Carnal Innocence

moaning patients had put him off. But the first time he’d been called upon to watch a dissection, he knew he’d found his vocation.
    The dead didn’t complain, they didn’t need to be saved, and they sure as hell weren’t going to sue for malpractice.
    Instead, they were like a puzzle. You took them apart, figured out what went wrong, and filed your report.
    Teddy was good at puzzles, and he knew he was a hell of a lot better with the dead than with the living. Both of his ex-wives would have been more than happy to point out his lack of sensitivity, his selfishness, and his ghoulish, offputting sense of humor. Though Teddy happened to think he was a pretty funny guy.
    Putting a joy buzzer in a cadaver’s hand was a surefire way to liven up a dull autopsy.
    Burns wouldn’t think so, but then, Teddy enjoyedirritating Burns. He smiled to himself as he snapped on surgical gloves. He’d been working on a trick for weeks, waiting for the opportunity to pull it on someone like straight-and-narrow Matt Burns. All he’d needed was a suitably mangled victim.
    Teddy blew Edda Lou a kiss in thanks as he turned on his tape recorder.
    “What we have here,” he began, using a thick southern accent, “is a female, Caucasian, mid-twenties. Identified as Edda Lou Hatinger. Got her height as five foot five, weight one twenty-six. And boys and girls, she’s built like your old-fashioned brick shithouse.”
    That, Teddy thought gleefully, would burn Burns.
    “Our guest today suffered from multiple stab wounds. Pardon me, Edda Lou,” he said as he made his count. “Twenty-two punctures. Concentrated on the areas of breasts, torso, and genitalia. A sharp, smooth-bladed instrument was used to sever her jugular, trachea, and larynx in a horizontal stroke. From the angle and depth, I’d say left to right, indicating a right-handed assailant. In layman’s terms, ladies and gentlemen, her throat was slit from ear to ear, probably by a knife with a …” He whistled as he measured. “Six- to seven-inch blade. Anybody out there see
Crocodile Dundee?”
He tried on a heavy Aussie accent. “Now, that’s a knife! On examination of other traumas, this throat wound was probable cause of death. It would do the job, believe me. I’m a doctor.”
    He whistled “Theme from
A Summer Place”
as he continued his exam. “A blow to the base of the skull by a heavy, rough-textured instrument.” Delicately, he tweezered out fragments. “Bagging fragments that appear to be wood or tree bark for forensic. I think we’ll agree that victim was clubbed with a tree branch. Blow issued prior to death. If you detectives out there conclude that the blow rendered the victim unconscious, you win a free trip for two to Barbados and a complete set of Samsonite luggage.”
    He glanced up as the door opened. Burns nodded at him. Teddy smiled. “Let the record show that SpecialAgent Matthew Burns has arrived to watch the master at work. How’s it hanging, Burnsie?”
    “Your progress?”
    “Oh, Edda Lou and I are getting to know each other. Thought we’d go dancing later.”
    Inside Burns’s clenched jaw his teeth ground together. “As always, Rubenstein, your humor is revolting and pathetic.”
    “Edda Lou appreciates it, don’t you, dear?” He patted her hand. “Bruises and broken skin at wrists and ankles.” Using his tools, he located and removed tiny white fibers, bagged them while he continued to detail, cheerfully, his findings.
    Burns suffered through another fifteen minutes. “Was she sexually assaulted?”
    “Pretty hard to tell,” Teddy said through pursed lips. “I’m going to take tissue samples.” Burns averted his eyes as Teddy did so. “I put her in the water for twelve to fifteen hours. A rough guess before I run the tests puts time of death between eleven and three on the night of June sixteenth.”
    “I want those results asap.”
    Teddy continued taking his scrapings. “God, I love it when you talk in acronyms.”
    Bums ignored him. “I want to know everything there is to know about her. What she ate, when she ate it. If she was drugged or had used alcohol. If she had sexual relations. She was supposed to be pregnant. I want to know how many weeks.”
    “I’ll take a look.” Teddy turned, ostensibly to exchange instruments. “You might want to check out her left molar. I found it very interesting.”
    “Her teeth?”
    “That’s right. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    Intrigued, Burns leaned