by Rhys Ford
“Are those sunglasses?” Ricci’s low, rumbling voice grabbed at Xian’s desire, shaking it like a terrier with its teeth on the neck of a canal rat. “Why are you wearing them?”
The cop was too close to think. Xian stepped back, not trusting himself and then ashamed he had imagined himself with such little control. He wasn’t an animal, and it wasn’t as if the inspector was the first man who invigorated his blood. The light from the x-ray panel was a bit too bright, and he turned away, meeting Ricci’s curious gaze.
“I have a genetic sensitivity to bright light, and surgical arenas tend to be extremely lit up. These are shaded enough to cut out a certain end of the spectrum but still allow me to see everything vividly. Now, can we get back to the case?” Xian went on the offensive, needing to put the inspector as much off of his stride as he’d done to Xian merely by walking into the room. “Or is there anything else about my personal life you need to ask? Perhaps my favorite color? Or if I like wasabi or mustard in my shoyu when I eat wontons?”
“I wish you wouldn’t mention food, because I haven’t eaten yet. Or at least, nothing that seems to be sticking to my ribs,” Ricci drawled. “Everyone tells me you are going to run this down until you’ve got every answer wrung out of this guy’s body that you can get. I hope they’re right, Carter, because I need everything you can tell me and maybe even a few things you can guess. And before we get started, do I really have to wear this piece-of-shit mask, or is this just some kind of joke your assistant is playing on me?”
§
Spencer didn’t know why he wanted to ruffle the doctor’s feathers. Perhaps because the man was as cool as a slick of black ice, a predatory disaster waiting for an unsuspecting person to slip up. Or it could have been because when his chin came up, the ruthlessly competent coroner appeared more human. Either way, he knew better than to attend an autopsy without protective gear, especially if there were viscous fluids involved.
Carter didn’t seem to share Spencer’s perverse need to tease him, because he blinked once, then said in his soft, accented drawl, “Not now. But once I start cutting, or in this case, unraveling, you’ll want to have it on. We don’t know what kind of particulates are under the linens. None of the preliminary lab work came back with anything alarming, other than a bit of rat feces, but I’d rather not be responsible for having one of SFPD’s finest come down with a cold or something. It’s how rumors of a curse get started, you know. One case of pneumonia or bubonic plague and it’s mass hysteria in the streets.”
There was something about Dr. Carter Spencer couldn’t help but poke at. It could have been because he needed more than a few minutes of sleep caught in the parking structure, or maybe more than a couple of mouthfuls of the food he’d gotten down. His throat still itched from remembering the taste of whiskey in bad cop coffee, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone out and actually fucked somebody up against the wall—any wall—because beds were for relationships and lovers, and that’s the last thing in the world Spencer wanted.
Neither one of them could have gotten much sleep, and from all accounts, the doctor probably even less than Spencer, but he seemed to vibrate with energy as he walked about the arena.
Carter’s long silvery blonde hair was braided back from his face, falling down between his shoulder blades and tied off with a simple black elastic. Wearing a black T-shirt tucked into a pair of dark jeans beneath his open white medical coat with a pair of boots soft with wear but gleaming from a healthy application of saddle soap, the doctor should have looked like an urban professional. Instead, Spencer got the impression there was more to the man than what met the eye.
Spencer never thought of himself as somebody who liked to put people in boxes, but after a couple of decades of working the streets he had learned a lot about guessing someone’s ethnicity and had a good idea about how their culture and social standing might shape their actions.
Dr. Xian Carter threw him.
He was definitely some sort of European descent mingled with Asian, probably Chinese, but Spencer also got the impression he hadn’t been born in the States. There was something British but oddly patterned about Carter’s speech and cadence, a melodic lilt softening and sharpening certain words. He moved with a fluidity that only came when a man knew his body well, each stretch and reach of his rangy body an economic flow of grace and strength, not something Spencer would’ve expected from a coroner. One thing was for sure, the doctor had a depth Spencer wanted to explore.
And that scared him down to the bones.
The damned man was a burr in Spencer’s brain, burrowing down and lodged firmly in, probably diseased and riddled with parasites intending to consume Spencer whole. He was going to have to cut Xian Carter out of his flesh, digging in deep with a sharp knife to make sure he was fully extracted, even if it meant leaving behind a scar.
But fuck if the man didn’t look like he could give as good as he got in bed. And that was the only big red flag Spencer needed to give the doctor a wide berth.
So why the hell did he then ask about the man’s damned glasses, and why did he keep staring at Carter’s ass when his attention should have been on the x-rays lit up on the wall in front of him?
“Because you want to make stupid life choices, Ricci,” he muttered to himself, shoving his hands into his pockets, noticing the doctor inching back away from him. “And you’re looking to swap one addiction for another.”
Clearing his throat, Carter motioned over to the light box on the wall. Examining the x-rays, Carter paused, took one down to turn it around, then tapped at the film, drawing Spencer’s attention to a solid rectangular spot in the middle of the man’s body.
“This seems to be the only foreign object actually on the torso. It’s centered on the breastbone. Usually, that’s something placed in burial rituals. Looks too deliberate to be an accident, but I can’t make that assessment. Can’t make out what it is, but I’ll provide you with photos once I unwrap his torso. And it’s definitely a him. Or at least from what I can see by the underlying structure,” Carter murmured, a teasing lilt to his voice as he pointed out something on the film. “How well-versed are you with Egyptian funerary practices? Do I need to go through every point of difference between what we see here and what was done during ancient times, or do you have at least a passing grasp of what they did to preserve a body back then?”
“Look, the only knowledge I have of mummies is from those movies about the dead priest and the concubine he had an affair with.” Spencer shrugged, leaning on the credenza beneath the light box. “And the only thing I remember is they’re scared of cats, and you don’t want to fall into a pit of scarab beetles because they’ll tear the flesh off your body.”
“That’s… Well, okay, there are insects that strip the flesh, but not that quick.” The doctor rubbed at the bridge of his nose, lifting the glasses with his knuckles when he reached under them. Sighing, he let the spectacles drop, and Spencer caught a glimpse of his dark eyes. They appeared almost black, but it was impossible to tell behind the blue-tinted glasses. But what Spencer did see was a flash of annoyance in them. “Let me explain what I’m seeing in these x-rays, and of course, you are more than welcome to build on my analysis or come up with something on your own. I’m only presenting this as a preliminary discussion. After I finish the autopsy, you might want to take the findings to an expert in the field of Egyptian funerary practices who might be able to expand or argue against anything I find.”
“This is San Francisco,” he drawled, stepping in closer to get a better look at the x-rays. “Where the hell do you think I’m going to find an expert on Egyptians here?”
“Possibly at one of the universities, or even at one of the museums. If there’s no one there, you could probably get in touch with somebody else, or maybe someone there has a connection. But what little I know is in passing, and I would hesitate to tell you to dismiss reaching out simply because I think whoever did this didn’t do it well.” Carter gestured
in front of the rectangular spot on the corpse’s torso. “To make this brief, the Egyptians had various rituals they performed when mummifying a body. These, of course, changed over the centuries as individual preferences and royal decrees altered the perception of afterlife, but usually, high-ranking officials or royalty had amulets and tokens included under their wrappings, along with written prayers and other articles. There’s no evidence of that here, other than that one piece on his chest, so that tells me either the person who did this wasn’t intending to reward the deceased after death or he simply didn’t know what he was doing. I’m leaning towards the latter as a distinct possibility. But that’s just my opinion.”
“If you had wanted your body to be mummified after you died, wouldn’t you want to have somebody who knew what they were doing?” Spencer rocked back on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest. “Alas, maybe whoever did it obviously didn’t know what they were doing. Could be some druggie’s idea of sending his best friend off into heaven. Or something like that.”
“I would agree with you except for a few niggling details. First, the skull and chest bear signs of blunt force trauma, indicating a probable murder unless our victim fell naturally from a high point and bounced repeatedly against harder things on the way down.” The doctor pointed to an x-ray of the man’s skull, using a capped marker to circle the brain cavity, then pulled Spencer’s attention down toward the front of his face. “Then, while you can’t see it through the wrappings, the films show pretty clearly whomever prepared this body took the time to remove the brain through a puncture they made in the nasal cavity. This is a pretty common practice and achieved by tapping a specific tool through the bone and then hooking the soft flesh out through the opening. That’s why I lean towards standard Egyptian mummifications as a start.”
Despite himself, Spencer clenched down on a wave of nausea tickling the back of his throat. “And that’s something Egyptians did?”
“Oftentimes, certain organs and soft tissues were removed both for ritualistic purposes and probably also because the soft flesh might have molded during the procedure. Normally there were resins and salts, as well as other tinctures, to preserve the flesh, and then once all the moisture had been drawn out, the body was ready to be wrapped.” Gesturing toward the corpse laid out on the table, Carter continued, “The linens he used to wrap the body are high quality, possibly from bolts of fabric purchased at a store and then cut down into strips. From what I can see, they are evenly sliced, possibly done on something mechanical or using a guide of some kind. I believe the person who did this was experimenting, at the very least, and used a pack of salt around the body to dehydrate its flesh. I’ve found salt crystals clinging to parts of the exposed limbs, but again, I’ll know more once I get everything opened.”
“How long would that take? To dehydrate somebody like that?” Spencer’s mind was already turning, trying to figure out a way to hunt down large purchases of salt. “They would need a lot, wouldn’t they? Pounds of it.”
“It would take a long time. And yes, to cover a body of this size and possibly replenish or change the salt as it got fouled, I would say even in the hundreds of pounds perhaps,” the doctor replied softly. “You’re looking at a man who probably died at least two to three months ago, maybe even more. I’ll need to verify my findings before I give you anything definite. And that’s if I can give you anything definite.”
“We’ll start digging around through missing persons’ reports. Maybe even going back six months,” Spencer said absently, nodding as avenues of inquiry opened up in his mind. “We’ll focus on anyone with an interest in Egyptians and expand it to include friends. My big question is, why would anybody go through so much work and then dump this guy into the storage room of a restaurant?”
“I can’t answer that, but perhaps I can help you out with identification,” Carter said, that amused, twisted tone back in his voice. “I can guess one thing, though. Whoever did this wanted this man to be found and possibly identified without too much of a problem.”
Spencer shot Carter a skeptical look. “How do you figure that? The guy is pretty much a raisin, and his pieces are wrapped up like a burrito. You can’t even see his face.”
“No, but I can rehydrate his hands for fingerprints. And more importantly,” the doctor said with a gleam sharp enough to pierce even the tint of his glasses, “that rectangular object there? Bound up under his right thigh? That looks a hell of a lot like a wallet. I’ll start there and let you know what I find.”
Four
THE EGYPTOLOGIST IDEA had been a good one but turned out to be more of a bust than Spencer wanted. After a long string of left messages and being punted through two universities’ phone systems, he landed himself a brief phone interview with a grunting, argumentative professor who eventually admitted he had no idea if the man on the coroner’s table was an accurate representation of traditional funerary practices and he had no intention of finding out. Left with a few other names to chase down in the morning, Spencer had called it a night, planning on researching the hell out of mummies and how to salt a man’s body.
His place was cheap and close to the station, but the old boarding hotel wore its years in every faded inch of old wallpaper and odd noises. Leftover from a time when people traveled long distances in buses and trains, its walls held remnants of its once glorious past, glossy pearls lost in the shadows and folds of its age-mottled windows. The place looked how Spencer felt, worn around the edges and probably too disreputable for good company. But he didn’t care. It was somewhere he could crash at the end of a long shift without a torturous commute, and the place was built solid enough it would take a battering ram with half a football team behind it to bust through its thick wooden doors.
“Elevator’s out.” The attendant’s creaky voice penetrated the lobby’s gloomy interior, a single yellow fluorescent bulb flickering in a seizure-inducing pattern from its tentative perch in an overhead fixture above the lift’s doors. “Don’t know when it’ll be fixed. Owner’s not answering his phone.”
Spencer rubbed at his face, the oily residue of decades-old nicotine soaked in the SRO’s walls and faded carpet creeping into his nostrils and stinging his sinuses. His minuscule one-room apartment was on the fifth floor, a long haul up a winding metal stairwell with not much more lighting than the lobby. His reaction time was lagging, drawn down to a slothful response from lack of sleep and very little food and the thought of slogging up those stairs while wearing his weapon.
It was just begging to get cornered by some idiot with a death wish or the stupid idea he could take a tired cop down.
“Fuck.” It felt good to push the hot air out of his lungs, spiced with the sour churning through his belly. “These stairs are going to get old pretty quick.”
“Hey! Ricci, right? I’ve got a room down here on this floor. Opened up day before yesterday if you want to swap out. Cleaners already been through. Bigger than what you’ve got. One of those ones they knocked two rooms together, so you’ve got a separate bedroom and bathroom. Not so many stairs, but closer to the street. Walls keep out the noise, but don’t know if you can still hear stuff through the closed windows,” the attendant called out, extracting himself from the chicken-wire enclosed booth he sat in during his shift. Hobbling across the lobby toward Spencer, he seemed a hell of a lot younger than he had behind his hexagon-wire barrier, less washed out but still as nicotine-stained as the lobby. “Don’t know how long it will take you to move out of your other place, but it’s open. New bed too. Had to replace the one in there, so everything’s scrubbed down and working.”
“How much is this lower floor bigger place going to cost me?” Spencer looked toward the cluster of faded armchairs set in front of the SRO’s bay windows. A couple of old-timers were slouched down in the sloped furniture, pointedly ignoring Spencer and the attendant. “Sounds too good to be true.”
“Give it to you for a hundred bucks more a month. But you’ve got the cash for it, ri
ght? Normally costs an extra two hundred, but for you, cheaper.” The scrawny man scratched at the bleached-out stubble on his chin. “I’m willing to cut you a deal and all, considering you’re a cop. Doesn’t even make sense for you to live here, but cuts down on the assholes who want to rent the rooms. So, you want the place or not?”
Spencer felt like he hadn’t slept in a week, but the thought of climbing up and down five flights of stairs for the next few months reached down into a fatigue he didn’t know he possessed. Nodding, he dug his key out of his pocket, finding its plastic tab. “Just let me get my stuff. I’ll come down and swap in a few minutes.”
“Take your time. I don’t get off shift for another four hours. Probably can scare somebody up to help you carry things for a couple of bucks.” The nameless attendant raked his eyes over the two elderly men who were now watching them intently, probably drawn by the mention of money. “Not them, though. Don’t think they’ll even make it up five steps, much less five flights.”
“I just need a few minutes,” Spencer replied flatly. “Don’t have anything with me but my clothes and a few other things.”
It took Spencer less than five minutes to gather up his life and his small gun safe into two duffel bags and head back downstairs to the lobby. His thighs and knees were aching by the time his feet hit the faded carpet, but those pains were nothing compared to the headache throbbing behind his left eye. The gallons of coffee he’d choked down over the last few days seemed to be threatening to come back up, and he wanted nothing more than to fall face-first onto the promised new mattress. Anything was better than the one he’d inherited with his fifth-floor room. Just in case, he’d taken the plastic mattress top off and shoved it into his bag, swearing he would spend at least a little time getting a new bed in if it was worse, or sleep on the hard floor instead.
