Castle (TV Series)

The Way of the Ninja (2014)

Arye Gross: M.E. Sidney Perlmutter

Quotes 

• [examining the victim] 

  Richard Castle : Looks like she was stabbed with a knife.

  Kate Beckett : Mmm.

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : To the untrained eye, perhaps. But... what you don't know about postmortem analysis could fill a book, Mr. Castle. In fact, it has. Numerous times.

  Richard Castle : Fine. So, it was not a knife.

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Ah, wrong again. It was a knife, but "stabbed" implies the blade was *thrust* into the victim, uh, whereas this wound was produced by it being *hurled* into her chest.

  Kate Beckett : What is this, "Last of the Mohicans"? What kind of knife is it?

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Uh, one with a hilt that matches these small bruises on either side of the wound. It killed her instantly, severing the left anterior descending artery.

  Kate Beckett : Okay, so either that's the luckiest knife toss in the world...

  Richard Castle : Or, she was killed by a circus knife-thrower. Like the Great Throwdini.

  [Perlmutter sighs wearily and walks away] 

• M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Well, I checked the victim for any implants or traceable medical hardware, but... I discovered nothing that would aid you in your quest. However, I did find a telling mark on her body.

  [pulls off sheet to show Castle and Beckett scars on the victim's back] 

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : This is a *very* unusual scar. Uh, my guess is she sustained the injury ten or twelve years ago.

  Richard Castle : Right about the time she was sent to the orphanage.

  Kate Beckett : In what way is the scar unusual?

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Uh, she took shrapnel. Based on faint, small scars over her back and legs, it was from some kind of explosion, like an IED.

  Kate Beckett : You're not saying she was in combat as a ten-year-old girl?

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Uh, Improbable, but this much I know, she was treated by a U.S. military surgeon.

  Kate Beckett : And you know that based on what?

  M.E. Sidney Perlmutter : Uh, this open type of stippled scarring is the result of a technique called debriding. Uh, military surgeons started using it on blast wounds during the Afghan war, saved a *lot* of lives, but it wasn't adopted by civilian doctors until fairly recently. Only two military facilities in Japan were doing this surgery at that time. One at a base in Yokosuka and one in Okinawa.

  Kate Beckett : Okinawa?

  [to Castle] 

  Kate Beckett : That's where Saito's Yakuza clan came from.