The Tail of the Tip-Off by Rita Mae Brown Read Free Book Online Page B

handsome man, a man in seemingly good physical condition.
    Yancy knew him, of course, but not well. Tom Yancy and Marshall Wells, the assistant coroner, often knew many of the corpses they examined.
    â€œNed, stand back.” Yancy looked up at him as he pulled on his rubber gloves. “If you faint I don't want you falling on the body. Occasionally, organs will, uh, be under pressure. They may somewhat pop out, the brain especially. It sounds grotesque but it really isn't. After all, the inside of the body is experiencing light and air for the first time. If you can't take it, leave the room.”
    â€œI will.” Ned felt nervous. He didn't want to disgrace himself, but he wasn't sure he would be up to the process.
    Yancy's blue eyes met Fair's. “Put on a coat, will you? Just in case I need you.”
    Fair lifted a doctor's white coat off the peg against the door. He, too, put on thin latex gloves.
    â€œAll right, gentlemen, let us closely inspect the outside before we get to the inside.” Yancy measured H.H. “Here.” He handed Ned a clipboard, thinking having a task would help the lawyer. “Height, six feet one-half inch. Race, Caucasian. Weight, one hundred and eighty-five pounds. Age, I'd say between thirty-three and thirty-six. Of course, I know he is thirty-six because I knew H.H. and we have his driver's license, but you can still tell age by teeth. Not as well as we once could thanks to advances in dentistry, but they wear down.” He opened H.H.'s mouth, pointing to the slight irregularity on the surface of those molars not capped. “Fillings can help us. Silver fillings have a shorter life span than gold.”
    â€œRemember Nicky Weems with his gold front tooth?” Fair recalled a man, old when Fair was a teenager, who flashed a gold grin.
    â€œUsed a lot before World War Two. Expensive but prized. It's still good stuff. Now, dentists, the advanced ones, use ceramics, and who knows what they'll come up with next? The stuff doesn't even discolor.”
    All the while he was talking, Yancy carefully felt over the body. “His temperature has dropped a few degrees.”
    â€œWhen does a body go into rigor mortis?” Ned was becoming interested. He was beginning to realize one could read a body like a book.
    Of course, it's better to read it while it's still alive.
    â€œDepends. On a blistering hot August day a corpse can go through the stages of death, light death, if you will, to advanced death, in a matter of hours. Putrefaction can begin rapidly especially on battlefields where the temperatures can be over one hundred degrees because of the guns. Gettysburg was a real mess, I can tell you. July.” He shook his head. “And the little muscles go into rigor first. But on a temperate day, say sixty degrees to seventy, a corpse exposed to the elements, no rain, will begin to stiffen in two to three hours. Unless”—he held up his hand—“a person has ingested strychnine. By the time they are finished with their convulsions, which are so severe all the ATP in the muscles is depleted, they're in rigor. It's a horrible, horrible way to die. That and rabies. ATP is a molecule that releases energy for muscle contraction. When it's used up, so are you.”
    Yancy returned to H.H.'s head. He brushed back the nice-looking man's straight hair, cut in the old Princeton style. He checked his eyes, nose, ears.
    Then he felt at the base of his neck, running his fingers upward to the ears. Fair, standing just a step to the left of him, squinted for a moment. Yancy, too, stopped.
    â€œWhat's this?”
    Fair bent over. “Looks like a hornet sting without the swelling.”
    The door opened. Kyle Rogers, the photographer, stepped in. “Sorry. I got here as soon as I could. The roads are okay, but—” He realized Yancy was intent so he shut up.
    As Kyle removed his coat, taking his camera out of his trusty carry bag, even Ned was