Forensic Science Fifth Period 3/7

[cheerfulgoth.livejournal.com]

In place of the overhead today there was a flat screen TV set up in the lab and Abby was busying talking to an older gentleman as the students entered.

	"Hey everyone, this is Ducky." Abby waved towards the flatscreen. "Dr.Donald Mallard is the chief medical examiner for NCIS. He's British."
	"Really, Abigail, you didn't even bring up my glory days at Eton."Ducky leaned closer to the screen. "I used to be quite the cricket-"
[Unknown site tag]	"It's an hour long class, Ducky." Abby smiled. Hopping up on the counter, she looked at the class. "Ducky's going to teach you the different ways to discover when people died. We've talked about temperature but that's just the normal way."
	"Here at NCIS, we excel at the abnormal." Ducky said with a smile and cleared his throat. "Now, most TOD's can be determined by liver or rectal temperature. That's only an option for the recently deceased.The decomposed, the skeletons, the men and women who suffered, those poor souls don't avail themselves to simple thermometer checks. Once we happened upon a poor general who had fallen beneath the icy waters of a lake. Of course her temperature would indicate that she had been dead for a long period of time when in actuality, she had only perished hours earlier."
	Abby pointed to the table in front of the lab. On the table were calculators, decomposition worksheets, food spoil data, insect diagrams and other forensic equipment. As Abby held up an item, Ducky explained how they were used.
	"I understand that Abigail has prepared a crime scene for you in which the poor victim didn't perish immediately. In those cases you need to become more of a detective. You see, those with the badges aren't the only ones finding a killer. The medical examiner and the forensics technicians are an important cog in the wheel of justice."
	"Damn straight." Abby said with a grin. "Does anyone have any questions for Ducky?"

After the questions, Abby pointed towards the door. "Now to the crime scene!" She opened the lab door onto the side of a hot summer road. The blacktop wavered with shimmers of heat and nearby was a bridge, a small tarp hanging from one side to protect the corpse from the elements.

"The police found Conner alive this morning. He lived just long enough to tell them that he was the victim of a hit and run by a red car." Abby looked over at the tarp. "Then he died. The police can't catch the killer without more to go on. That's where you come in."

[ooc: plz to be waiting for the ocd! playing!]

Comments

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

And there was Conner. Under the circumstances, he looked like a pretty happy "dead" boy. Because hey, red car.

Re: I see dead people!

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

Once Mac had checked around the crime scene a little, she wandered over to talk to the 'dead person', wrinkling her nose slightly at the blood. Ow.

She looked down at Conner, "Hi, dead dude."

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"Hi, person trying to figure out how I died!" Conner replied cheerfully. "Whaddya need to find out from the conveniently chatty corpse?"

[OOC: *smites LJ and its error messages*]

Re: I see dead people!

[imac-kenzie.livejournal.com]

"A time of death would be handy to start with," Mac said uncapping her pen in preparation to make a note of any useful information on her worksheet.

"And uh, just out of curiosity," she added. "How'd you manage to lose a shoe in a hit and run?"

Re: I see dead people!

[twohalvesofaphd.livejournal.com]

Zack took one look at Conner then said "You didn't get out of the way of Mel's driving fast enough, did you?"

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"You know," Conner replied dryly, "it really could've been Mel, 'cause if that car wasn't flying, it was trying to."

Re: I see dead people!

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana smiled at him. "Hey, Conner. You look terribly happy for someone who's dead. So... want to tell me time and cause of death and any other injuries? And what's the deal with the milk?"

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"It was a red car," Conner told her, grinning. "There are worse ways to go, but check out my arm! It's like, in fifty million pieces or something!"

He drummed the fingers of the other, non-"fractured" arm against the pavement for a moment, and said, "Well, I was out for groceries and errand-y stuff, so that explains the milk. But I died at 10:15 AM 'cause I think some of my organs exploded or something when I got hit."

Re: I see dead people!

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"Very cool arm," Lana said, hoping she didn't sound too much like she was humoring him. "So, 10:15 AM and a fractured arm. No other injuries? Anything interesting in terms of stomach contents or the like?"

Re: I see dead people!

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"Hey Conner. Where'd your other shoe get to?" Billy asked, looking around for it.

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"Billy! No idea," Conner replied, "but lemme tell ya that's the last time I stop to tie 'em in the middle of the road again. Literally. Except not really."

Re: I see dead people!

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

"Maybe you should try double knotting them in the next life." Billy suggested. "Then they won't come untied so often."

Re: I see dead people!

[the_merriest]

Rikku giggled. "So, you died, huh? Must be awful to be hit by a car! What's your temperature like? Is the ground really hot or cold? Oh! What about your stomach contents, like, what are they and how old are they?"

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

Okay, so Conner had been cheerful about the whole playing dead thing, but she was even more cheerful about it than he was, and that was maybe just a weetiny little bit disturbing.

"Uhhhh . . . it's, um, kinda cold here under the bridge and I don't ever wanna feeeeeeeeeeeeeel like I did that day, take me to the place I loooooooooooove, take me all the way," he said slowly. "I probably had a few Twinkies in my stomach, but for all I know they exploded all over the inside of my chest cavity when I got hit?"

Re: I see dead people!

[the_merriest]

"Yeouch. That sounds bad." She made notes. "And you didn't die until this morning? Were you, like, awake for that? That would be awful!"

"No dinner, so no stomach contents for timing." She sighed. "And you're totally not dead, right? I mean, like, real dead."

Re: I see dead people!

[imissmydolphin.livejournal.com]

"Hi," Lucas waved to the dead person. "I'm going to need your time and cause of death and any other injuries, especially unusual ones. And what's with the torn shirt? Would there be any fragments in the tear that I could take a sample of? Oh, and did you fall that way after you were hit?"

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"10:15 AM, an exploding spleen -- okay, internal injuries is the official cause but I like to say exploding spleen, and this seriously screwed-up compound fracture that broke the skin and is getting chewed up by bugs now. Wanna take a look at it?" Conner kind of had the spiel down now. "I kind of managed to crawl a few feet after I got hit, but the whole lying down thing got to be about the only position I could handle, so here I am. Under the bridge. Dead, with a broken watch and spoiled milk, and treadmarks on my stomach."

He heaved a melodramatic sigh. "I bet there's still rubber pieces in there. And it was one of my favorite shirts, too."

Re: I see dead people!

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

"Hey, Captain Soccer-man. Did you get a look at the car?" Parker grinned down at him. "Nicely crumpled look."

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"Uh huh," Conner said, dreamily. "It was red. I noticed when I was looking up at it from sorta underneath. And thanks."

Re: I see dead people!

[notawitch.livejournal.com]

"Hey there!" said Will, pulling out her notebook. "I don't really want to go poking at your liver or kidneys with a needle or whatever, so I'm hoping your know your own time of death. And how it happened would be great to know too." She grinned. "Nice sock."

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"Aw, thanks!" Conner poked his toes out of the hole in his sock and wiggled them. "For not poking me with needles, I mean. And if you wanna know when I kicked the bucket, it was at 10:15 this morning. Which wasn't when the car ran me over. I've been under this bridge for a while and my watch broke hours ago, so I have no idea how long it was."

Re: I see dead people!

[kitty--fetish.livejournal.com]

Despite the scenery, Alphonse couldn't help but look amused. "Enjoying yourself?"

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"I am the most comfortable gross dead body ever, Al," Conner replied, stretched out on the pavement.

Re: I see dead people!

[swerval_zero]

"Tell me you at least got a look at the car," Zero said as she leaned over Conner.

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"Of course I got a good look at the car. It was red," Conner said, shocked that she'd even doubt that for a moment. "You think I wouldn't notice?"