When I met Dr Chen in school reunion dinner , our chat turned into something quite interesting, not about food but CSI stuff. It happened 6 years before near east coast small seaside town. ….
As Dr Chen started to cut the dead pregnant woman, he sensed someone was standing next to him. As he turned around, nothing was there.
The lab phone beep again. He ripped off his surgical glove to walk over to pick up the phone.
“Hey, I could not trust what that guy told me. ” It was Kamarul, the local district pathology department head.
“He is a man of religion, but the alibi just do not jive, hang in there , I am coming over. I heard there were some villagers trying to storm the hospital to take the body ” Kamarul said.
The dead body belonged to a lady named Nila, a very bright accountant that is the daughter to a local politician. Not wearing any head scarf and she suffered blunt force trauma to the side and back of her head. Dr Chen met her before, she used to hang out with the one German geologist that did contract oil drilling exploration works offshore. The only foreigner around the quiet seaside town, the name was Detlef.
Geez.. what a waste… ” Dr Chen started to work, picking up the scalpel and started cutting away. He too, could not believe she died from bathroom fall. When the emergency service took her in, she was already dead. The husband claimed that he found her unconscious after he came back from prayer.
As he was working away, someone rushed in. It was the chief nurse.
“Hey, they wanted the body back for burial” The chief nurse said.
“It’s protocol, she is young and died of suspicious circumstance ,I won’t sign her death cert without knowing the real cause, aren’t you ?” Dr Chen asked the nurse back hold a pen to her face.
“Hmm.. no.. I will try to hold them back but let me remind you, some of them comes carrying sharp weapons and looks like riot going to break out. We are talking about the chief cleric’s wife here.” The nurse said.
“Call Kamarul.. ” Dr Chen said.
“Another 1/2 hour is all it takes.” Dr Chen replied and turned away to look at the body.
As the nurse left the room, suddenly he felt something very small , like a kid run past his leg. The room was quiet and air was stale. As he looked around, he could see a small figure hiding behind the operating table. The reflection from the stainless steel cabinet indicated blond curly hair boy with blue eyes, vaguely visible with a very cheeky look.
“Look, I am going to count to three and you better disappear from here or I am going to call the police, mortuary is no place for kids… ok.. “Dr Chen trying to get back to work. He thought it was just another kid from nearby village as the perimeter of the hospital was unfenced.
Suddenly everything went back to normal and the kid was no more. Without wasting a second, Dr Chen cut open the womb and measured the fetal temperature, took some sample tissue and body fluid from the fetal. Everything was done real quick.
It was a very quiet 30 mins, until suddenly someone bang the door. Dr Chen suddenly realized that , he seemed to wake up from sleep holding a pen , putting a full stop after his final signature. That must be the fastest postmortem he had ever carried out.
“Are you done with the report and the body ? ” Kamarul was screaming , why the hell you locked the door.
“I dd…didn’t and here you go..” Dr Chen stammered a bit and handing over the report. He quickly turned over to the body , putting the fetal back to the womb and sewn up the opening. But the intriguing things was, as he turned the fetal around. It was curly hair with blue eye. Almost as if he had seen him somewhere.
“Wait !” Dr Chen turned to Kamarul .
Kamarul was reading the report.
” ….. the baby died after the Mom suffered blunt force trauma to her head, .. her hair was pull and slammed against object….
… baby has blond curly hair and blue eyes … “
“Are you sure ?” Kamarul asked. He walked over and look at the fetal before Dr Chen pulled the stitches to close the womb.
“Positive !”Dr Chen replied. He quickly done up her head and handed over the body to the technician in waiting.
Dr Chen felt really stressed out after the work and fell asleep in his office. It was not until 7pm, as the chief nurse walked by to knock on his door, he got up to go back to his own quarter . That night, as he walked to the local coffee shop to have his usual cup. He overheard the local cleric was arrested over murder of his third wife.
Then he realized that , he was somehow possessed while doing the postmortem that whole day. Somehow somebody was inside him and did the job to make sure the truth to come out.
Next few months, rumors were flying that originally Nila was having affair with Detlef during his stay. When his father found out she was pregnant, he forcefully married the daughter away to be the become cleric’s third wife in order to save the family honor.
After she got married , she was feeling rather miserable with the cleric’s regimental lifestyle and tried to plot her own escape plan. When she was caught trying to run away from the town by his followers , out of moment of rage the cleric pulled her long hair and slammed it against the bathroom wall, the head injury was good enough to kill her.
The first and second wife also lodged police report against him for violent abused. The interesting part was, it was a day after the incident both of them shown up in the police station asking for protection. The police kept them in a detention cell next to a drug addict, Jalil.
Over a stick of cigarette, a year later, the drug addict kicked his habit and became a cleaner in the mortuary area . Jalil shared with Dr Chen his story about the two women of some cleric’s wife, saying that both of them having the same dream about a blue-eyed boy coming to warn them about the how they are going to be killed for being the witness to her Mom’s killing. They both got real scared and went to the police.
