The Obsidian Chamber

55

The medical examiner’s office of Miami-Dade County was located in a drab-colored modern building of indifferent architecture. The interior was as cold as sun-soaked Tenth Avenue outside was hot. In the basement, among the capacious walls of corpse lockers, it was even colder. Susceptible to chill as always, Pendergast buttoned his suit jacket, pulled his tie up around his throat.

The medical examiner who’d greeted them at the entrance to the morgue cooler, Dr. Vasilivich, was a cheerful, heavyset man with a tonsure like a medieval monk’s. “It’s a good thing you’ve got pull,” he told Longstreet after the introductions had been made. “And that you were able to get here so early. Both bodies were about to be released to their families.”

“We won’t take up much of your time,” said Longstreet, with a significant glance at Pendergast. Pendergast knew his old CO was growing tired of humoring him.

“What are you looking for, exactly?” Vasilivich asked.

“We aren’t sure,” Pendergast said before Longstreet could speak.

Vasilivich nodded and led the way down the room. To the left and right, the walls were lined from floor to waist height with stainless-steel doors. “Montoya first, then,” he said. “Age before beauty.” He chuckled.

Stopping before a locker near ground level, he grabbed the handle, then slid it out slowly. A draped form lay on the cold steel. “If you have any specific questions, ask,” he said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “I’m afraid I’m the only one who can touch the bodies.”

“Understood,” said Longstreet.

“Prepare yourself,” Vasilivich said as he grasped the concealing drape. “This makes Hellraiser look like Captain Kangaroo.”

He pulled the drape aside, revealing the naked figure of an elderly lady.

“Christ,” Longstreet muttered.

The head and chest were covered with dozens of deep, gaping wounds, the slashes strangely gray given the bloodless tissue. Lacerations seemed to cover every inch of the torso, and the face was so cut up as to be almost unrecognizable. The two agents looked on in silence.

“No autopsy,” Pendergast said at last, referring to the lack of a Y-incision.

“The county coroner deemed it unnecessary,” said Vasilivich. “Same thing for Dr. Graben.” He paused. “Funny thing, though.”

“What is?” Pendergast asked.

“According to the toxicology report, Ms. Montoya died of heart failure, most likely due to an overdose of morphine.”

“These wounds weren’t the cause of death?” Pendergast asked.

“The window of time between events is so brief that it’s hard to be sure. But at least some of the lacerations were postmortem. There was as much blood on the bedsheets, you see, as there was on the walls — insufficient vascular pressure.”

“Couldn’t the death have been caused by the shock of the initial wounds?” Longstreet asked.

“It’s possible. As I say, the overdose was only ruled the most likely causative factor. But given the violence of the attack, any number of elements could have brought on death — and probably did.”

Leaving the body, Vasilivich moved down a few more rows, pulled open another cold locker, and rolled out another body. When the drape was removed, the corpse of a man was exposed. If anything, this body was even more lacerated than the elderly lady’s had been.

“No question about cause of death here,” Vasilivich said as they surrounded the body. “Exsanguination, resulting from transverse laceration of the aorta. That was probably the killer’s initial blow. There are several others, however, that would have been sufficient to cause death — the severed femoral artery, for example, here.”

There was a pause.

“What would cause an overdose of morphine?” Longstreet asked. “Could the drip have malfunctioned?”

“It’s extremely rare, especially these days. Those machines are foolproof.”

“So it was most likely intentional,” Pendergast said. “But if an overdose was in fact the cause, it was still administered close enough to the time of the knife attacks to allow for a degree of arterial spattering.”

“Why would somebody try to kill the old lady by overdosing her, then cut her to ribbons?” Vasilivich asked.

“Because he — or she — was interrupted,” Longstreet answered.

“Yes,” said Pendergast. “If the overdose theory is correct, perhaps the killer hadn’t initially intended to slash the body. The woman was on a death watch anyway — everyone would assume she died of natural causes. But Dr. Graben stumbled upon the murderer in flagrante. The murderer slashed him to death — then killed Montoya in the same way, to make it look like the work of a lunatic.”

“It’s like no lunatic murder I’ve ever seen,” said Vasilivich. “And I’ve seen more than my share.”

“Why not?” Pendergast asked.

“Because of all the slashes to the backs as well as the torsos. Their backs are sliced to ribbons — they look as if they’d been whipped with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Okay, the wounds to the frontal sides aren’t all that unusual — Graben even has some defensive wounds on his forearms — but what murderer bothers to slice up their victims’ backs?”

“A particularly twisted individual,” Longstreet murmured.

“Turn him over, if you please,” Pendergast asked.

Vasilivich gently turned over the doctor’s body. It was indeed a veritable checkerboard of deep slashes, particularly in the region of the lower back, over and across the buttocks.

Pendergast examined the corpse for a minute. Then he froze. After a moment he bent over the lower back, his hand coming forward.

“Agent Pendergast,” Vasilivich warned.

Pendergast stopped. “Note this section of vertebrae here, from about L1 to S2.”

“Yes?”

“Please inspect it. Wouldn’t you say that the extensive shredding and tearing of the flesh along the spinal column is more than just the result of slashing with a knife?”

Vasilivich placed his gloved hands on the corpse’s lower back and began gently pulling away the flesh, first at one spot, then another. “My God,” he murmured. “You’re right. There’s been an excision.”

“Can you identify the missing material?” Pendergast asked.

More prodding. “Yes,” said Vasilivich. “It would appear to be—”

“The cauda equina,” Pendergast finished for him.

The M.E. looked up at him, blinking in surprise. “How did you know?”

“Examine the old woman’s body, if you please. See if it is missing its cauda equina, as well.”

It was the work of two minutes to determine that this was, in fact, the case.

“Aloysius?” Longstreet asked in a strange tone. “What exactly is going on here?”

But Pendergast did not answer. The cauda equina. Very quickly, many things fitted themselves together in his mind. Enoch Leng and his elixir. Constance Greene and her sister, Mary. And now Diogenes.

So the killer had intended to slash his victim from the very beginning. The morphine was simply to dispatch her, to make his job easier. But once one knew where to look, all the lacerations, cuts, and slashes in the world couldn’t hide the fact that a small excision had been made from both bodies.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked his absent brother, in a voice below the threshold of hearing.

At that moment, there was a loud knock on the cooler door. Vasilivich walked over and pulled it open. One of Longstreet’s field agents was waiting outside. He quickly stepped in.

“Yes?” Longstreet asked.

“There’s been a break in the Leyland case,” the agent said.

“Go on.”

“We already knew that, infrequently, he did work for the Hendry County medical examiner. But we’ve now learned that, even more infrequently, he assisted the M.E. in administering lethal injections to death row patients.”

“And?” Longstreet urged.

“Just seven days ago, he supervised an execution at Pahokee. Single-handedly.”

Pendergast quickly drilled the man with his gaze. “And who was executed?”

“Lucius Garey. He was buried the day before yesterday.”

Just as quickly, Pendergast turned back to Longstreet. “You need to put through a request to have that prisoner’s body exhumed. This morning.”

“Not until you explain what’s going on.”

“I’ll explain on the way to the grave site. Now please, make the call. There’s no time to lose.”