2019-12-05 - Pillow Job

A call from Lawson Funeral Home is placed to the Medical Examiner's office requesting someone come out and have a look at a recently retrieved cadaver. When Yule arrives he is lead downstairs by one of the funeral attendants and directly to the Embalming Room. Beth is already in there, dressed in the heavy-duty protective gear a mortician wears when preparing to handle formaldehyde and various other deadly chemicals involved in the embalming process, but her face shield is off and placed on a metal table. She steps out of the door, "Sorry to drag you out here again. I just...well, I'll show you. I actually haven't started embalming yet. I was going to, but..." But clearly she saw signs that told her she ought to cool it until someone official arrived.

Yule is indeed in attendance, and this time? Given the particular call out, he's still dressed in the scrubs he was in at the morgue. "Hey Beth," A faint smile flickers to life upon his features, his head shaking just a touch, "No worries. I've seen enough weird things already around here that it's better to be safe than sorry, yeah?" A hand lifts, motioning for her to take him wherever she wants to lead him onto to help further the explanation for the call, "Just wherever you want to start at is fine. You think it's something similar to what we saw last time, or is this completely different?"

Beth smiles a little when Yule reassures her that she is indeed not wasting his or the Medical Examiner Office's time. She leads the way into the Embalming Room proper. "Different. Her name is Stephanie Gremoski. Twenty-one years old. The EMT who was at the scene when I retrieved the body told me she had gone to the hospital the week before. Exhibited symptoms similar to alcohol poisoning, but she had no urine output and she also had a seizure in the ER even though she had no history. And then I find this when I start to fix her features."

She pulls back the sheet covering poor young Stephanie Gremoski. She has the usual look a corpse does before the funeral director makes them presentable, eyes and mouth open with a lazy eye, sallow from the blood pooling, rigor mortis. Her eyes look a little bloodshot. "I was getting ready to put in the eye caps when I noticed that there were several blown blood vessels in her eyes."

The bag Yule has brought with him is put down on a clear spot. First it's the latex gloves he puts on, as much out of habit as it is protocol, and then a small pen flashlight is found and clicked on. "Did they say if they established the cause of the seizure?" His fingers part that eye a bit further to get a better look with the light on it, his brow furrowing in consideration, "Stroke could do it, but they would have been able to spot that with other symptoms, even if it was a miniature one. You find any bruising that showed up afterwards?" Comes the next question.

It's the second eye he checks over next, head tipping one way and then the other as he considers. "Excessive vomiting, hard sneezing, things of that nature could cause pooling of the blood in the eyes, but not normally this much. Take it there was no sign of stomach sickness when you picked her up?" The light is clicked off, a small frown curling around the corners of his mouth as he considers the case for a few moments while keeping an attentive ear to the mortician.

Beth shakes her head softly. "No. Maybe they just didn't know?" She keeps her distance as Yule searches, as if she's intentionally trying to keep out of his way, "Sounds like the family doesn't have a lot of money so they were in a hurry to get her out as quickly as possible. The EMT mentioned the inability to urinate might indicate kidney damage. And no. They said she died in her sleep." At his next question she says, "Well, her acrylic is busted off, and you can tell her nail bed was bleeding right before she died. I didn't get a real good look. I saw the eyes, remembered how the EMT told me she was hospitalized under bizarre circumstances, and thought I should just leave her alone and call it in."

Stephanie has moderately long acrylic nails. Square shaped and painted with autumn leaves and acorns for Thanksgiving still. The acrylic on the index finger of the right hand is busted off, and dried blood stains the tip. Under the tips of several fingers there is skin like she scratched someone hard. There is bruising on her forearms. Round circles like fingerprints.

At the mention of more consideration of those fingers, he reaches down to take up her hand, the light flicked on again to look it over. "Could have been." He murmurs about the kidney damage, his head dipping into a small nod. "Shouldn't assume it is hers. Small signs, but ones of struggle. Possible she suffocated instead, something like a pillow that wouldn't have left bruising on the neck. But between the blood and the bruises that are now showing up? Think we need to bring the body back to the morgue and do a full review. I'll have to alert the police, as well. You remember Esme Wilkinson?" She was in high school, a year or two ahead of Beth in class.

"I don't want to poke around too much more before we can get pictures taken, proper chain of custody. You'll have to confirm who all had access to the body here." All normal procedure, just to help protect and establish the chain of custody. "She living alone? Saw too many cases similar to this in NYC. Spousal abuse in cases where it was in the home. We will also need anything else she came in with."

"No shit?" Beth asks, and her eyes widen ever so slightly when it is possible that the worst has potentially occurred. She watches as he continues to examine the body. "I know Esme." She says with a small nod of her head. "I brought her in last night, put her in the refrigerator, and then went back upstairs to go to bed. My funeral attendants and my dad would have had access in that time, but I don't think they've been down here without me since she got here. I can get you their info." When he mentions what she came in she motions towards a trash can marked hazardous waste, "Uh, she came in her night gown and some undergarments, but I cut them off and threw them away. I don't know if you want me to leave them in there?" She shakes her head. "I believe she lived with her father and stepmother. As far as I can tell no boyfriend or husband was in the picture. I talked to the stepmother in the phone earlier today. She's doing the arrangements. Mentioned the father is sick. Terminal lung cancer. I'll get the death certificate."

There is just a touch of delighted humor in his eyes, mischief dancing upon the M.E.'s expression as he casts a side long glance towards Beth. "You put Esme in your refrigerator?" That brief smile that comes across shows he is only teasing, his body pivoting to look over to the trash can she motions towards. "I don't have an evidence bag to put them in, so we will need to make sure nothing happens to it until it can be properly collected." It's the mention of no one in the picture, boyfriend or otherwise, that has another frown curling to the corners of his mouth, his eyes scanning over her body to give one more look over, but the prevailing wisdom that this isn't the right place to go poking around wins out, and he carefully pulls the sheet back up over her. "I'll give her a call. Esme, that is. She loves it when I give her more work to do," That's spoken with one of Those Tones, a small touch of humor knowing what the caseload is already like in Gray Harbor. "May not be her it's assigned to, but she'll know how to get it routed through right."

Beth looks briefly astonished before she laughs when she realizes it indeed did sound like she was talking about Esme. "Something tells me she would not appreciate that." Her expression turns more serious when he continues on. "I'll keep people out until the police can get down here. I do have another cadaver in the fridge, but in a separate part of the unit. Hopefully no one dies in the meantime." She begins stepping out of the embalming room, and when she is out of the door she peels her gloves off. "Let me get all of the documents for you." She goes over to the desk to begin putting the death certificate and other pertinent information in a manila folder. She pauses and picks up a post-it note. "Huh. The stepmother wanted the funeral to be as soon as possible."

"I'm certain she appreciates you wanting to keep her nice and warm," Comes the teasing thought from Yule, even as he peels off his own gloves. They are slipped into a pocket, the flashlight put back into his bag, and only once he is all settled with it in tow does he follow on behind her. "Thanks. I'll keep you informed, yeah? Know you love hearing all the lovely details." It's a brief flicker of a smile, before his features crease up at that. "She sure seems to be wanting to rush this all through. Sounds like the police should have a few words with her, after I've had a chance to look at the body and let them know if there is something more to it all."

"I'll admit I am curious. It isn't normal for a twenty-one year old to have a medical emergency like that only to be potentially smothered a week later, is it?" Beth wonders aloud as she turns to hand the documents off to him, the note about the mother-in-law wanting a speedy funeral tucked in there. She gets out a post-it note to write down the contact information for her funeral attendants and father and sticks it in the folder as well before she hands it off to him. Then she leads him upstairs to call the police.