The Dying Breath

by Ferguson, Alane

  The refrigerator hum was loud in her ears. The body at the farthest end had toes that had turned a purplish black. The tag read Edward Staskiewicz.

  Reflexively, Cameryn clamped her hand tighter over her nose, but it was no use. The stench penetrated her fingers and she breathed him in, the odor thick enough to taste. Dr. Moore, though, seemed unfazed as he stepped to the right of Leather Ed’s head. With an expert motion he rolled back the sheet all the way to just above Leather Ed’s groin. “He came in with boots on and Ben had a devil of a time getting them off. In the end he had to slice them with a carpet knife. We had to cut off his leathers, too. My guess is he had been dead for three weeks, although I’m sure the cool air slowed his decomposition. As you know, declaring time of death is never an exact science.”

  “Uh-huh. Especially when the body is in putrefaction.” Cameryn forced her thoughts to turn away from the smell and concentrate instead on what remained. This was what told the story. She could see his mind in what he left behind.Something told her the answer was there for the taking, if only she could see it. She leaned closer, the clinical side of her mind firing up as she studied the coiled gray hair that rested like metal filings against the tray. She took in the long lobes of his ears and the white hair matted thick on his chest, the huge stitches that reached to his navel, the paper white look of his skin. Livor mortis had settled into his hip area, which made the flesh appear a deep rose. His abdomen, though, had turned a mossy green, and green streaks that formed along the veins snaked up into his shoulders and chest.

  “That greenish color comes from what we called marbleization,” Dr. Moore explained. “Ben calls it ‘Shrek green.’ You see the blisters along his skin?”

  Cameryn nodded.

  “Those contain serous fluid. It’s all part of the fermentation process. His leather clothes kept him together, which, in its way, was helpful. Fortunately he did not enter the black stage of putrefaction. In the black stage the body cavity actually ruptures. Tomorrow we’ll put him into the freezer.”

  If he was testing her to see if she would fold, it did no good. She forced herself to lower her hand from her mouth. “Can I see his legs?”

  “Be my guest.” Grabbing the sheet from the ankles, he pulled it up. Cameryn peered at Leather Ed’s shins, then his feet. There was mottling here, with white circles that looked like popcorn against deep purple, green, and blue, but there was nothing unusual. His hair was finer around his ankles, sparse. Concentrating hard, she began at the head and worked her way to the feet, then back to the head again, bending close to examine the bones of his fingers, pulling back to get an overview of his remains. What was she missing? Kyle was egging her on, she knew it. He’d left pieces for her. He wanted her to find something. But what?

  “You want me to roll him over, or will the photographs suffice?” Dr. Moore asked, tapping the file against his thigh. “I can tell you there’s nothing on his back except more livor and some skin slippage. What’s your pleasure?”

  “The photographs will be fine,” she said, disappointed that she’d found nothing, but eager to get away from the odor. “Let’s go.”

  With an expert motion, Dr. Moore unfurled the sheet so that it settled down against Leather Ed, adjusting it at the head and tugging it around his feet. Cameryn marveled that the doctor didn’t wear gloves. There was no way she wanted to touch what remained of that body with her own bare skin.

  “I suggest we adjourn to the histology lab. I’d like to show you microscopic pieces of his lung, and then show you lung samples from Safer and Stein. Perhaps we could go to Toxicology and see if the results are complete. Really, Miss Mahoney, there’s nothing here.”

  “Where are his clothes? And the book he was holding? I’d like to get a look at that book.”

  Dr. Moore escorted her back into the autopsy suite, saying, “I’ve got everything bagged in the cooler, but they won’t stay here. Since Silverton’s too small to have refrigerated storage, the items will be sent out to CBI tomorrow. That evidence is not my concern. A medical examiner looks only to the body. As to the rest, well, I’m afraid that’s not my department.”

  “You’re right,” said a voice. “It’s mine.”

  Cameryn’s heart leapt when she saw Justin’s tall, lanky frame standing by the large metal sinks. His face looked wary, as though he wasn’t sure what to expect from her.

  “You came!” she cried. “I wasn’t sure you would when I left you that message. How did you get here so fast?”

  “Because I’ve been tailing you. I’m the law, remember?” His lips curled more on one side in the way that she loved. “Listen, Cammie, I know we didn’t leave on the best of terms, and that was my fault. But even if you hate me I’m going to keep you safe.”

  “Don’t be stupid. I don’t hate you.”

  “Well, that’s something, anyway.” His eyes shifted to Dr. Moore. “So, was your luck any better than mine? Did you convince her?”

  “I’m sorry, Deputy. She’s a very obstinate girl. Woman,” Moore added, correcting himself.

  “Yeah,” Justin said, “there’s a lot of that going around. Stubbornness, I mean.”

  There was a pause. The large clock on the wall made little clicking sounds, louder than Cameryn would ever have imagined. Words that she wanted to say were jammed up in her throat, and Dr. Moore was still there, a silent witness.

  Crossing his arms over his chest, Dr. Moore directed his words to Justin. “I called Sheriff Jacobs earlier today. Did the sheriff tell you what I found in Leather Ed’s lungs?”

  “I got the memo. O’Neil killed them all. Why do you think I followed Cameryn down here?”

  Moore nodded, satisfied. “You should know that I showed Miss Mahoney everything. In the end I felt it . . . important . . . for her to understand O’Neil’s mind. It goes against protocol, but there it is.”

  “I’m glad you did.” Justin was saying the words to Dr. Moore but all the while looking at Cameryn. “I think I’ve underestimated her. Maybe we all have.”

  Her throat tightened, but she forced herself to get the words out. “The minute I found out, the person I wanted to call was you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  He was looking at her, low-lidded, and neither one of them said a word. Dr. Moore shifted uncomfortably.

  “Well, I am getting a sense that I should leave you two alone.” He cleared his throat as he stood waiting for one of them to say something in reply, but the pause turned awkward when neither she nor Justin corrected him; Dr. Moore was right, Cameryn did want him to leave. She stayed where she was, rooted to the floor, her nerves on high alert as she looked into Justin’s bottomless eyes. Justin stared back from twenty feet away.

  “Okay, then.” Dr. Moore set the file on one of the desks. “Here is the information you left me, Deputy. I’ll be in the histology lab. I trust you two won’t be long.”

  “Not too long,” Justin said. He never took his eyes off of Cameryn as Dr. Moore moved quietly out the door. She could hear it click behind him and after that only her breathing. Energy buzzed inside her, heating her skin, but she stood frozen. Justin was the one who moved first. He began to walk toward her, closing the gap, and she found herself moving as well. “Justin, I’m sorry,” she said, her words coming in fits and starts. “I know I’ve got a temper. I guess it’s the Irish in me and I really shouldn’t have—”

  “No, I’m the one,” he said, cutting her off. “I should never have tried to convince you like that. You’re right. And you’re old enough—I should never have said that—”

  “Believe it or not, now I’m glad you talked to Dr. Moore—”

  “You are?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then I’m forgiven.” His eyes grew soft in appeal. “I am forgiven, aren’t I?”

  “Am I?” she asked.

  She stopped, only inches away from him now. They were smiling at each other, and she noticed once again that he had beautiful teeth, white as pearls
in his suntanned face. He took her hands and pressed his thumbs into her palms. “What would you think if I kissed you in the middle of a morgue?”

  “It sounds kind of twisted. And kind of good.”

  “That’s exactly what I thought.” He leaned in closer, but Cameryn pulled back, amazed. “You know what? Lyric was right. We had our very first fight.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. And you know what they say about making up.” His grin was faunlike, his eyebrows arched. And then he was kissing her, and she didn’t think of all the people who had been dissected in this room or of the instruments, shiny and sharp, that were tucked away behind cupboard doors. This was a place where people’s insides were revealed. It was almost poetic that in this unlikeliest of spaces she had opened herself to him, not just physically, but by giving him a bit of her soul. She could feel it, the letting go as she kissed him back. Life in the place of death, made sweeter still because this feeling had withstood the heat of angry words.

  Draping her arms around his neck, she stood on the tips of her toes, pushing into him hard, kissing him in a way she didn’t know she could. For a moment he broke free, surprised and, she could tell, pleased.

  “Wow,” he said. Cupping her face in his hands, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll never say you’re too young again.” His voice was husky, low. “If I’d known this would happen I would have bossed you around sooner.”

  “Don’t even think about it!”

  “Man, this making-up thing is good.” His lips pressed into hers again and then moved along the edge of her jaw, barely touching her skin. Her mind whirled, and for a moment she forgot why she had called him here. Focus, she told herself, before she allowed herself one more dizzying kiss.

  Pulling back, she gasped for air. “Okay, wait. I mean, I have to think and I can’t do it when you’re doing that.”

  He ran a finger down the column of her throat. “Thinking is overrated.”

  “Stop!” Although she was laughing, she shoved him away with the tips of her fingers. He didn’t budge.

  “I’m serious, Justin. I called you because I need your help. I need you to help me on the O’Neil case.”

  “Let’s leave him out of this for now,” he answered. The smile went out of his eyes, like a blown-out candle.

  “No, listen to me. Kyle said, ‘You can see my mind in what I left behind.’ Justin, there’s something I’m missing. I feel it.” Her hands rested on his shoulders, which stiffened beneath her touch. “Kyle’s trying to send me a message that I can’t see, and it’s maddening. And when I was with Dr. Moore, I kept thinking about how we all have our jobs. I mean, each of us completes just one piece of the puzzle. I do bodies, you do crime scenes, we all have our little component so that our small cogs turn the great big wheel. But on Leather Ed’s case you’ve had to keep things from me.”

  “That’s because you’re part of the case. If I give you access to the files I’m breaking the law.”

  “I know, but what if we—you and I—forget all that? What if we pool our resources? Share everything we’ve got? Dr. Moore thought my knowing was important. He already bent the rules, so I think you can, too.”

  “So you’re saying two wrongs make a right?” The resistance was fading. She could feel him soften as he thought about this. She looked into his eyes and could almost see his mind click and whir as he turned the words over in his mind, but she could tell he had not yet committed to the idea. “Cammie, if this came out in a trial, it could hurt the case. I could lose my job.”

  “But I promise I won’t tell a soul. I want you to show me the pictures in the file and tell me everything you found out about Leather Ed. And then we’ll go to the histology and toxicology labs and we’ll look over those files together. What if we stopped fighting and started sharing? Justin, I think we could catch him. Then we’d have more time together.”

  “Now you’re not playing fair.” He said this sternly, but his expression had resolved itself into amusement.

  “I never said I did.”

  She waited, watching his face shift as he decided. He nodded, then took a slow step back. “I propose a compromise. Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day.”

  “Yeah. It is,” she answered, confused. “So what’s the compromise?”

  “If I do this, I want to pick up where we’re leaving off right now. You’re asking me to . . . redirect my energies. I’ll say yes if you guarantee we’ll be together tomorrow. Do we have a deal?”

  “Deal,” she said, and hugged him, feeling the muscles knot beneath his shirt. She quickly stepped back again, determined not to allow herself to get too distracted. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get down to business. The case of Ed Staskiewicz as documented by the Silverton sheriff’s office. Show me everything you’ve got.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THE HISTOLOGY LAB was a strange mix of a room—both cluttered and clean. The cupboards had glass panels, and behind them Cameryn could see an array of bottles, while every inch of the counter space seemed to hold some piece of equipment or plastic file holders lined in a neat row. A single spider plant let down vines in the corner, the pot secured in a macramé holder knotted with wooden beads. White lab coats had been draped over the backs of office chairs; Dr. Moore sat in one chair, Cameryn’s father in the other. Ben, who was perched on a tall stool, gave Cameryn a thumbs-up as she stepped inside.

  “Well, you took your sweet time,” her father said. His voice had a rumble to it, like the sound of a distant train.

  “Sorry. We were . . . talking,” Cameryn replied. She could feel her face flush as Justin moved close to her.

  Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Hello, Justin.”

  Cameryn was surprised to see him reach out his hand toward Justin. Justin took it and pumped it twice. She couldn’t help but think he looked sheepish as he said, “Hello, Mr. Mahoney.”

  “I will bow to the inevitable,” her father replied. “Please, call me Patrick. Dr. Moore brought me up to speed on the tie-in with Leather Ed. This changes things,” he said, his voice grim. “Kyle O’Neil is out of his mind. His insanity means he’s bound to make a mistake. That’s something for our side.”

  Justin was silent for a beat. He looked at Patrick as if he appreciated what he’d said, but he shook his head, saying, “He’s not that kind of crazy, Mr.—Patrick. O’Neil’s an organized killer. He’s the kind of crazy who plans his every move in cold blood.”

  “But I think he wants to get caught,” Cameryn argued. “Kyle’s leaving clues.”

  “Or just playing with us,” her father snapped. “In any event, Dr. Moore was kind enough to show me slides of the vic’s lung tissue. The cause of death in all three cases is artificial pneumonia brought on by some unknown substance. What it is, I don’t know, and how O’Neil did it is even more of a mystery. This case is as baffling as his last masterpiece using that klystron.” He scratched the back of his neck and said, “It looks like bizarre deaths may be O’Neil’s signature.”

  “I know, I thought about that, too, Dad; that’s why I brought Justin in here. Kyle wants to be unique. He’s showing off for the police. Or for me,” she added hastily. “But he’s left something for us to figure out and I want to try.” Cameryn quickly explained her idea to everyone in the room, with various responses. Dr. Moore’s face seemed as pugnacious as ever, but there was a curiosity, too, as he looked at Justin, considering. Her father frowned, while Ben seemed eager to try his hand at detective work. He nodded his head as she spoke.

  “So we’re gonna unravel us a mystery,” Ben said, slapping his hands together to go all loose in the joints. “All right, what do we do first?”

  “Let me show you the file on Leather Ed,” Justin began. “Can we clear some space?”

  “I’ll get that desk.” Hopping off the stool, Ben quickly rolled a computer desk with a laminate top and stopped it right in front of Justin.

  “That’ll work great,” Justin told him. He laid the opened file on top and spread out the pho
tographs in an arc, like a deck of cards. “Cameryn says we’re missing something, and maybe she’s right. I’ve already gone through this. While you study these, I’d like to take a look at those slides.”

  “Be my guest,” said Dr. Moore. “That sample belongs to Leather Ed.”

  While Justin squinted into the microscope, Cameryn studied the glass rectangles, each one marked with a specific name. “Did you make these, Dr. Moore?”

  “No, the slides are created here, in the histology lab. It’s a process. You’ve seen me slice bits of tissue and place them in the cassettes—”

  “Cassettes?” Cameryn asked. She frowned, trying to remember.

  “Cassettes,” he replied, a note of impatience in his voice. “Those small white plastic squares—you’ve seen them. They’re on the table where I slice the organs. I put tiny chunks of heart, liver, lung, all the bits of visceral matter go into those containers. The lab technician takes the tissues to this lab and pours wax on top. Then they set. This device here”—he patted a square machine made of white enamel, with a huge, twelve-inch blade—“shaves the material that’s embedded in the wax. Those slices are stained, heated, placed between glass slides, and voilà! We can examine the lung at a cellular level.”

  “I don’t know what I’m looking at,” Justin said and moved aside so that Cameryn could see. The image was cream colored with a ribbon of red circles touching one another in what looked like a string of beads.

  “There’s the foreign matter in the alveoli,” Dr. Moore murmured. “But for the life of me I can’t say what it is.”

  Sighing, Cameryn pushed herself away from the microscope. Like Justin, she couldn’t interpret it at all, which meant it was no use to her. She turned once again to the evidence reports, some printed out while others had been scrawled in ink. “Justin, what’s all this?”

  “That is everything we’ve got so far, including background information on Leather Ed. Plus a list of things found in his house. He served in Vietnam, bought the house and stayed in Silverton for over thirty years. But the guy was a loner. I realize I’m the new guy in town, but no one seems to have really known him.”