Body Farm 2 - Flesh And Bone by Jefferson Bass

Hamilton got to him; the harm was to the friend who faced life in prison for an unjust charge of murder. Pretty harmful, all right. If the examiners upheld the complaint, Hamilton’s license could just be suspended temporarily, but it was more likely to be revoked for good. And it would be good, judging by some other shoddy autopsy reports I’d seen.
    I’d brought diagrams of the spine, rib cage, and lungs, showing the impossible “wound path” Hamilton had described the knife taking; I had also requested that a teaching skeleton be on hand so I could further illustrate the impossibility in three dimensions. The state’s lawyer led me swiftly through a recap of the experiment I’d done, in which I had been unable even to approximate the path Hamilton had described. He ended by having me describe finding the shard of bone, from Billy Ray’s own splintered ribs, that had pierced the right lung. The examiners on the panel asked a few questions: Might a thinner blade have been able to make the requisite turns? Was there any sign of a knife mark on the detached bone shard? Was there any possibility the shard had punctured the lung during postmortem handling of the body?—but they seemed satisfied with my answers.
    Then Hamilton’s lawyer got his turn. I had been cross-examined by the Knox County district attorney about this same case, so I felt reasonably confident, well prepared, but his first question threw me off-balance. “Dr. Brockton, did you examine the decedent, Mr. Ledbetter, for evidence of scoliosis? Curvature of the spine?”
    “Well, no,” I said, “but I think I would have noticed—”
    “I’m not asking what you think you would have noticed, Doctor; I’m asking whether you took measurements or X-rays or conducted any other sort of investigation that would have yielded an objective indication of scoliosis?”
    “Then I’d have to say no,” I said.
    “And did you examine your research subject, the one you stabbed in the back, for evidence of scoliosis?”
    I felt my cheeks flush. “No,” I said. “He appeared to be a normal individual. He was a marathon runner. I don’t imagine someone with scoliosis would have an easy time running marathons.”
    “You ever see photos or news stories about amputees, wearing artificial limbs, running marathons?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Do you imagine they have an easy time doing it?”
    “No, I don’t. I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at, though.”
    “What I’m getting at, Dr. Brockton, is this: You don’t actually know for a fact that Billy Ray Ledbetter’s spine was normal, and you don’t know for a fact that your research subject’s spine was identical in shape to Mr. Ledbetter’s. What I’m getting at is the fact that a knife could have followed a different path in Mr. Ledbetter’s body than in the body of your experimental cadaver if their spines were curved differently. Couldn’t it, Dr. Brockton?”
    I was not willing to back down completely. “Slightly,” I said. “If one of them had severe curvature and the other did not. But neither of them had severe curvature.”
    “You’ve just said you didn’t measure or X-ray either spine for scoliosis,” he shot back.
    “I haven’t measured or X-rayed your spine, either,” I said, “but that doesn’t keep me from noticing that you probably have some anterior deterioration and compression in your cervical disks. That’s why your head juts slightly forward of your shoulders. Do you have neck pain? You might be a good candidate for cervical fusion.”
    “We are not here to talk about my spine, sir,” he all but shouted at me.
    “No, sir, we’re not,” I said levelly. “What we’re here to talk about is truth and competence, and what I’m getting at is that after studying thousands of skeletons, I don’t have to take X-rays and measure angles to notice a deformed spine. Neither of these two individuals had a deformed spine.”
    He sputtered a bit, and tried to