Forensics by the Numbers: A Jewel Connor Mystery

By Carolyn Chambers Clark and Anthony Auriemma

Forensic nurse examiner at NYC's busiest hospital for assault and murder cases, Jewel Connor has a talent for getting late night assignments and sparring with the egotistical cop on her investigative team.

When her DA-friend turns up on the examining table, nearly dead, Jewel searches for an explanation while fighting haunting memories from the past. When she starts receiving threats, it doesn't take a forensic specialist to know she'll be next. Good thing she has a millionaire internet whiz husband and an attack dog to help her.

Based on the authors' experiences as a forensic nurse examiner and weapons renovation specialist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carolyn Chambers Clark
• Release date: Sep 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466163805

Carolyn Chambers Clark

Carolyn Chambers Clark is a board-certified advanced holistic nurse practitioner with a master's degree in mental health nursing and a doctorate in education. She is a faculty member in the Health Services Doctoral Program at Walden University, and she hosts http://home.earthlink.net/~cccwellness and http://HolisticHealth.bellaonline.com.

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Copyright, 2012, Carolyn Chambers Clark & Anthony Auriemma

Smashwords Edition

This copy is for your personal use only.

FORENSICS BY THE NUMBERS

Chapter 1

In a trauma room at the end of the hall in the Emergency Department where the smells of disinfectant and sweat lingered, Jewel Connor stared at the horrifying photos. Each one jumped out at her, more disturbing than the last. The cigarette burn marks, black eyes, and bruises never got any easier to view. They always made her want to rip them into a million pieces and take a cigarette lighter to them, but that wasn't going to stop the men who did these terrible things. Yes, she dealt with the ugliness of sexual assault crimes every day, yet each new case made her stomach retch and her mind object with thoughts of revenge as if it were her first.

The bodies of women—ravaged, beaten, murdered—filled her every working day. It was getting harder and harder to keep her professional composure as they piled up in her mind, when she saw what they had endured. Yes, sometimes they survived, but she never forgot any of them. They wouldn't let her. Each night, they came to haunt her dreams. Ten years ago, when she'd completed her degree as a forensic nurse examiner, she'd vowed to help as many as she could and stop this string of violence, but the abused women just kept coming.

Jewel finished her report for her last forensic exam of the day, sent it off in an e-mail to her director, and sighed. Another day done and she still wasn't any closer to stopping these men who had no respect for women. Exhausted, she picked up her bag and left the medical center for home.

In the dark October evening, rain slicked the streets outside New York City Hospital. Collar of her pink raincoat pulled up, sneakers soaked and feet chilled, she dashed to her mini-van.

Frightened faces of women she'd interviewed and examined that day filled her mind on the way home. They refused to leave her alone until an emergency announcement interrupted the classical music on the car radio and commanded her attention.

Drive with extreme caution, the man said in a well-trained announcer voice. Stay off the roads if at all possible. A tornado is headed for uptown Manhattan.

Worry pricked the edges of her brain. She'd never been in a tornado, and she didn't plan on being in this one. Foot ground down on the gas pedal, her mini-van zoomed ahead.

A night so many years ago, forced its way into her brain. It had been raining then, too. It took supreme effort for Jewel to push the images away. They'd been coming more often now, after so many years of lying dormant.

Downpours created rivers on the street, and lightning flashed. The sky looked as if it might crash down on her, fulfilling some kind of evil prophesy for what she'd done.

High winds whirled leaves across the road and uprooted a tree half a block ahead.

Heart thudding against her ribs, she jammed on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front that had halted without warning. The sky went pitch black and trees rumbled and groaned as if they might snap.

She stared blindly ahead while large branches broke off and hit cars, smashing windshields. Her fingers ached from squeezing the steering wheel as she strained to see the road.

Just past 5:30 p.m., a funnel cloud appeared in the sky, and then something exploded. A tree flew in front of her vehicle and banged into a car on the other side of the street.

She made a shaky left turn onto a side street and headed away from the trees and the Hudson River.

As quickly as it started, the storm ended. Blackness evaporated from the sky, turning it milk toast gray. Jewel breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the condensation off the inside of the windshield with a towel she kept on the floor of her mini-van.

Houses on either side of the street looked dark and abandoned. Either the storm had blown the power, or residents were too afraid to turn their lights on. A single candle lit the front window of a nearby brownstone building.

Burke would do something like that to light her way. Only, it would be burned out by the time she got there. She picked up her personal phone to call him, but before she could, her hospital cell phone buzzed, setting her nerves on edge again. When her boss's phone number popped up on the screen, she thought about not answering, but she couldn't do that to the needy woman Tracy must be calling about.

Tracy had been director of the Sexual Abuse Response Team aka SART for ten years. Jewel had been onboard for all of them, and it was never easy.

Jewel couldn't get hello in before Tracy blasted her with information.

Paramedics just brought another one in. I think you better come quick. She's hurt bad, but she's still alive. Barely. But brace yourself. Tracy's deep and demanding voice started to break up, indicating she was out of the area or the storm had hit her call zone.

Jewel cleared her throat before she could speak. Brace myself for what?

Tracy clicked off without another word and so did Jewel. So like Tracy to leave her hanging. She made a U-turn and headed north, wondering what this woman would look like, and what her story would be. Most of all, Jewel wondered whether she'd be up to whatever calamity awaited her.

In her work, a woman's body was the crime scene, and her job included collecting evidence off the victim, whether dead or alive, as well as documenting and taking pictures of injuries, and testifying in court. Sometimes, if she had to do a long and difficult interview with a victim, she spent five hours with one client. It was grueling work, but someone had to help these women.

Jewel glanced out the window. Out there, somewhere in the city, lived the men who did terrible things to women, leaving them too afraid of retaliation to fight back or press charges.

She'd examined women of every age, class, race, religion, section of the city, sexual orientation, and personality group. Nearly one in three adult women in the city could wind up in Jewel's examining room at some time during their lives. They were the women she might have seen yesterday eating lunch at Planet Hollywood or shopping last week at Bloomingdale's. They were the women who should have been allowed to live their lives in safety, but had been stopped by violence.

Jewel met little traffic until she hit the FDR Drive. Headlights and skyscrapers behind her turned ghostlike in the rear view mirror. Ahead, taillights glittered like fire and ice. The black waters of the East River swirled to her right.

In her mind, she reviewed the long list of women she'd examined and counseled over the years. Each of their abusers used power and control as the main tactics, but lurking beneath that veneer was low self-esteem, refusal to accept responsibility for the violence, and the belief it was justified. What would be funny, if it weren't so ridiculous, was that many of them blamed the victim for causing the violence. And what was even stranger, except that Jewel understood it, was that the women forgave their attackers, and some even apologized, acting as if the battering or rape were their fault.

But this man, the next one who had battered and maybe raped the woman now lying on a stretcher in New York City Hospital, what kind would he be? Would he be a stranger to the woman, someone he'd picked at random to discharge his violence on? Or maybe he'd stalked her because she'd irritated him in some way. He could even be the sadistic type who got aroused by hurting women.

The shadowy figure of a man from her past arose in her mind, and she vowed to help the next woman, the one she was on her way to examine. The one she would help find the strength to stay alive to confront her attacker in court.

She picked up her phone again and clicked on Lt. Graham's number. When her SART partner didn't answer, she left him a message to meet her at the hospital. She'd asked for a different partner at least twice and was given the runaround. The conclusion was simple. They didn't like each other much, but they were on the same team, and that was that.

The exit for 96th Street loomed ahead. She took it and proceeded to 97th Street and First Avenue. The hospital's emergency lights were the only ones on in the block. An ambulance pulled up to the ER entrance, siren at full tilt.

Jewel parked in the employee's lot and hurried past a CBS News van. The vultures were here already, feeding off the suffering of others, ready to ask stupid questions she had no answers for. Head down, the collar of her raincoat turned up around her ears, she didn't look up. The battered woman, whoever she was, must be famous. That, or someone else capable of making headlines had been admitted.

Whatever adrenaline still lingered inside her bubbled up and hit her nerves like a caffeine rush. She had to get inside, save the woman, and find out who'd hurt her. Three simple things. Three possibly impossible things.

***

Jewel slid her camera out of her bag, stepped around the other scrub-dressed staff in the cramped trauma room to get a better view. Despite the blood and swelling on the victim's face, Jewel froze.

Sara Jenkins, the District Attorney, Jewel's best friend, lay on the stretcher, motionless, connected to monitors.

Sara widened her eyes before a gradual glimmer of recognition took over. Even that slight movement made her irises fade to dead leaf brown. Her blonde hair, once so shiny and beautiful, clung in greasy and bloody clumps around her face. Her fingers hung off the sheet at odd angles, fractured.

Sara, Jewel whispered, reaching out to hold her friend's hand, then pulling back, remembering she must not compromise the crime scene anymore than the medical staff may have already. Tears swelled behind her eyes, but she sniffed them back, not wanting to distress Sara even more.

Jewel searched Sara's face. How little she knew about her best friend's social life. Sara could be involved with a jealous man who couldn't measure up to her power and took it out on her. Or, it could be someone she'd sent to prison who was now back in the city, ready to take his revenge.

To keep her composure and do her job, Jewel studied the six rows of horizontal cuts across Sara's forehead and cheeks and another six across her chest that gleamed in the overhead fluorescent lights. Ligature marks around her neck and the deep and bloody gouges cutting in around her wrists and ankles shouted torture. It all looked too perfect, almost artistic.

Jewel whispered to her friend what she was about to do, and then gently extracted bloody tissue from underneath two of Sara's fingernails that could contain her attacker's DNA.

Sara's heart monitor beeped in steady pulsating sounds, the IV dripped into her arm, and somebody splinted her fractured fingers before staff started disappearing, their work done. Jewel continued taking pictures and looking for possible evidence of Sara's attacker, while keeping one eye on the monitors.

A deep voice came over the speakers and filled the room. GSW coming in.

Third gunshot wound tonight. The only staff left, a brunette nurse with kind eyes, whom Jewel had worked with before, reached up to replace Sara's drained IV packet. Have to go next door, Jewel. Rap on the glass window if you need me. She stripped her gown and gloves into a container by the door and left.

Franny. Wait. I need you to witness. The door thudded shut and Jewel's heart took a dive as she pulled the flimsy privacy curtain around the stretcher. Everything had to be done according to procedure or risk letting Sara's brutal attacker get off on a technicality.

When she stared into Sara's almost unrecognizable face again, Jewel gulped back anger, and a shadowy image of a man formed in her mind. Don't go there. She took out her cell phone.

The message she sent to Lt. Graham this time was less polite. Come to Trauma Room One. Now! Wondering if he was delayed or just trying to irk her on purpose, she realized she was going to have to do this one her own, and yanked a pocket tape recorder out of her bag. He was never available when she needed him. Maybe he never got the message or forgot to recharge his cell. What an infuriating man.

It took Jewel a minute to get her composure back. Counting to ten didn't help, but saying the Pledge of Allegiance did. That little distraction had worked for her since grade school. She took a deep breath, turned her recorder on, and prepared to dictate. Machines were better than people sometimes, if they didn't break down. At least, they didn't forget.

October 25, 8:15 p.m., this is Jewel Connor, forensic nurse examiner, interviewing District Attorney Sara Jenkins in Trauma Room One, New York City Hospital. The patient was tied up, brutally beaten, and cut. She is weak, but stable. Jewel's voice cracked on the words, brutally beaten, as she struggled to keep her emotions out of her voice.

She looked into Sara's eyes and tried to put compassion in her voice when she asked. Do you know who attacked you?

The DA blinked twice and sighed. Eyes squinting, she searched the ceiling from right to left as if she was trying to remember. No. Came from behind.

Could you tell if was a man or a woman? Ninety-nine percent of the time it was a man, but she had to ask the question.

Man.

Now for some easy ones, things she might be able to remember no matter how horrifying the beating. Did you hear his voice or smell cigarette smoke or aftershave?

Sara tightened her cheeks and searched Jewel's face. Raspy voice. No smells.

Of course not. Why did she even ask that? If he was behind her, she wouldn't be able to smell him. She never made mistakes like that with strangers. She was just too involved with this case. Her boss should have known that. Jewel should have known it.

She exhaled hard and tried again. "When and where did this happen?

Saturday. Outside my apartment.

Did he have a car?

Dark. New. Sara moaned and lines of tension increased around her mouth.

Enough questions for now. Take a rest. Jewel clicked off the recorder and pulled the curtain tighter around the gurney.

When she heard the click of the outside door opening and closing, she froze, then forced herself to take a quick peek out from behind the curtain that revealed no one.

Nerves. She'd been fighting them all day. They were nothing to what the female population of New York City would have once they found out the horrible things that had happened to their district attorney.

Sara was well-known and well-liked by many of them, and it wouldn't be a big jump in logic to picture themselves in jeopardy. Especially after the press splashed Sara's face all over their front pages. Poor Sara. If she thought the humiliation was over, she better think again. It could be just starting, unless Jewel found a way to stop it. Graham could help. If he ever showed up.

Pulse throbbing in her forehead, Jewel yanked on a set of clean gloves and took hair and fluid samples. She crouched down to get a better look at Sara. The injuries looked vaguely familiar, but she wasn't sure why.

To keep Sara warm, she settled a clean gown and blanket over the top portion of her body before grabbing a rape kit. She'd completed this part of the exam hundreds of times, but never on a colleague, and that made it personal.

Jewel clicked the tape recorder back on. I need to find out something else from you. Did he rape you? She put as much compassion into her voice as possible, but it was a lousy question either way.

Tears slid down Sara's cheeks. She shrugged and stared up at the ceiling.

I'm really sorry. I hate to ask, but I need you to answer that question.

Don't think so.

Have you had sexual intercourse in the last twenty-four hours?

No.

That's all the questions for now. I'll do a pelvic exam on you and be as gentle as I can. Halfway through, she picked up a special magnifying camera and stared at the vaginal and rectal tissue, trying to detect any micro-trauma invisible to the human eye.

To make sure, she took more swabs. I don't see any bumps, notches, or scarring. I don’t think you were raped, but the lab tests will show more.

Sara stared straight ahead, giving no outward response.

Jewel glanced down at her colleague. Not like Sara to give no reply, but the trauma she'd endured would blunt anyone's reactions. She went back to work, preparing samples, writing only a tracking number on each item. When she finished, she stashed each paper bag in the locked drop box with the others to hand to her police department partner whenever he showed up. She pulled down Sara's gown and gently tucked the blanket around the rest of her body.

Sara sniffed and started to sob. Big tears streamed down her face and her body shook.

Jewel put a hand on her colleague's shoulder.

A pleading look on her face, Sara inched her hand out to touch Jewel's arm and mouthed three words. Find out who.

I will. I promise.

Sara slackened her hold on Jewel's arm, eyes already closing.

The monitor beeped in rapid succession.

Sara went into cardiac arrest.

***

While Rebecca and other staff ran into the room and began resuscitation efforts, Jewel stood back, watching, not believing what happened. Unable to stand by any longer, she grabbed a thumb-sized camera from her pocket and took pictures of Sara’s wounds. It was so much easier to focus on work than on Sara's condition.

Jewel needed the photos in case the staff, in their zeal to help, wiped away important evidence. Camera gripped tight in her hands, she snapped Sara from various angles, careful not to interrupt the team of nurses and doctors at work trying to revive Sara. She moved forward for close-ups of Sara’s neck, hands, ankles and stab wounds that she'd incorporate into her computer-generated report.

Jewel hurried to the corner and a waiting computer. She clicked on Traumagram Report and started processing in the wound sizes, shapes, appearances and locations, using readily recognized anatomic landmarks.

BP eighty over fifty, Rebecca shouted, a tone of impending doom in her voice.

The medical resident scowled before he injected a syringe full of liquid into Sara’s IV.

BP dropping, Rebecca shouted. She’s bleeding out.

The medical resident prepared to shock Sara’s heart. Call surgery and alert the chief resident up there. We’re sending her up.

Rebecca grabbed the IV bag that dripped into Sara’s arm, and helped push the gurney out the door.

Jewel desperately wanted to follow the DA in surgery, but her job lay here. For now.

Wait, she almost shouted, then realized it was too late. She hadn’t obtained a consent form from Sara.

That would have to come later.

Alone in the room, Jewel zeroed in on the pile of clothes, bent down, and picked up the garments the staff had cut off Sara’s body so they could work on her. Each piece of fabric contained evidence that could place Sara at the scene of the crime and maybe even identify her attacker.

Jewel set a sheet of clean white paper over each stain to avoid cross-contamination, and then gently put each item in a separate paper bag. She labeled each item and wrote the date and her name on the outside.

Good thing she’d taken the photos. In time, and certainly after surgery, Sara’s wounds would change character. By then important evidence could be lost. That, she couldn't allow to happen. Not now, not ever.

She pushed open the door, exited the trauma room, and almost ran right into Lt. Graham. Tall, muscular, whiskers on his chin, a sneer hovering on his lips, protruding eyes shadowed by thick brows; she'd know him anywhere.

Where have you been, Graham?

His eyes glinted with humor. Doing my job. And you?

That egotistical expression on his face just about did it, but chain of evidence must be maintained. Even if it had to be with a jerk.

Graham grabbed the evidence and looked like he was going to leave. Then he turned around and said, There’s something you should know.

Her heart stopped. What?

He shrugged. "I don’t know why