by Rhys Ford
“Assuming they’re both victims,” Xian reminded him. “Our first mummified find’s cause of death is still undetermined. No sign of foul play other than the dismembering. Tox hasn’t come back yet to see if he’s been poisoned, but the salt content in his flesh is problematic. Anything fast-acting would be long gone, and some drugs would be hard to detect after what was done to that one. With any luck, our water mummy’s flesh might have retained anything chemically introduced, but that’s just hoping. We might have better luck with his prints and a facial ID if that duct tape kept his skin intact.”
“Yeah, doesn’t look like any of our crabby friends got in there.” He circled the table, giving Xian plenty of space to work, but the man’s heat and broad bulk were difficult to ignore. “I put in for dental records and DNA, but you know that takes forever. No hits on missing persons for the salt guy, but we don’t know how long he’s been out of circulation. This one here might be a better bet, seeing as he’s still fleshy. How long do you figure he’s been dead?”
“That I don’t know,” Xian admitted, then leaned forward to sniff at the body. “Doesn’t smell like he’s been embalmed, but some people go for natural burials. Judging from the condition of his skin and limbs, maybe recently. The water is hard on a body, and well, he was scavenged on, but he’s not an old corpse. I can tell you that much.”
“How about if I step back and let you work?” He nodded to a tall stool sitting nearby. “I can catch up on reading the results from the last guy.”
“Shouldn’t you head home? Get some rest? This is going to take a while, and you look like you’re about to fall down.” Xian sighed when the cop shook his head. “Fine. But if you pass out on the floor, I’m just going to step over you and finish.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I’d passed out at some guy’s feet. Shit, not the first time I’ve passed at your feet,” Spencer quipped. “Let me know if you find anything we can move on and I’ll push it hard into the system. You might have to say this doesn’t look like a murder, but my gut says otherwise.”
“Your gut was stabbed a couple of nights ago.” Reminding the inspector of why his side probably pulled got Xian a rueful smile. “I’ll let you know, but don’t hold your breath. Sometimes the dead refuse to give up their secrets. Even when we want to hear them so very badly.”
§
Spencer didn’t know when he nodded off, but he sure as hell knew when he woke up. A clatter of metal on metal jerked him out of the sleep he’d wrapped around himself, and it took him a long, harrowing moment of scrambling not to fall off a tall stool to realize he was still in the autopsy room. The plastic shield he’d put on to prevent contamination was fogged up from his hot breath, and he didn’t want to look too closely at the smear of wet he spotted on the guard near his cheek when he glanced sideways.
He’d rolled over one of the instrument trays so he could take notes on the case, and somewhere between Carter finally unwrapping the hand to dig out a stray shellfish and a too-young medical tech stumbling into the arena, he’d apparently crashed. His notes seemed blurry, but a few blinks brought his vision into focus. The round-faced Latina gave him a tentative smile as he straightened up, her hands clenched around a thick folder.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to kick the table. I didn’t know anyone was in here but Dr. Carter,” she murmured, edging around him. “Sir, I went back to the other victim as you asked—”
“Burnham give you any trouble over it?” Carter sliced through her words as cleanly as if his tongue were a scalpel he used on flesh. “Good to see you’re back among the living, Inspector. Thank you for not snoring. I would have had to shove something in your mouth so I could continue recording my notes.”
Removing his face shield, Spencer wiped at his face, hoping he gotten any drool off. “Yeah, I’m considerate that way.”
“Jimenez? You were saying something about Burnham, perhaps?” The doctor rounded the table, his attention still on his autopsy. Swaddled beneath protective gear, Spencer could really only see the man’s face, but his long gloved fingers gracefully separated out a layer of strips from a piece of bone. “Was there an issue?”
“Some. He wondered why I was redoing his work, but Harmon told him it was something you did sometimes, so he stepped back,” she admitted nervously, glancing at Spencer. Her accent was more Los Angeles Mexican than San Francisco, a different roll to her syllables, and he briefly wondered what brought her up to the Bay until Carter nodded at her to continue. The hero worship in her expression was almost painful to look at. “So I went back and did another rinse of the solution. I think I got better partials this time, but… do you want to check my work?”
Carter didn’t look up from excising whatever piece of flesh he’d found under one of the wrappings. “Do you need me to check on your results?”
The man’s coldness was distant, more distracted than pointedly mocking, but the tech reacted as if Carter had slapped her in the face. If he were in her place, Spencer probably would have told the doctor to fuck off, but he knew better now. There was a layer of disconnect, it seemed, between Carter and the rest of the world. As if he wasn’t quite present. His aloofness seemed to rise whenever he took his attention off of anyone around him, and his mind buried down into his work.
The young woman stepped back, obviously torn on how to answer, and Spencer interjected, asking her, “I think what Carter here is saying is, do you want him to check on the work you’ve done?”
The medical examiner’s head lifted, his dark eyes unreadable and smoky when he looked Spencer’s way. He wasn’t hard to look at, even when there was a challenge in his expression, but Spencer could understand how Carter intimidated people. Firm behind a mask of porcelain skin and haunting expressions, there was little warmth in the man’s demeanor, and if he hadn’t dug down, he never would have seen Carter’s humor or caught his sly smiles. Jerking his head toward the tech, Spencer widened his eyes slightly and stared back at the annoyed doctor.
Taking a deep breath, Carter turned toward the tech and asked, “Do you want me to go over what you found? Because if you would like me to, I shall, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“I… just wasn’t sure because Burnham—” she stammered. “I mean, the prints I pulled are clearer, and the whorls are distinct in some areas that were smudged before the second soaking, but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”
“The reason I asked you to redo it is because I believed you would possibly get improved results. Sometimes it’s imperative to have more than one attempt made for a procedure. If the material allows for it.” The sternness in Carter’s expression remained, but his burr softened the hard edges in his voice, rolling the clipped British tones into something velvet and hinting of a steamy hot city caught up in a star-filled night. “Burnham does a decent job, but sometimes a more delicate, exacting hand is needed. If I didn’t have faith in your work, I wouldn’t have asked you to do another pass on the fingerprints. Just like I don’t feel the need to check your work—”
Spencer cleared his throat, and Carter’s mouth turned sour for a moment, clearly banking his annoyance for later.
“But if you need me to, I shall,” he continued. “If not, take what you’ve found and run them through. When you’re done with that, intake this victim’s hand and see what you can pull up for prints. I’ve already removed the wrappings and documented my findings. It should be clear of DNA and contact removal soon, but talk to Marge about when she can release that to you. I’ve got a few more things to do here, and then I’ll stop in to see where we’re at on this.”
“Yes, sir.” Nodding at Carter, who’d already turned back to his work, she grinned at Spencer’s curt nod. Mouthing a thank-you, she practically ran out of the autopsy arena, heading toward the depths of the building’s warren of offices.
Carter slid the bundle of linens he’d been working on over a flat silicon mat lying on what looked like a cookie sheet, flattening the fabric carefully, then moving
the tray over to a shelved cart. Other trays took up space on some of the lower shelves, scattered bits of fabric stuck with debris from the water and the occasional carapace. The doctor returned to the table, seemingly contemplating the still-wrapped head. His slender body angled away from Spencer, but there was no doubt in Spencer’s mind; the man’s thoughts were on him instead of the swaddled head lying on the far end of the autopsy table.
“Thank you for… speaking up,” Carter finally said, taking a few strides toward the victim’s skull. “I forget people need… encouragement. It never crosses my mind. I don’t need to hear I’ve done a good job, so—”
“That’s because you’re an arrogant competent asshole who probably keeps his self-doubts buried down where no one can see them.” Spencer grinned when Carter’s head snapped around, a look of outrage fierce behind his tinted glasses. “Takes one to know one. I’m the same way. Probably why we connect.”
Carter cocked his head, staring Spencer down before conceding, “Probably. Yes. But thank you anyway. She’s a good tech. I’m hoping she decides to get her doctorate. Jimenez will make a good medical examiner one day.”
“She’d probably love to hear you say that.” He fought a yawn, knowing he needed a shower and some food, but the—hopefully short—catnap he’d gotten revitalized him, and Spencer was ready to watch Carter move on to the main event. “You going to crack that open now? I’d like to put a face to the bits we found.”
“Do you expect you’ll know him?” Carter scoffed.
“Never know, but mostly, I’d like to have something to go on before I sic a bunch of uniforms on the missing person reports to see if he matches up with anyone,” he explained. “Fingerprints are great, so are dental records, but you and I know that they take a while to process, even if they’re clean. I can eliminate a lot of possibilities with a face. So, whenever you’re ready, Doc, I’m here to take notes.”
“Now that you’re awake,” Carter sniped back. “I can’t promise you much. The flesh is probably going to be bloated and disfigured from being wrapped. I’m going to try to cut the bandages underneath the duct tape. Evidence retrieval might be able to dry everything out and separate the fabric fibers from the adhesive. With any luck, there might be a latent print on the tape.”
“From the person who wrapped it around our guy’s head?” Spencer whistled softly. “That would be fantastic.”
“Send a prayer to whatever god you might want to help us on that because it’s a stretch. But a face? That I can help you with.” The doctor picked up a pair of snips and leaned over. “Here goes. I’m going to have to stop and document as I go, so ignore me while I talk into the recorder and take pictures.”
After donning the face shield again, Spencer walked closer to the table to get a better look at what Carter was doing. A few snips and the bandages parted, the duct tape holding its shape as if it were a papier-mâché school project done by a demented first grader. Carter carefully peeled the pieces apart, his voice softly describing what he revealed to a digital recorder set on a nearby tray. A small piece of bone lifted up with the bandages, and he stopped, hissing when Spencer moved forward.
“You are in my light, Inspector,” he admonished. “You know better.”
“Sorry. Too curious.” It was barely an apology, especially since Spencer didn’t move back. “That looks like a gunshot wound. Right in the back of the skull.”
“It might be. Looks consistent, but I’m not going to say yes or no until I examine the remains more. Some of the brain is missing,” Carter noted. “But I won’t know if it was removed like the other victim or was consumed by the scavengers on his body. When I get to the front, we’ll be able to see if the same through-the-nose extraction method was used. That’ll add another connection to the first case. And before you say, ‘how could they not be related?’ Inspector, this one might be wrapped up, but there’s no resins or artifacts left with the body. If anything, the wrappings are done haphazardly. Which is odd if you consider the man found in the restaurant was probably enrobed before this one.”
“And killers usually refine their methods, not grow more sloppy with the applications,” Spencer completed Carter’s thought. “Could he have been killed, wrapped, and stored? Like in a freezer?”
“I have the techs looking for freezer burn and other tissue breakdowns, but once again, being submerged won’t help in that.” Frowning, Carter began to carefully pick the wrappings clear. “Remember when I asked you if you expected to recognize the victim by seeing his face?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago,” he replied with a snort. “I didn’t get hit on the head that hard. Why?”
“Because I do. Recognize him,” the doctor said quietly, lifting the tape and linens free of the head. “It’s Foster, John Foster, and he used to work for me right up until he disappeared.”
Nine
TEN MINUTES of restless sleep facedown on an instrument tray wasn’t going to carry Spencer much farther than driving to his building, parking, and possibly finding his room. He didn’t have a lot of hope he wasn’t going to climb up the stairs to his old place and scare the hell out of whoever had moved into the small, drafty loft by shoving his new keys into the lock to open the door. Sleeping in his car was beginning to sound good, depending on if someone hadn’t stolen his parking space in the garage.
“Shit, pushed way too fucking hard,” he muttered, slipping around the back of the ME building to go search out his car. The damned headache he’d gotten rid of threatened to crawl back under his temple, knocking a throb behind his eyes.
He was halfway across the street when he realized he’d left his jacket in Carter’s office, slung over a hard-seated visitor’s chair leftover from some inquisition. The one clean T-shirt he’d found in his room was too thin to be worn alone, comfortable under a blazer, but outside in a muggy San Francisco fog next to a pier, it offered no protection from the cold. When the wind picked up, Spencer hurried to reach the relative safety of a block of buildings, hoping it would cut some of the heartier gusts.
There was some consolation to driving himself to fumes. He felt only a lingering craving for a hit of whiskey, no overwhelming need for the numbing burn in his throat and the dubious promise of drinking himself into a stupor. Late nights were when the crawling hooks of need ached the most. The hiccups of silence found in the dark of a city amplified the doubts careening about in his head. Random shames and lost chances appeared, then bobbed back down beneath the surface, leaving turbulent wakes behind strong enough to rattle any calm he’d gained working through the case. With his nose down to the grindstone, Spencer didn’t have time to fight off his demons. They were waiting, though. Lying still in the quiet recesses, waiting for any crack in the wall to slip out and strangle him.
He’d been forced to move his car out of the building’s park half an hour after Carter discovered the second victim’s identity. In the time it took him to find a back-alley spot to leave his vehicle, then play dodge with the two street-cleaning machines shoving the city’s filth from the lot and the streets around the building, a battalion of official-looking, somber people had gathered in the autopsy arena. No one blinked when he walked in, although Carter did give him a flat smile when he edged in close to the main table to gather up the notes he’d left behind. The discussion was fierce, mostly about one of their own being murdered and some noise about procedures Carter dismissed with a snort.
What followed was a painstaking drawn-out examination of every cranny of Foster’s skull. Spencer held out some hope the bits and pieces of a human life weren’t Johnson’s lover, but the initial run of fingerprints pulled from the dead man’s hand proved him wrong. Any humor Carter might have banked for later burrowed down deep as he began to pick apart every inch of the remains, looking for any shred of evidence strong enough to point them toward Foster’s killer.
They found nothing. Foster gave up none of his death’s secrets, and Carter scraped up the last bit of fabric and flesh from what th
e divers brought up, closing the autopsy three hours before sunrise.
“This isn’t going anywhere,” Spencer yawned. Hunger scraped through his belly, looking for attention, and he thought about where he could grab something to eat. “You hungry? Maybe this time I can make it to the tearoom.”
Carter looked tempted, and knowing he could bring a look of longing to the man’s face gave Spencer a delicious thrill.
“Any other time, I’d say yes, but you need to go home and rest, Inspector. We can pick this up again in a couple of hours after some sleep.” Sighing, Carter shook his head at Spencer’s suggestion of food. The man had barely looked tired, but Spencer had seen the faint bruising of weariness under Carter’s deeply troubled eyes. “I’ve got to finish some paperwork, and then I’m heading for some downtime to think about this. I’m missing something. I know it.”
Leaving Carter behind felt like a mistake. The man had turned out to be more of a partner than the woman he’d been assigned to, and the thought of speaking to Johnson about Foster made his blood run cold. They would have to go back to the beginning of Foster’s disappearance, guaranteeing Spencer would end up stomping on some cop’s toes when he started questioning what was done to locate the deceased medical examiner when he’d first gone missing.
Turning down the side alley across the street from the medical examiners’ building, Spencer stopped ten yards in. Looking around, the narrowness of the tucked-in corridor was too tight for cars, and he cursed under his breath, realizing he’d either missed the lane he’d parked in or hadn’t gone far enough. The sound of broken glass crunching beneath a shoe turned him around, and the streetlights grabbed at the person’s shape, throwing them into a murky silhouette.
