The third expert I interviewed for my book, Three May Keep a Secret, is Bill Underwood, Warren County Coroner, who works out of our town, Monmouth, Illinois. Monmouth is a college town in west central Illinois with a population of 10,000. Bill and I met in a local restaurant over coffee.
[I should mention that this post is a reworking of an earlier post when I was still writing that book.]
My interview with Bill involved learning answers to my quesions about shootings, stabbings, and fire deaths. He is highly qualified to answer these
questions. While he is not a doctor, he did study mortuary science so he knows his way around death and bodies. It became apparent, as I questioned him, that he has seen some amazing events during his time on the job.
Underwood is the gateway for laying people to rest in Warren County. Usually he has 140 cases a year and 250 deaths. He signs both death and cremation certificates, and both are filled out and filed electronically these days. No one can
be buried or cremated without a signed certificate, so if there is a question, the certificate is held up until the death is investigated. The coroner can also order an autopsy even if the family does not agree. Whenever there is any suspicion about a death, the coroner has the legal ability to keep a body from being disposed of until the suspicion is satisfied.
Underwood can order tests, or the medical examiner can order them when he does an autopsy. Usually they do toxicology tests and tissue blocks, and they always keep sample tissues. The best test, especially for a DUI, is from the vitreous fluid in the eye (I don't even want to think about that one.) The medical authorities also save samples of tissue from the brain, liver, lungs, and other organs.
Bill is called out to home deaths, ER deaths, hospital deaths less than 24 hours old, suicides, homicides, and sometimes hospice deaths.
When he is called out to a death scene, Bill takes photos or has the Illinois State Police take photos, say, in a gunshot death. He talks to the authorities at the scene and, in the case of a fire, waits for the Fire Marshal. The coroner has two jobs at the scene: (1) get the
body removed once photos and an exam are done; and (2) notify the family. The latter is very important and, because scanners can be bought by private citizens, that notification sometimes becomes a nightmare.
Several examinations determine cause and manner of death. At the scene the coroner checks for the time of death, which might be determined by rigor mortis and lividity. Sometimes a temperature is taken, particularly in the death of a child. In adults the core temperature goes down one degree per hour, and in children two degrees per hour after death.
If the death is suspicious, Underwood accompanies the body to an autopsy or one of his deputies does. He has four deputies scattered through local funeral homes. A forensic pathologist does the autopsy, and the coroner and state police attend the postmortem. In our area that is done at the Peoria County Morgue. It is
really important that the "chain of evidence" be protected, so this is why the coroner signs a card saying he has checked the body at the scene and accompanied it, or caused it to be accompanied, by qualified personnel.
I asked Underwood about inquests because I remember reading about them in the past. In fact, I read a newspaper account of an inquest concerning a fire that happened years ago, resulting in a fatality. Inquests used to always be held because the law said they must be held in all deaths. But recently the law was changed to say an inquest "may" be held. Rarely are they held now except in the case of a suspicious death. The coroner can call the inquest and he has a jury pool of six people. He calls in witnesses and uses depositions to indicate the cause of death and how it will be labeled. There are five causes of death: homicide, suicide, natural, undetermined, and accidental.
Hmmm...as an author, I only concentrated on the first one. And talking to Bill determined an important decision about my research: I have decided to draw the line on ever seeing an autopsy as part of my book research. Ever.
I saw the movie version of "Les Miserables" this week and the order of actors in the credits reminded me of the Shakespearean quote about the world being a stage. Yes, it's true that each player has his time and size of role. But even the most obscure part has its function. (Think of all the bodies at the end of the revolution or on the battlefield of "Lincoln.")
What functions do authors think about when they create characters in their minds or on their pages?
Orson Scott Card, who has written multiple books about the writing craft, mentions that characters can be divided into walk-ons and placeholders, minor characters, and major characters. In a movie like "Les Miserables" or a mystery novel, an author has to consider how much time and description to give to each character he creates.
The walk-ons and placeholders are part of the background of a story. They have their purposes either in large ensemble groups or in small parts. They come in, do their thing, and then leave. In movie credits, such a character might be labeled "second man with gun." In the Sherlock Holmes' stories, the Baker Street Irregulars, a band of street urchins that Holmes relies on for intelligence, is such a group. In "Les Miserables," the priest who gives Jean Valjean the candlesticks or the foreman of the factory who throws Fantine out, help send each character toward his or her destiny. Then the priest and foreman leave the stage/screen, mission accomplished.
In the mystery I just finished writing, Three May Keep a Secret, the county coroner, Dr. Ron Martinez, identifies a fire victim and then escorts her body to the larger city of Woodbury to keep the chain of evidence intact prior to her autopsy. I describe him only briefly, with a few details to show how tired he is when called out in the middle of the night. I also mention he is actually a pediatrician who doubles as a coroner in the tiny town of Endurance. Multiple titles is a characteristic of small towns.
The second category, minor characters, helps the plot along and we learn more about them than the walk-ons. They have their purposes too, and without them the story wouldn't work as well or take some of the turns it takes. In "Les Miserables," Samantha Barbs plays Eponine, a tragic character who is in love with Marius, and she has more screen time than the walk-ons, but she is not considered a major character. It is important that we feel her despair when she realizes that Marius is actually in love with Cosette, because then we understand Eponine's motive in hiding Cosette's letter from Marius. Major plot point!
In Three May Keep a Secret, Grace Kimball has two friends who play supportive roles in her life. One is Deb O'Hara, former junior high school secretary, married with two grown-up daughters, and always ready for a party, especially if it involves margaritas. Deb raises the alarm when Grace goes missing. She is in sharp contrast to Jill Cunningham, another friend who makes infrequent appearances in the book. She is there when Grace learns of an unexpected death and she always keeps the group in focus. She is an accountant and a no-nonsense kind of disciplined person who jogs two miles every morning. Unknowingly, they put Grace in the path of a killer when they volunteer her for a job. They are necessary to the plot, but not major characters.
A sub-category of minor characters is those who provide comic relief, especially in such a tragic story as "Les Miserables." Those characters would be Madame Thenardier (Helen Bonham Carter) and her husband played by Sacha Baron Cohen. In Three May Keep a Secret, two characters offer comic relief. A dark mystery needs to give the reader time to catch her breath after something terrible happens. Ronda Burke is such a character. She is pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian and is Grace's former student. She has an enormously ugly dog she has named "Adonis." Grace's sister-in-law, Lettie Kimball, is also a comic relief character. She believes everything she reads in the tabloids, listens to all the gossip around town, and has outrageous opinions. A minor character, she reflects a kind of small town person, but she also keeps her ears open for what is happening. She knows the pulse of the town.
We get to know the major characters well and want to know their fates. Their lives--and often their points of view--drive the plot. These major characters have both strengths and weaknesses and what we think of each of them determines how we feel about their fates. We must care about them, however, to stay involved in the story.
"Les Miserables" can only work because every character has his role to play. The same is true in any novel we read. The author determines page time and description length by the function of the character. Next time you read a novel or watch a film, think about the role each character plays, large or small. How would the movie or novel be different if that character, no matter how minor, didn't exist?
