Page 116 of Evil Bones
The screen showed a number at the MCME.
“I’d better—”
“Of course,” Ryan said.
“I’m sorry to bother you after hours,” Nguyen said, not sounding at all contrite. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“No, no.” Yes. Yes.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Ryan snatched up the check and crossed to the cashier station by the front entrance.
“You asked that I keep you informed concerning MCME-753-25.”
That took a moment of mental triage.
“The male DOA from the McDowell Nature Preserve,” I said.
“I’ve scheduled the autopsy for early tomorrow. I’ll be doing it myself.”
“Do you want me to attend?”
“That’s up to you.”
I knew that tone.
“What time?”
“I plan to begin at eight.”
“I’ll be there.”
I disconnected, feeling, what? Resignation? Disappointment? Irritation?
Definitely irritation.
Watching Ryan cross back to the booth, an autopsy was the last thing on my mind.
The next morning dawned dreary and gray, making it hard to get out of bed. That, and the fact that Ryan and I hadn’t fallen asleep until well past one a.m. I’ll leave it at that.
Ryan assured me he’d be happy on his own while I worked at the lab and asked if he might use my bike. I was good with that. Since his missing bag had yet to show up, he wanted to purchase a few toiletries. Then he’d buy provisions for a mysterious feast he intended to prepare. I wasverygood with that.
When I arrived at the MCME, Mrs. Flowers told me Nguyen was already suited up and cutting in the main autopsy room, with Joe Hawkins assisting.
The red message light on my desk phone indicated missed calls. Ignoring its somewhat frenzied flashing, I went directly to the women’s locker room to change into scrubs. Suitably attired, I hurried down the hall to join the chief and Joe.
People think an autopsy is conducted in an atmosphere of hushed quiet. Some are. At large facilities, most are not.
Instruments clanged. Water pounded in a stainless-steel sink. An old Stones tune blasted from a boom box: “Paint It Black.”
An elderly woman was under the knife on the closest of the three tables. Her scalp had been swirl-cut, her face peeled down below her chin. A pathologist was instructing his autopsy tech in a loud voice. The tech was buzzing through the woman’s skull with a handheld saw, sending the smell of hot metal and bone dust into the air.
The McDowell corpse, now unofficially identified by Katy as Quaashi Brown, was stretched naked and supine on the farthest of the tables. An unzipped body bag lay abandoned on a gurney snugged to the wall behind it. X-rays glowed gray-and-white on a screen off to one side.
Nguyen was wrapping up dictation of her preliminary observations. Hawkins was shooting pics. Both were dressed in autopsy chic: blue-green scrubs and caps, paper aprons, and booties.
I crossed to them.
Up close, I noted that the overheads—their collective wattage sufficient to illuminate several airport runways—turned the man’s toffee skin a sickly turd brown. The hair escaping his bandanna was smashedinto wormlike squiggles against his cheeks and forehead. The letters beneath the forehead squiggles looked dark and raw.PE.
