City of Night

Chapter 5

Jack Rogers, the medical examiner, maintained an office in which an avalanche of books, files, and macabre memorabilia might at any moment bury an unwary visitor.

This reception lounge, however, was more in line with the public perception of a morgue. Minimalist decor. Sterile surfaces. The air-conditioning was set to CHILL.

Jack’s secretary, Winona Harmony, ruled this outer domain with cool efficiency. When Carson and Michael entered, the top of Winona’s desk was bare — no photographs, no mementos — except for a folder of Jack’s notes, from which she was typing official autopsy reports.

A plump, warm-hearted black woman of about fifty-five, Winona seemed out of place in this barren space.

Carson suspected that stuffed into Winona’s desk drawers were family photos, Beanie Babies, beribboned sachets, small pillows with feel-good mottoes in elaborate needlepoint, and other items that she enjoyed but that she found inappropriate for display in a morgue reception lounge.

“Looka here,” said Winona when they came through the door. “If it isn’t the pride of Homicide.”

“I’m here, too,” Michael said.

“Oh, you are smooth,” Winona told him.

“Just realistic. She’s the detective. I’m the comic relief.”

Winona said, “Carson, girl, how do you stand him being so smooth all day?”

“Now and then I pistol-whip him.”

“Probably does no good,” said Winona.

“At least,” Carson said, “it helps keep me in shape.”

“We’re here about a corpse,” Michael said.

“We have a bunch,” Winona said. “Some have names, some don’t.”

“Jonathan Harker.”

“One of your own,” Winona noted.

“Yes and no,” Michael said. “He had a badge like us and two ears, but after that we don’t have much in common with him.”

“Who would have thought a psycho killer like the Surgeon would turn out to be a cop,” Winona marveled. “What’s the world coming to?”

“When will Jack do a prelim autopsy?” Carson asked.

“It’s done.” Winona tapped the file of handwritten notes beside her computer. “I’m typing it now.”

This stunned Carson. Like her and Michael, Jack Rogers knew that something extraordinary was happening in New Orleans and that some of its citizens were something more than human.

He had done an autopsy on a guy who had two hearts, and several other “improvements.”

Carson and Michael had asked him to embargo his report until they could grasp the situation they faced — and within hours, much to Jack’s dismay, the cadaver and all records of the autopsy had vanished.

Now he was supposed to be taking great security measures with the body of Jonathan Harker, who was another of Victor’s New Race. Carson could not comprehend why he would reveal Harker’s inhuman nature to Winona.

Less comprehensible still was Winona’s current calm, her easy smile. If she was typing a report of an autopsy on a monster, she seemed oblivious of it.

His bewilderment matching Carson’s Michael asked, “Have you just started?”

“No,” Winona said, “I’m almost finished.”

“And?”

“And what?”

Carson and Michael exchanged a glance. She said, “We need to see Jack.”

“He’s in Autopsy Room Number Two,” Winona said. “They’re getting ready to open up a retiree whose wife seems to have fed him some bad crawfish gumbo.”

Carson said, “She must be devastated.”

Winona shook her head. “She’s under arrest. At the hospital, when they told her that he died, she couldn’t stop laughing.”