Martin scratches at the back of his neck, staring at thewithered body on the table. "This job's a lot 'arder than a'was expecting…" Maybe he was hoping for candy.