Frozen Stiff Read Online Free PDF Page A

plastic shroud, leaving her exposed to the room air so she can thaw out. As I look at her, I’m struck once again by how lovely she is, even in death.
    Within minutes Izzy joins me, followed by Richmond, who has managed to dig up a jelly doughnut from somewhere. I watch as he bites into the pastry on one end and a huge glob of strawberry jam oozes out the other, landing on his shirtfront.
    “Sorry, there’s no food allowed in here,” Izzy tells him.
    Richmond shrugs, crams the rest of the doughnut into his mouth, scrapes the jelly from his shirt with a finger, and then shoves that in his mouth, too, leaving a huge, red stain on the shirt. It reminds me of the frozen smear of blood on the victim’s chest and I turn to look at it. The blood doesn’t look frosted anymore, leading me to think it may have thawed, but it is still mostly solidified from clotting.
    “Mind if I watch?” says a male voice.
    I look up and see Colbert has joined the fray.
    “The chief said I could since I’ve never seen an autopsy before.”
    Izzy and I exchange looks. One’s first autopsy is always a dicey experience and about half of the people who watch them either recycle their last meal or pass out. Sometimes they do both.
    Izzy says, “Sure, but stand over there by the chair and if you start to feel light-headed, sit down immediately. If you think you’re going to puke, the bathroom is right down the hall.”
    Colbert nods his understanding and waves away Izzy’s concerns. “I’ll be fine,” he says.
    Izzy walks over to the X-ray viewer and slides a film onto it. After studying it a minute, he frowns and says, “The knife pierced her left ventricle, which should have caused fibrillation and instantaneous death. But if it had, there should have been very little blood loss since her heart wasn’t beating and the knife would have served as a tamponade. Clearly that’s not the case, which makes me think there’s another stab wound under all that blood.”
    Izzy and I don special goggles and turn on an overhead black light, and then carefully start washing away the clotted blood. The resultant maroon-colored water makes its way into channels that run the length of the stretcher and empty into a sieved drain that will collect any trace particles that might be in the water. After a minute or so of this, a second stab wound is revealed nearer the center of the victim’s chest. “I’m betting that one hit the aorta,” Izzy says. “That’s why she bled out.”
    One of the overhead fluorescent bulbs flickers off, then on again, and in the resultant flash something catches my eye.
    “I see something sticking out of the blood here,” I say, picking up a pair of forceps. “It looks like a hair.” I grab the end I can see with my instrument and tug. It comes free with a little resistance, revealing a short, black hair about an inch and a half in length. “I don’t see any root,” I say, examining the ends closely. “So no DNA.”
    Izzy holds out an envelope for me and I drop the hair inside. “It still may help narrow down suspects,” he says.
    Richmond snorts. “If we ever get any. It would help if we knew who she was. The fact that no one locally has been reported missing confirms my suspicion that she’s not from around here.”
    The door to the autopsy room opens and a young lad dressed like an early twentieth-century newsboy walks in.
    “Hey, Cass,” Izzy says.
    I do a double take and remove my goggles. This isn’t the first time I’ve been surprised by Cass Zigler’s appearance. In addition to being our file clerk-slash-secretary-slash-receptionist, she also spends time acting with our local thespian group. As a result, she often tries out her characters by dressing and playing the parts at work. I’ve never seen Cass as Cass, and I’m not sure I’d recognize her if I ran into her on the street.
    “Cass?” Richmond says, his eyebrows arched. “You’re a woman?”
    “Not today. Today I’m Henry,” she