(I)
Less than a
twenty-minute drive took Patricia to Luntville and the rather drab
county hospital. She knew it was her imagination, yet it bothered
her the way two clerks at the information kiosk gave her the eye
when she asked directions to the morgue. The basement, of course.
They were always in the basement.
The downstairs
unnerved her; it was dark and dead silent. Her footsteps clattered
about her head as she made her way to the yellowish glass-windowed
door that read, OFFICE OF THE COUNTY CORONER.
Let’s see how much pull my boss really has, she
thought. Getting a morgue to release recent records was usually
akin to pulling the teeth out of a ferret. When she entered, she
expected more odd looks from the personnel here and was nearly
shocked to find herself standing before a human dichotomy: an
utterly striking blonde in tight jeans and an open lab coat that
revealed a haltered bosom and a perfect bare abdomen. She had the
kind of body that spurred jealousy even from the most
extraordinarily attractive women.
Her body’s ten times better than mine! Patricia
thought. I’m pissed! “Hi,” she began,
and got out her driver’s license. “I’m—”
“Patricia White,
right?” A sexy Southern accent preceded the blond woman when she
hurried around the registration desk. She spoke very quickly. “The
governor’s office called this morning, and I’d just like you to
know that we’ll do whatever we can to accommodate you.” Then she
pulled out a folder. “You wanted to see the post records for a
decedent named Dwayne Parker?”
That’s what I call the red-carpet treatment,
Patricia thought, amused. Tim’s brother lit a
fire under somebody’s butt. “Yes, and I’m sorry it was such
short notice. I’m the attorney for the decedent’s wife, and I won’t
be in town long, so I didn’t really have time to file a FOIA
request.”
“Oh, well, there’s no
reason to do that”—the beautiful woman kept speaking very
quickly—“because, after all, we’re a branch of the government that
exists to serve the taxpayers’ needs.”
Now she’s absolutely kissing my ass, Patricia
realized. The coroner’s office for a rural county like this
probably didn’t keep the best records anyway. The last thing they’d want is a government
inspection. But it was working, and that all Patricia cared
about “Are you the receptionist? I was hoping to talk to the county
coroner himself.”
“Herself, and you
are, ma’am,” the blonde corrected, and gestured to the nametag on
her lab coat. It read c. BAKER, RUSSELL COUNTY CORONER. “And I’d be
happy to answer any questions you have, since the postmortem report
might be . . . confusing to you.”
Patricia opened the
folder and scanned the top sheet: Anomalous
death—COD, it read. Decapitation via smooth Transection of levator scapulae
muscular process and #5 & 6 cervical vertebrae.
Mode of transection as yet undetermined and
curious. She blinked, looked back up at Baker, and admitted,
“I’m only good with legalese, not medical tech talk. I guess this
means that the manner in which Dwayne Parker lost his head . . .
that’s what they’re calling
‘undetermined and curious’?”
The coroner nodded
curtly, but she was obviously curtailing something. “It’s just kind
of odd, and its difficult to explain in any way that makes sense.
But every now and then any medical examiner’s office will get a
cause of death that simply can never be determined.”
Patricia frowned at
the sheet. This was much less than she’d hoped for. “How was his
head cut off, is what I want to be able to tell the family. Was it
cut off, shot off? Was it knocked off in some sort of freak
accident?”
Another curt look
from the pretty coroner. “It was . . . none of those things, and
that’s about the only thing we do know.
No blade striations, no evidence of severe impact to the body, no
evidence of firearm discharge.”
“But the head was
never recovered—that’s what I heard from the locals, anyway. Is
that true?”
“Quite true,
ma’am.”
This was frustrating.
“I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it.”
“Look on the next
page, Ms. White.”
Patricia followed the
instruction and immediately fell silent.
What she looked at
now was the most macabre photograph she’d ever seen in her life. .
. .
The clarity of the
bright digital picture—Dwayne’s autopsy photo—seemed to shout at
her. “This . . . can’t be real, can it?”
“Oh, it’s real,
ma’am. I took the picture myself. It hasn’t been altered, and there
weren’t any defects in the film or processing. I took several with
several different cameras.”
The photograph framed
Dwayne’s chest and shoulders, as well as the area of space that his
head would occupy, if he’d had a head.
Patricia expected a clot-caked stump or some other kind of ragged
wound to indicate the decapitation. But there was
nothing.
There was just
skin.
“There’s not even
a—”
“Not even a neck,”
Baker finished. “And the osteo X-rays actually show a round—not a
severed—cervical vertebra. There’s actually no clinical evidence of
a decapitation—which I know is silly, because he’s got no head. But
the picture looks like he’d never had one. Look at the next
picture.”
Patricia, with some
trepidation, turned to the next sheet: a close-up of where the
“stump” should be.
“This,” she started,
shaking her head, “this . . .” She tried to frame words. “This
looks like there’s just skin grown over the place where his neck
should be.”
“Um-hmm.”
Patricia looked up
again, grateful to take her eyes off the creepy photograph. “You’re
the coroner. How do you account for this?”
“I really can’t. It
happens in this business, and I realize that’s not an acceptable
answer, but it’s all I can give you. It’s just one of those rare
deaths that’s a big question mark.”
“And you’re sure this
is Dwayne Parker? You’re sure it’s not some elaborate stage dummy
or something, some kind of joke?”
“It’s no dummy, Ms.
White. I personally performed the Y-section and a clinical
evisceration. I weighed every organ in that man’s body. There are
pictures of that too, if you’d like to—”
“No, no, that won’t
be necessary,” Patricia hastened to say.
“The Bureau of
Prisons verified the fingerprints, along with two five-probe DNA
profiles. And the body that I autopsied had tattoos that matched
the county corrections inductee log of distinguishing marks. The
body in the photograph is Dwayne Parker, and I’m very sorry I can’t
give you any useful information regarding his decapitation. One of
the dermatologists at the hospital suggested that maybe some kind
of mold or fungus grew over the transection area—”
“Is that
possible?”
“In my opinion, no.”
The coroner shrugged, just as frustrated now as Patricia. “That’s
why we call this kind of death undetermined and
curious.”
You can say that again. . . . Patricia passed back
the folder. She was glad not to have it in her hands anymore.
What am I going to tell Judy? She
struggled with the thought.
Nothing, I guess.
I just won’t tell her
anything.
“What’s stranger,”
Baker said, “is the fact that Dwayne Parker was a resident of
Agan’s Point, the crabbing town out on the water.”
“Why is that
strange?” Patricia asked.
“Because it really is
a quiet little place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a decedent from
Agan’s Point who didn’t die from old age. Then all of a sudden, in
little more than a week we get Dwayne Parker, plus two brutal
mutilations and two people burned to death.”
The Hilds and the
Ealds, Patricia knew. “All from Agan’s Point. Did you find any
evidence of drugs in any of the bodies?”
Baker shook her head.
“The narcotics unit and the Agan’s
Point police chief both asked me for full tox screens—something
about crystal methamphetamine. There was nothing in any of them, no
CDS of any kind, no marijuana, not even any trace alcohol. But
that’s not even what I was going to mention. That’s not the strange part.”
“What
is?”
“The body that came
in this morning.”
Patricia’s brow
furrowed. “Not another Agan’s Point resident . . .”
“I’m afraid so. The
sixth one now.”
“Who?”
“Forty-five-year-old
male Caucasian named Robert Caudill, aka Junior.”
The name rang a bell.
“I remember when I was a kid, he and his twin brother were the
neighborhood bullies.” Patricia pinched her chin. “And he was
murdered?”
“Don’t know,” Baker
replied. “I don’t see how it could be a
homicide, but . . .” She sighed, blowing a tress of blond hair.
“Since the governor’s office told me to open all doors to you . . .
I guess I can show you. You want to see?”
She’s asking me if I want to see a fat redneck’s corpse.
Patricia told herself. She gritted her teeth and said, “Yes,
please.”
Whatever it is, it can’t be any weirder than the picture
of Dwayne.
Patricia was quite
wrong about that, which she would discern in a moment. She followed
the attractive coroner through the front office and into a door
that read, SUITE 1—DO NOT ENTER. At once a strong scent accosted
her nostrils. “It’s formalin; you’ll get used to it,” Baker said.
“All-purpose preservative.” Overhead fluorescent tubes threw the
ghastliest tint about the room; Patricia supposed it was just her
imagination—she was in a morgue—but somehow that tint made her feel
unnaturally close to death. Ranks of storage shelves behind them
sat heavy with big smoke-colored glass bottles: JORE’S, ZENKER’S
SOLUTION, PHENOL 20 PERCENT. A tin tray marked AMYLOID/FAT NECROSIS
PREP held several bottles of iodine and copper sulphate. A large
sink and heat-sealing iron hung on the same wall. Basically the
room could’ve passed for any high school biology lab, save for one
fact: high school biology labs didn’t have a covered dead body
sitting in the middle of them.
Patricia’s stomach
flipped when she glimpsed the covered bulk. White light glinted
like abstract art in the crinkles of the black plastic
sheet.
Baker seemed
nonchalant when she whipped the sheet off the table.
What am I doing here? Patricia yelled at
herself.
The body lay there so
candidly it seemed surreal, like the graphics in a CD-ROM game—a
spooky veil like tulle that somehow enhanced details instead of
detracting from them. The body lay on a stainless-steel morgue
platform that came equipped with a removable drain trap, gutters
for “organic outflow,” and a motorized height adjustment. The
corpse’s image was blatant, like a surprise shout in the
dark.
“Here he is,” Baker
announced in her snippy Southern drawl.
“Robert—Junior—Caudill.”
Patricia didn’t allow
herself to look at the body directly, opting for peripheral side
glances. The pallor of the flesh reminded her of the water
chestnuts that Byron used to make rumaki at home; the unused
chestnuts would always sit in the fridge too long, and start to
turn brown. Junior Caudill was a big man—and a plump one—much of
his body fat settling like raw lard on the stainless-steel table.
One morbid glimpse at his groin showed her the purple nose of a
penis shriveled so severely that it could’ve been a mushroom in a
bird’s nest. Oh, my God, I’m looking at a
cadaver. . . . When she closed her eyes she found the
formalin fumes seemed to sting. The afterimage of the white face
lingered behind her eyes. She only vaguely remembered the man from
her youth, a problem child and troublemaker who’d dropped out of
school early. Had she seen him and his brother at Dwayne’s funeral?
Probably, but she didn’t even care. Come to think of it, she didn’t
even care that he was dead. At least the body hadn’t been cut open
yet. Had Baker been able to establish cause of death without a full
autopsy?
Finally she choked
out the question: “Okay, it’s a dead body, so what’s so strange
about it?”
Baker snapped on a
light board on the wall. “Here’s a transabdominal X-ray of Dwayne
Parker,” she said, clipping a large sheet of film to the board.
Murky shades and shapes seemed to throb. “It’s normal.” Her lithe
finger pointed. “Normal GI tract, cardiopulmonary process, liver,
bladder, spleen. Everything that’s supposed to be there is
there.”
“Except his head,”
Patricia noted when she looked higher and saw that the boundary of
the X-ray ended at the shoulders.
“Yes, but this isn’t
about Dwayne Parker’s head. This is about Robert Caudill.” And then
just as quickly as she spoke, she pinned up another sheet of X-ray
film.
Patricia caught the
dissimilarity in an instant. Dwayne’s X-ray clearly showed the
presence of his internal organs.
Junior Caudill’s
X-ray clearly showed an absence of
internal organs.
“Where are his
organs?” Patricia asked baldly. “You haven’t autopsied the body
yet—I don’t even see any cuts on it.”
“There aren’t any
cuts, and, no, I haven’t done the post yet. I’ve only done some
preliminaries so far.” Baker sat down as if fatigued or repressing
an agitation. “The only thing I can think of is maybe the decedent
was exposed to a strain of flesh-eating bacteria, like an
internalized version of the one in England, or maybe he died from a
corrosive digestive virus.”
Patricia asked the
strangest question, then, ever to pass her lips: “So his organs
dissolved?”
Baker’s sleek
shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. There are no other
contraindications if that’s the case. E. coli, for instance, has
been known to liquefy parts of the digestive system, and then the
effluent drains from the rectal canal—”
Patricia was suddenly
delighted she hadn’t eaten yet today, for surely she would’ve
deposited her last meal right here on the floor or perhaps even on
the corpse of Robert “Junior” Caudill.
“But there’s
virtually no clinical evidence of an effluent void from the rectum,
because I inspected his rectum thoroughly,″ Baker insisted, as though her
competency were in question.
Patricia closed her
eyes. This woman has a lousy. job. . .
. She let her eyes stray around the room, to any place away from
the corpse. Her mind was ticking with questions. But then something
snagged an eye: something on the counter, at the other side of the
room.
Two clear plastic
bags, one large, one smaller.
“What’s that? In
those bags?”
Baker looked over,
uninterested. “Oh, that’s some stuff the EMTs brought over; some of
it was in his pockets or near the corpse on the floor. I bagged it
as evidence.”
Patricia walked over;
she was pretty sure she noticed what was in the larger bag. “But
what is it exactly?”
“Looks like a couple
of pieces of crystal meth in the little bag, and—”
“An envelope in the
other bag?”
“Yes.”
Patricia leaned over
and saw the outside of the envelope. Junior Caudill’s name and
address, in craggy handwriting.
“Don’t open the
bags,” Baker reminded her. “You don’t want your fingerprints on police evidence.”
No, of course not . . . Patricia came back toward
the table. “What was in the envelope?”
“Just a piece of
paper with a weird word written on it,” Baker replied.
“Wend-something. I’m not sure.”
Just like the letter to Dwayne. Patricia already
knew.
“So,” the coroner
continued. She stood up with an exasperated sigh. “I might as well
show you what I already know.” And next she skimmed off her lab
coat, flapped on a rubberized apron, and snapped on rubber
gloves.
She’s as confused about this as I am, Patricia
realized, and she’s getting
mad.
Now Baker donned a
clear-visored face shield and flipped the shield down, blond hair
shimmering around the straps. She snatched up a silver device that
looked like a metal can lid fixed to the top of an electric
toothbrush. A brand name could clearly be made out on the tool’s
body—STRYKER—and a moment later Patricia realized with a jolt of
adrenaline that this tool was an autopsy saw.
Patricia’s hands shot
up. “Oh, no, really, it’s not necessary for you to show me. . . .”
But her plea was too late.
Her skin crawled as
if aswarm with cockroaches, and her shoulders contracted when the
extraordinarily genteel and preposterously attractive coroner
revved the saw like the most monstrous dentist’s drill and began to
cut a straight line from Junior Caudill’s pubic bone to the bottom
of his sternum. With the saw’s grisly whine, flecks of clotted
blood flew out of the groove and specked her apron and face shield.
As the blade continued to cut upward, Junior’s dead, pallid body
fat jiggled on the slab.
I’ve got to get out of here, I’ve got to . . .
Patricia began to feel faint. This was not a place for her. She
liked to think of herself as a realist—and this was indeed
reality—but by now she’d simply had enough. Just as she would have
turned around and run out of the morgue suite, though, the saw’s
awful whine stopped.
It was obvious now
that the coroner’s perplexion and sheer rage at the anomaly had
been building up within the constraints of her temper, and now
those constraints were snapping.
She threw the saw
down on the counter, flipped up her visor, then slapped her gloved
hands down onto the corpse. She pulled open the great rift sawed
into Junior’s belly, then thrust a hand in and felt around like
someone searching for a lost object under the bed. “See? See? I’m
showing you what we already know. Look!”
Patricia ground her
teeth, her eyelids appalled slits, and she leaned over and glimpse
into the absolutely vacant area of space that was Junior Caudill’s
abdominal vault.
“There are no fuckin’
organs inside this fat fuckin’ redneck!” the coroner nearly
wailed.
Patricia turned away,
stumbled to a lab table, and sat down, exhausted.
Moments of silence
passed. Baker was now finished with the outburst that had obviously
been mounting all morning; she daintily hung up her apron and face
shield, and dropped her rubber gloves into a pedal-operated garbage
can that read, HAZARDOUS WASTE ONLY. At once she was demure-voiced
again, totally out of place here with her tight jeans, magnificent
body, and lilting Southern accent.
“So much for that,”
she said.
Patricia struggled to
banish the imagery from her mind. She looked up wearily at the
other woman. “So what will you put on the death certificate as a
cause of death?”
“Undetermined and
curious,” Baker said.