Grave Doubts

by John Moss

  He pushed the door open without knocking and entered a room that, despite the gruesome paraphernalia, was quite unlike Ellen Ravenscroft’s austere aerie in the heart of the city. Death, here, was not an end in itself, as it was at the morgue. It was an object of conjecture, subsumed by the conventions of an academic discipline. While cool, the room was almost cheerful. The blinds were only half drawn. Dust motes swirled in sunlight reflected from the snow outside. The bodies, which were lying on autopsy trays, had been separated and stripped of their clothing. Both Dr. Hubbard and Professor Birbalsingh were intent on the male at the moment. A graduate assistant was meticulously cleaning plaster dust and debris from the hands of the female on the adjoining table. On a stainless-steel counter behind them, a wooden box the size of a valise sat ominously.

  Before his observation of the scene could be considered a covert activity, Morgan coughed to announce his presence. The professor didn’t look up and the student focused more intently on her work, but Shelagh Hubbard turned around and, recognizing who it was, smiled warmly.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Morgan said.

  “No bother,” she answered. “The Inquisitive Detective,” she declared, as if it were a title. “You couldn’t resist.”

  “Actually, I wanted to know about the newspaper story.”

  “The newspaper?”

  “There was a write-up in the Globe this morning, with just enough detail to promise a follow-up. I assume you were the source, Dr. Hubbard.”

  “Shelagh, please. We’re not formal around here.”

  Her eyes swept the room, then she nodded in the direction of the naked bodies and whispered, “Except for him, the Obsessive Professor.”

  “I heard that, Miss Hubbard.”

  “He is disciplining me, detective. I am ‘doctor’ at the museum, ‘professor’ at the university, and ‘Shelagh’ to my friends. I am ‘Miss’ only when proclaiming my marital status or incurring the wrath of my mentor.”

  “Shelagh, the story?”

  “Didn’t they mention you? I’m so sorry.”

  “To get into the early edition, you must have called before you got to the scene.”

  “A romance doomed to endure beyond death. It seemed opportune —”

  “Or opportunistic.”

  “If you’d prefer. In museums and anthropology, he or she who hesitates doesn’t get the grant. Shape the story and the money comes in — a straightforward equation. We’re not curing cancer here; we’re recovering the past.”

  “Isn’t it beyond recovery, by definition?”

  “We illuminate the past from a present perspective — is that better? Isn’t that what you do, as well, in the detecting business?”

  Morgan smiled.

  “You haven’t been here all night, have you?” he asked.

  “We have,” said the stolid professor, without looking up.

  Shelagh Hubbard glanced at her mentor, then addressed Morgan. “I virtually dictated the story from the way Professor Birbalsingh described it. I was precise — perhaps a little inventive, but not dishonest.”

  “And yet, surprisingly vivid,” said Morgan.

  “Read carefully, Detective,” said Sheila Hubbard with a modicum of pride. “You’ll find mostly the piece is about atmosphere, the grotesque in our midst, death at the doorstep. It’s tabloid melodrama, upgraded for the Globe with good grammar and compound sentences.”

  Morgan regarded the woman with a begrudging admiration. She was not about to apologize.

  “And the clothes,” he asked her, shifting direction. “They seem remarkably well-preserved.”

  “They are museum quality,” she said, and she smiled enigmatically. “I’m hoping we can spruce them up a little and steal them away from Professor Birbalsingh for the museum’s permanent collection.”

  The graduate student came over to where they were looking down at the articles of clothing laid out on a table. “I’m betting they were put on after mummification occurred,” she said.

  “Impossible,” said Dr. Hubbard. “The drying-out process took place because they were sealed into an airless closet, Joleen. They may have been dressed after they were dead, but their crypt was clearly undisturbed until we opened it yesterday.”

  The graduate student did not appear intimidated, nor particularly dissuaded, but said nothing. Morgan considered the implications of a lengthy delay between death and the memento mori tableau. He wondered: was the arrangement meant to inflict humiliation on the dead? To provide grisly satisfaction for the killer? To symbolize the transcendence of love for the lovers’ accomplice? To taunt posterity with an impenetrable mystery?

  Shelagh Hubbard had rejoined her colleague, and the two of them huddled over the headless corpses, conferring in whispers. The graduate student lingered beside Morgan. He introduced himself.

  “And where are you from, Joleen?”

  It was his favourite question, the way others will ask a stranger, What do you do? or, How do you like the weather? He needed to know where people were from. He was so completely a creature of one city, it connected him to the larger world.

  “Cabbagetown,” she said. “That’s right here in downtown Toronto.”

  “I know where Cabbagetown is,” he said quickly, staring at her for a moment, trying to place her within the social spectrum — tenement or townhouse?

  “Working class, poor,” she declared, as if reading his thoughts. She was neither defiant nor ashamed; it was like saying she was brunette or a woman. “And what about you?”

  “The same.”

  “What are you two on about?” asked Shelagh Hubbard, turning around as if she were coming up for air.

  “Common ancestry,” said Joleen with a laugh.

  “Common heritage,” Morgan amended. She was of Chinese extraction — Morgan hated the brutal and trivializing term, “extraction.” They were both from Cabbagetown.

  “Joleen, eh? Did your parents ever go to Nashville?”

  “When your last name is Chau and you don’t live in Chinatown, you get called ‘Joleen.’ It’s about trying to fit in, avoiding the ethnic thing.”

  “You draw from a counter-ethnicity,” said Morgan, rolling the name Joleen through his mind with a country cadence.

  “I like that,” said Shelagh Hubbard. “You could have been an academic, Morgan, the way you make up your own jargon. There’d be a publication in that: ‘Crossing Over: Second-Generation Immigrants and Counter-Ethnicity in Naming Their Offspring.’”

  “I’m seventh-generation, actually,” said Joleen.

  “I’m from Vancouver, myself,” said Dr. Hubbard, as if her declaration made sense. “We’d better get back to work,” she continued. “We can’t leave everything to Professor Birbalsingh. You can watch along if you want, Detective.”

  “The clothes,” said Morgan. “How did you remove them?”

  “Very carefully. The limbs articulated with gentle persuasion. Hers were easier than his.”

  “They didn’t have underwear on,” said Joleen. “She didn’t even have bloomers.”

  “They weren’t invented yet,” said Dr. Hubbard.

  “Open-crotched culottes. Whatever. She wasn’t wearing anything under her petticoats. Neither was he — no underwear under his trousers. The frock coat is fine worsted but his pants are a really coarse twill. You can bet they didn’t get dressed like that on their own.”

  “The clothes are as valuable as the lovers themselves,” Shelagh Hubbard observed.

  “I doubt they would have agreed,” said Morgan.

  Shelagh Hubbard smiled enigmatically.

  “And the bodies?” he asked. “They’ll be examined and recorded and then shelved, I suppose.”

  “We really should get back to work.”

  “What are we looking for?” he asked.

  “We? Anything at all. The cause or causes of death. They might have died separately. You could help us track down their identities, Detective. Not that it really matters, but it might give us ins
ight into why they were killed. I doubt we’ll ever know by whom.”

  “It matters. Without names, they’re generic,” Morgan observed. “Without a story, they’re artifacts.”

  “I think you’d make a better poet than professor,” said Joleen.

  “Thank you,” said Morgan.

  “We’re looking for anomalies,” explained Shelagh Hubbard. “Discovery through difference: what is out of place, what distinguishes these individuals from others, who are they now? As bodies, they’re generic, yes, but as artifacts they are a present phenomenon, one which we need to study, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Sorry. Carry on, by all means. I’ll just take a peak in the box.”

  “Those are the heads. I think it would be better if you left them alone for now. We need to examine them in laboratory conditions.”

  “We’re in a laboratory,” he said as he lifted the top off the box. The heads had been carefully arranged side by side, protected from sliding about during transportation by a black, velvety material that bunched up between them. He instinctively reached down to suppress the material so that they could seem more together.

  Shelagh Hubbard placed her hand on his arm, trying to draw him back. “These must be considered scientific specimens. If you don’t mind.”

  “I do, actually.” He pulled away. Unsure whether he was joking or trying somehow to restore a little of their lost humanity to the dead, he said, “The least we could do is set the box up on its side so they can observe what they’re missing.” He could hear Joleen suppress a giggle.

  “Don’t be absurd,” said Shelagh Hubbard. She fixed her gaze on Morgan with an intensity that made him shudder. She seemed able to turn her allure on or off like a wilful chameleon. Her pale eyes had taken on a predatory lustre and the death’s-head appearance of her high cheekbones, accentuated by her blond hair pulled back tightly against her skull, seemed suddenly, dangerously exciting. In spite of his better judgment Morgan felt drawn in, wanting vaguely to please her, uncertain what was required.

  She stood unnaturally close. He tried to hold his ground. He thought he felt the curve of her breast against his chest as she turned slightly to the side. She turned again, and this time there was no mistake. She was using sexuality as an instrument of intimidation. She leaned into him. He flinched, then to her surprise he pushed forward, pressing his body against hers. For the briefest moment they stood torso to torso in an armless embrace. He could feel her breasts, both of them, the tight roundness of her belly, her upper thighs. He did an instant inventory, then she turned and stepped away as if nothing had happened.

  Morgan looked down into the box. “Her lips are sealed,” he said.

  “Death has a way of doing that,” said Shelagh Hubbard.

  “No, I mean it. They’re sewn shut.” He pointed to a thread barely visible among creases of wizened flesh.

  “Not an uncommon funerary practice,” she said.

  “Let me see that,” said the professor, who suddenly appeared beside them. Ignoring prescribed methodology he unceremoniously picked up the woman’s head by the hair and carried it over to an examining table to get a better look under the bright illumination. He plunked it down close to the stump of her companion’s neck. For a moment the professor seemed confused. Then he took the head in his hands and moved to the other table where he set it in place above the woman’s own body. He’s not immune to the subtle proprieties of death, thought Morgan.

  Morgan bent close to observe as the professor used a spatula and a small scalpel to pry between the lips and sever the threads. Her lips were drawn tight against her teeth, but with the thread gone, they shrank back and her mouth opened a little to the light. Morgan leaned closer.

  “Oh, my goodness,” he gasped in astonishment.

  Professor Birbalsingh fixed his gaze on the woman’s mouth. Without saying a word, he pulled back the leathery flesh of her lips. She had a remarkably good set of teeth. He gently forced them apart. He stood upright but said nothing. He glanced at Morgan in affirmation, then shifted his line of vision and seemed to become absorbed in something outside the windows.

  “Well now,” said Morgan. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to terminate your inquiry, professor.”

  The graduate student sidled closer to the centre of attention, smiling at some private joke.

  “Could I use your cellphone, Joleen?” Morgan asked. “I need to call the coroner’s office, police headquarters, and my partner in crime.”

  “What on earth?” said Shelagh Hubbard as if she were about to protest. Professor Birbalsingh remained silent.

  “People her age always have cellphones,” Morgan explained.

  Ignoring him, Shelagh Hubbard moved forward, and for a moment seemed to lose herself in the revelation of what appeared to be glistening composite fillings in the dead woman’s skull. Slowly, her posture stiffened and, avoiding Morgan’s gaze, she too looked out the windows into the middle distance, perhaps observing the lost possibilities of a research grant and easy tenure.

  Morgan felt strangely elated, vindicated somehow, although he had been as beguiled by the simulations of antiquity as the experts. The case was now under his jurisdiction; a case and not just a case study. But he also felt oppressed: what had appeared to be a quirky historical windfall was now a genuine tragedy. This was no longer about death — it was about dying.

  “Oh, my God,” said Joleen Chau, standing between the cadavers, “I’ve never seen a real dead person before!”

  chapter four

  Isabelle Street

  Miranda was luxuriating in the warmth of her overheated apartment, lying in on a leisurely Saturday off work. She rolled over languidly, shifting the flannel sheet off and away, and stretched until her muscles tingled through every part of her body. She arched against the bed, feeling wonderfully lithe and sexual, emotionally vague, intellectually drifting, like she had been making love for hours.

  Damn it, she thought. I wish I could remember my dreams.

  Suddenly, a loud thumping on the door wrenched her out of her reverie. My God, she thought. What’s Morgan doing here at a time like this?

  It had to be him. The building superintendent would have knocked deferentially, and the few people she knew in neighbouring apartments would telephone first. He must have slipped past the security door. She looked around for a robe. In movies there is always a dressing gown within hand’s reach of the bed.

  The hell with it, she mumbled to herself. I pay the heating bills, I’ll wear what I want. By the time she got to the door, she was having second thoughts. What if it’s Girl Guides selling cookies, or Jehovah’s Witnesses? She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and nothing else. She looked good. If it’s a couple of fresh-faced Mormons, I might let them in.

  It was Morgan.

  Through the peephole he looked grotesquely distorted. He was leaning so close, all she could see was the smile. His version of the Cheshire Cat; he had done it before, with full explanation. She opened the door. His face become solemn, then shy.

  “I love your outfit,” he said.

  “Come in, Morgan.”

  She turned and walked barefoot into the living room as if she were wearing heels.

  “What on earth are you doing here,” she asked. “It’s the middle of the night, my time, and I was having lovely dreams.”

  He plunked himself down on the sofa, admiring the full length of her legs before her lower half disappeared behind the kitchen counter. He had kicked off his snow-drenched shoes in the hall but he was still wearing his sheepskin coat.

  “It’s two in the afternoon,” he announced.

  “It’s not.”

  She put on the coffee and came back around the counter, still feeling a little flirtatious, even though it was only Morgan. She walked across to her bedroom door, swaying her hips just enough to set the lower edge of her T-shirt astir. He peered into the fluttering shadows and immediately glanced away.

  �
��Why don’t you take your coat off and get comfortable,” she murmured in a sultry voice as she turned to face him.

  “No hurry.” He seemed to be searching for something to say. “I was with you when you bought that T-shirt.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Yeah,” he said, giving her his most inscrutable smile. Not out of Alice in Wonderland, she thought. It’s his Buddha smile. No, his post-coital Mona Lisa smile. No, his Jesus smile — endearing and infinitely dangerous.

  He smiled so seldom, but when he did he had a range she found thrilling.

  Still in the doorway, standing in opaque silhouette with the daylight from the bedroom behind her, she asked, “What are you doing here, anyway? It’s too early for a gentleman caller — or too late.”

  They both smiled.

  “It must be business, except you seem cheerful.”

  “Do you want to get dressed?”

  “Do I need to?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  She walked through into her bathroom, leaving the doors open.

  “Has this got something to do with the boss working last night?”

  He followed her as far as the bedroom door; then, leaning against the frame, he admired the play of shadow and light as she attended to her tantalizing ablutions just out of sight.

  “I think he’s had a fight with his wife.”

  “You mean there’s no city-wide disaster? He’s just hiding out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “His wife’s a lawyer.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Lawyers should only marry lawyers, and cops, cops.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “A functioning lawyer is adversarial —”

  “What’s an unfunctioning lawyer?’

  “I’ve known a few.”

  “Yeah,” Morgan said, remembering one in particular she had dated a couple of years ago. Another lawyer, ineffectual and lethal, occupied a more sinister place in their recent past: he of the Jaguar, of posthumous infamy.

  “At least with two lawyers, they understand the rules.”

  She turned on the shower.