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!

[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!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"Twinkies?" Conner offered. "I needed milk to make the macaroni and cheese for dinner, so I had to go out and get some. Arm got all chewed up on by the bugs, though! And I've got cool tire tracks on my stomach."

Re: I see dead people!

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"Bugs and tire tracks," Lana said with a smile. "Any chance I can see them, take a picture and some samples?"

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

Conner cheerfully lifted his torn shirt to show her the tire tracks. "I'm ready for my closeup," he said. "And when you're done with that, I got a test tube of bugs for you here. And . . . some other stuff!"

Re: I see dead people!

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana took a picture of the tracks and reached out to take the test tube of the bugs. "Other stuff? Do tell!"

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"Want my broken watch?" Conner offered, dangling said watch between his fingers. "And the milk's gone bad, but there were some crossword puzzles on the carton."

Re: I see dead people!

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"And does your broken watch say 10:15 AM?" Lana asked curiously as she took it and went to pick up the milk carton.

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

"Naw. It died before I did," Conner replied. "I remember, 'cause I was trying to figure out how long I'd been lying here when I realized the backlight wasn't working. And then the sun came up and I found out it wasn't working at all any more."

Re: I see dead people!

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

"And what time does it say?" Lana asked, figuring that would let her know when he'd been hit.

Re: I see dead people!

[connernotconnor.livejournal.com]

Conner handed the watch to her. It was a little hard to tell, since the LCD crystals had been cracked and were bleeding across the face of the display, but it did seem to look like 9:4-something PM.

Re: I see dead people!

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana nodded. "Okay, thanks, Conner." She started to head off, then turned back. "Oh, I'm not sure about running tomorrow. I mean, I'd like to, but I don't think it would be much fun for you. I'm not going to be able to go too far or too fast."