LITMIR.BIZ

       11

      Across the river, a milky dawn puddles up over Brooklyn and Queens as Dineen and his ghouls load Pena into a van, and a grubby phalanx of Impalas follows it out of the park. Twenty minutes later, at the office of the medical examiner, O’Hara and Krekorian jockey for sight lines with Lowry and Grimes and two other homicide detectives. In front of them on a steel gurney, Pena, still bound and encased in plastic, lies on her side, exactly as she has since Thanksgiving morning. When O’Hara arrived she saw for the first time that the back of the victim is also covered with gouges.

      Conducting the survey of Pena’s multiple wounds is a tall skinny thirty-two-year-old ME, Sam Lebowitz. As he circles the gurney, trailed by a forensic photographer, he jots notes on a long yellow pad, then reads them aloud to the detectives. “Lacerations and trauma on the back and top of the skull,” he says, points at them with his pen, then backs up out of the photographer’s viewfinder. “The skull does not appear to be fractured.” Not to disturb a nearby colleague, who is performing an unattended autopsy of a middle-aged black man, Lebowitz makes his observations in a quiet conversational voice.

      “There is extensive evidence of torture…The victim has been repeatedly and systematically gouged, cut and burned, front and back, from ankles to shoulders…blunt trauma around vagina, anus and inner thighs suggests rape…or multiple rapes.”

      After Pena has been examined and photographed on both sides in the condition in which she was found, Lebowitz, using long thin surgical scissors, cuts away the bloody shower curtains. When he peels the silver packing tape off her lips and removes the panties that had been stuffed into her mouth, O’Hara can see the gap between Pena’s two front teeth that McLain couldn’t stop himself from pointing out in his wallet snapshot that first night in the station house. Finally Lebowitz severs the plastic ties that bind Pena’s wrists and ankles. It’s about time, thinks O’Hara. But by now rigor mortis constricts her body instead, and untethering her limbs does nothing to release them.

      “The shower curtains are an inexpensive common style and brand-new,” says Lebowitz. “I’m not holding out much hope for them.” He slips the four sections of shower curtain, along with the ties, tape and panties, into a large plastic evidence bag and returns to Pena for a second, less obstructed, tour.

      “Closer examination of the head shows trauma was induced by a single blow from a small hard round object and confirms the lack of skull fracture. If the assailant intended to torture the victim, the limited damage of the blow may have been intentional…the body is covered front and back with approximately sixty gouges made with a crude serrated blade…gouges range widely in size, shape and depth…body has also been repeatedly burned with a cigarette lighter and sliced with a second knife, although the number of slicing cuts and burns is significantly smaller than the gouges…the gouging alone would have taken several hours and caused considerable loss of blood, but not necessarily a fatal one, and although the victim has been subjected to overwhelming homicidal violence, there is no clear single cause of death…The lividity, or bruising, suggests the victim did not bleed to death…I think she was tortured until her heart stopped.”

      O’Hara likes the sound of the city in Lebowitz’s shy voice and appreciates the way his mind and body work in sync—his cautious understated observations matched by the precise movements of his long fingers and hands. And unlike the ME at O’Hara’s only other autopsy, it’s not a performance. Lebowitz doesn’t seem to be playing himself in an episode of CSI.

      “There are abrasions and bruising to the victim’s right wrist and abrasions to the fingertips and heel of the left hand. They could indicate the victim was dragged by her feet over pavement or other abrasive surface.”

      Having completed a second pass of the body, Lebowitz takes out a rape kit and does bucol swabs of Pena’s vagina, anus and mouth, again noting the evidence of trauma to all three. He notices something caught in Pena’s teeth and examines it with a magnifying glass. “Chocolate,” he says, and scrapes it into another plastic envelope.

      Lebowitz then takes a steel comb from the rape kit and runs it through Pena’s pubic hair, which strikes O’Hara as longer and fuller than the current fashion. Lebowitz packs the comb in another plastic bag, then scrapes and cuts Pena’s fingernails, hoping that like the pubic hair and packing tape, they may have snared some small part of her attacker. Having packed them away too, he points out the evidence of tearing in Pena’s anus and vagina and the bruising in her throat.

      To some degree, all this is preamble. The autopsy itself, which consists of the surgical removal and weighing of Pena’s brain, heart, liver and other organs, is yet to begin. When Lebowitz makes a long incision just below the hairline on Pena’s forehead and with a brisk tug peels back her scalp, all six detectives, from O’Hara to the most hardened homicide guys, have seen enough and head for the exit.

      In the waiting area outside, a shattered couple occupy one corner. Although they are nothing like what she pictured, O’Hara knows they must be Pena’s parents. Both are in their late thirties. The mother is tall and blond and looks eastern European, the stepfather compact and swarthy. His thick workingman’s hands lie palm-up at his sides. Only O’Hara stops. She introduces herself as the detective who spoke to them on the phone a couple of nights before.

      “I have a son about the same age,” she says, “but I can’t imagine what you’re feeling. I promise you, we’re going to find the person who did this.”

      Neither parent says a word.