“I’m ready to do this if you are,” says Danielle in a sarcastic tone.
I really don’t think Danielle likes this part of her job. Who really would? Looking up the vaginas of women for evidence of physical trauma isn’t the most glamorous, but someone has to do it. And I’m glad it’s not me. Danielle puts on latex gloves then hands Dylan, the nurses, and me our own pairs, which we all put on.
“Can you help me elevate and spread her legs into these holsters?” Danielle asks.
There are two stand-alone holsters for Laura’s legs that are wheeled on each side of her bed. The two nurses, Danielle, and I manipulate Laura’s legs into the holsters. Her leg is heavy like a concrete block. Laura is completely out of it, lying unconscious, not reacting to us touching her body at all.
Danielle starts examining Laura’s head, neck, mouth, and teeth, swabbing two cotton sticks on the insides of and around her lips.
“Do you notice anything significant?” I ask.
“Other than the obvious marks on her wrists and hands, which I’m sure you caught, no,” Danielle says in her rude and abrupt way.
I take a closer look at Laura. Small scratches appear in vertical lines down the sides of her neck. There’s nothing worse than being in a physical exam with a victim and the medical personnel is not on your side. Between Dr. Lee and Nurse Danielle, I’m beginning to understand why Tuckford County, the “Big T,” is considered full of rude people.
Danielle then hands Dylan a plastic bag, asking him to hold it under Laura’s nails. She picks up nail clippers and uses them to snip each of Laura’s ten nails, letting them fall into the bag. Next, Danielle moves to Laura’s genitalia.
Placing forceps into Laura’s vagina, Danielle takes a small wand with a camera, which videotapes and takes photos, and inserts it into Laura’s vagina. She asks Dylan to hold a light nearby so she can get a better look inside Laura. Danielle writes down a few notes and begins to swab the area inside of Laura. Thirteen swabs were taken from Laura — vaginal, cervical, anal, and vulva. And they were all taken in silence.
Danielle then removes the forceps and begins to draw Laura’s blood, which she seals in a glass tube with a lavender top. Then she starts plucking some of Laura’s pubic hairs. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. There’s just some things that hurt me as much when I watch. I thought getting a Brazilian bikini wax where a lady waxes the hair off my vagina so it’s as soft as a baby’s butt was bad, but individual plucking seems a hundred times worse. I feel like I’m absorbing all the shock of the plucking for both Laura and myself, because she has no reflex to it.
“Why can’t you just trim the hair?” I ask.
“This is just a standard procedure we go through. I’ve always used my tweezers to pluck some of the hair. Plus, she’s not feeling anything we’re doing to her right now. Not on that pain drip she’s on,” says Danielle, pointing to a sack of liquid.
“You never know. What if she can hear and understand everything’s that happening to her, but she just can’t respond to us? I wonder if she’s paralyzed inside watching everyone prod and poke at her. Did you ever consider that?” I ask.
“No, because that’s not what happens,” says Danielle.
The idea that even the nurse is giving up on her makes me really sad. I promised Laura I wouldn’t leave her side and I’m not about to right now.
Last, Danielle takes out her camera and snaps photos of Laura’s body and the injuries on her wrists and hands.
Danielle removes her gloves and looks up at us.
“Were there any sort of findings?” I ask.
“Yes, there were,” says Danielle.
She stays silent and starts writing some notes in her chart. She stops, stands up, and puts the pen in her pants pocket.
“Well, do you care to share them with us?” I ask.
“Sure, I can do that,” she says. Another round of silence confirms she’s playing games with me.
“Well, there’s a couple things. My findings are consistent with sexual intercourse in the recent past. It appears she has erythema to fossa navicularis,” says Danielle.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“How long have you been in the Sexual Assault Unit?” Danielle asks sarcastically.
“Longer than you’ve been a VAT nurse. How many exams have you done?” I ask, snapping back.
“Roughly two hundred,” says Danielle.
“Are you always so pleasant when you conduct them?” I ask, smiling.
“I do each one the same way every time,” says Danielle.
“Are you always so skeptical about the victim?” I ask.
“I don’t judge,” says Danielle.
“Right. I’m sure you don’t. I just wonder if these cases involving sex workers get you thinking the victim had something to do with their assault,” I say.
“Look at a girl like Laura. This girl is sleeping around and selling her body. She’s a hooker and not very sympathetic. She certainly won’t be liked by your jurors,” says Danielle.
“You’re supposed to be a neutral party in this,” I say.
“I am,” says Danielle looking back at her watch.
“Do you want to know what erythema to fossa navicularis is?” she asks.
“I already asked you to explain that,” I say.
“It’s basically inflammation to the area between the hymen and the frenulum labiorum punendi.”
I hate when medical personnel speak in language I can’t understand. They always do it when they’re testifying, like I’m supposed to know what a frenulum is. At least I can ask them what that is without looking dumb in front of the jury. But here, Danielle knows I’ll have to ask what this is and she wants me to look stupid in front of Dylan, someone I’ve seen her flirt with in the past.
“I know what a hymen is, but what is that other thing you just mentioned?” I ask.
“Sometimes it’s referred to as a fourchette. It’s the area right by the back area near the anus,” says Danielle.
Now she’s speaking in a language I can understand. I remember Neil telling me things I never wanted to hear about the fourchette. He used to joke, “Your fourchette is worth a fortune.” That’s the only reason I remembered the word.
When Neil worked in the delivery room during one of his stints as a resident during medical school, he said the fourchette can be torn during delivery because of all the stretching that goes on down there. To prevent this, the doctors would make a deliberate cut starting from the fourchette towards the anus.
Neil said when the cut went too far, it left the whole area way too loose to ever make sex enjoyable again. So Neil told me if we ever had kids, I would have to get a C-Section. The fourchette can also be torn with forced acts like rape and sometimes needs stitches to get it back intact. But Danielle said Laura didn’t need surgery and there was no bleeding, just inflammation.
“So are her injuries consistent with being raped?” I ask.
“No, not at all. They’re consistent with sexual intercourse in general. If she was violently raped, I’d expect to see more than this,” Danielle replies. “I’ll write my findings in the report. Here are all the samples. I hope you find whoever did this to her. But this girl wasn’t raped.”
Within one minute of Dylan and me leaving Laura’s room, sirens and a loud intercom announcement screams out, “Code Blue, fifth floor, room 5-1-1!” Dr. Lee comes running down the hall with Bess, who is being grabbed by one of the nurses.
I start running behind Dr. Lee and into chaos. Laura is being wheeled out on her bed. Nurses are running down the hall and loud sirens are screeching.
“Irregular heart rhythm!” screams one of the nurses to Dr. Lee, who is running down the hall. Sirens are making it hard for me to hear anything else the nurse says. But then I hear Bess screaming.
“Are we resuscitating, Doctor? There are no written orders,” yells a nurse.
“Don’t save her. She’s not to be saved! Those are my orders!” shouts Bess.
“I’m hearing the verbal DNR,” says Dr. Lee. “And we have a legal witness right here,” says Dr. Lee turning towards me.
“Save her, please save her,” I yell back.
Dylan grabs me by the arm, pinching me so hard it makes the nerves in my nose cringe. I unlock my arm out of his, scream at him to leave me alone, and continue rushing towards Laura. Dylan runs after me and pulls me into a waiting room closing the door behind us.
“What are you doing?” I yell.
“That is not your place to be doing this,” says Dylan, pushing me up against the wall.
“They’re gonna let her die. She can’t die. We need to save her. Please let me save her,” I say.
“Gaby. Stop. Calm down. Listen to yourself. You can’t save her. Let her go. This is not your decision. Stop trying to control this.”
I begin to sob uncontrollably in Dylan’s arms with him holding me. I can save her. We can save her. She can’t die. I need to save her.
“Shhh, Gaby. Calm down. It’s okay,” Dylan says.
Everything around me starts to look blurry like I’m looking through a hazy white film. My ears start ringing loud, my head feels warm, and I feel like I’m passing out.
I must have only lost consciousness for a couple seconds. I’m lying down on my back on the floor of the waiting room. The fogginess starts to clear up. I start focusing in on a television pinned to the wall showing some soap opera. I study the seats around the room that are attached to the floor and see Bess sitting in one of the seats. The coolness of a wet rag lying across my forehead sends chills through my body.
Bess reaches into her shirt and removes a black beaded rosary from her bra. She closes her eyes, bows her head, and begins to slowly move her fingers across bead after bead while mumbling.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I think you went into a little shock,” says a nurse crouched down towards me. She removes the damp rag from my forehead.
“I thought we were going to have to check you in. You turned from a bright pink to a ghost white in a matter of seconds. I was a little worried about you,” says Dylan.
“What happened to Laura?” I ask.
“Dr. Lee gave her a cocktail of drugs to calm her down,” says the nurse.
“Is she alive?” I ask.
“Yes. But she’s still in a coma. She does have a pulse, though,” says the nurse, smiling at me.
“She made it,” I say.
“Yes, she made it,” says Dylan.
“You got your wish,” says Bess, glaring at me.
“What are the drugs for?” I ask.
“Just to help out with her anxiety and stabilize her blood pressure. She was having an irregular heart rhythm that set the monitor off and triggered the Code Blue. It may have been triggered by the exam,” says the nurse.
“But I thought she couldn’t feel anything,” I say.
“We don’t really know what she’s experiencing right now. And it’s just in case,” says the nurse.
“I thought you guys were going to let her die,” I say.
“She pulled through this one, all on her own. She’s a little fighter,” the nurse says.
“Can I go see her?” I ask.
“Of course. Do you feel okay?” asks the nurse.
“I’m fine. I just want to see her,” I say, reaching for Dylan’s hand as he helps me up. We walk to Laura’s room.
Standing next to Laura, who’s resting in her hospital bed, makes me wonder what she can hear or feel. She looks dead to me and her coloring is more pale than it was when I saw her less than an hour ago before her Code Blue. I ask Dylan and the nurse if I could be alone with her for a minute and they leave the room.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner, Laura. I know if I went to that motel just a little earlier, I could’ve saved you. I’m sorry. I won’t let them kill you. I know you’re gonna make it. I will fight for you to the end. I won’t let them put you in a casket. I won’t let that happen to you, I promise you.” I stare at Laura and see my mom’s face in hers.
I stare at Laura hoping she’ll open her eyes and see me. “Laura, please don’t leave me. Hang in there. I need you to wake up and tell us what happened. I need your help. I need you to get better and testify in Javier’s trial, too. Don’t leave me and I won’t leave you. I promise to come back every day to check on you until you wake up.
“Let’s do this one day at a time, together. Heal yourself. I need you to promise me you won’t give up on life. I need signs from you that you aren’t calling it quits. I’ll be back tomorrow to check up on you and let you know what’s happening in the investigation. Please, please, live through today,” I whisper to Laura.
Less than an hour after Laura’s Code Blue, Supervising DNA Analyst Miranda Jules greets us with a fresh smile and youthful glow at the front lobby of the Crime Lab. Miranda would meet the qualifications to work on the TV show CSI. She doesn’t fit the crunchy scientist stereotype. She’s trendy and wears glasses like the rest of her colleagues; they’re Coach ones, giving her a Pippa Middleton style that comes through even with her white lab coat on.
“Hi, Ms. Ruiz and
Dylan
, it’s nice to see you again,” says Miranda. With Miranda having Dylan on a first name basis and winking at him, I’m instantly suspicious if he’s dated her. But I stop myself and remember to put first things first. I’m here for Laura, not to investigate Dylan’s dating history.