Page 21 of Evil Bones
Of course he was. Joe Hawkins was like a German train. He arrived every morning at precisely 6:50, left every afternoon at precisely 4:20. Had for decades.
“Could you phone and ask Joe to bring the remains to room four?”
“Certainly. Shall I register your guest?”
“Please.”
Balodis provided ID and was issued a pass sayingVISITORin large block letters.
“You attach it to your shirt with that little clippy thingy,” Mrs. Flowers offered with a flick of one manicured finger. In case Balodis couldn’t figure out the obvious.
“You two just come on in.”
I scanned my badge and the lock buzzed. Balodis followed me through.
We crossed into a small vestibule and continued through a second set of doors. To the left was Mrs. Flowers’s command post and four work carrels. To the right, groupings of upholstered furniture and wooden tables. Magazines. Plastic plants. The universal waiting room motif. At that moment, no one was waiting.
Behind Mrs. Flowers’s desk was a mountain range of gray filing cabinets. Opposite the cabinets, on the far wall, hung an erasable board divided into a grid.
Numbers and dates filled some of the grid’s cells, the digit-letter combinations representing suicides, homicides, accidents, flukes. Deaths that had earned tickets to Y-incisions.
One corpse had been designated MCME-727-25. The lettersNH-Bhad been penned beside that.Nonhuman. Brennan.
The MCME went digital years ago. Every case is now entered into the computer system upon intake, every detail added to the file as the cold process of death examination unfolds. Still, Nguyen keeps the old-style display. Explains that she likes eyeballing the visual summary every day upon her arrival. I do, too.
I showed Balodis the door to the men’s locker room, then proceeded to the smaller one reserved for women. Minutes later we reconvened in the hall, both suited up in surgical scrubs.
Room four was as I’d left it the day before. With one exception.
A different black plastic bag lay on a different gurney. The bulge it contained was significantly larger than the one created by yesterday’s Frog Pond skull.
I dictated the basics. Marked an ABFO ruler. Took the standard pics.
Balodis waited, face neutral, arms crossed on his chest. His body language suggested anxiety, but I hadn’t a clue what the man was thinking.
Preliminaries completed, I gloved and withdrew a pair of scissors from a drawer.
“Ready?” I asked.
Balodis nodded.
Raising my mask to my face, I cut the plastic and spread the segments flat, exactly as I had the day before. It felt like Bill Murray’sGroundhog Day, except for two differences.
One, Balodis was there peering over my shoulder.
Two, the stench of putrefaction was as powerful as any odor I’ve ever encountered. It caused my eyes to burn and my breath to catch in my throat.
Behind me, I heard Balodis inhale sharply.
I stared at the thing I’d exposed, considering how to describe it.
For a full minute, I dictated nothing.
Then I began.
“The remains are those of a headless quadrupedal male mammal, probably a dog.
“The coat is wavy and of medium length. Though matted and blood-caked, the color appears to be a solid chocolate brown.
