The Caller

Fifty-Eight

The main facility of the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner was located on North Mission Road, number 1104. The building was an outstanding piece of architecture with hints of Renaissance. Old-fashioned lampposts flanked the extravagant entry stairway, with terracotta bricks and gray lintels fronting the stunning old hospital-turned-morgue.

Hunter and Garcia made their way up the steps that led to the building’s main entrance and approached the reception counter.

‘Hello, Detectives,’ the attendant said. She was a petite woman, with deep-set eyes, a pointy nose, and gleaming white teeth behind a very gentle smile.

‘Good morning, Audrey,’ Hunter greeted her back.

‘Morning, Audrey.’ Garcia followed suit.

‘Dr. Hove is in Autopsy Theater Two,’ Audrey said. With her index finger she indicated the double swing doors to the right of the reception.

Hunter and Garcia pushed through them and moved on to a bright white corridor with shiny linoleum floors that smelled heavily of antiseptic detergent. An empty gurney was pushed up against one of its walls. They went through a new set of double doors at the end of the corridor before turning left into a shorter hallway. As soon as they cleared the doors, the antiseptic smell changed into something much, much punchier, an odor that seemed to claw at the back of the throat and slowly burn the inside of the nostrils.

Hunter immediately brought a hand up to his face, cupping his fingers over his nose. No matter how many times he’d been through those corridors, he had never gotten used to that smell. He didn’t believe he ever would either.

A final right turn at the end of this second hallway and they were finally at the door to Autopsy Theater Two. Through the two rectangular windows on the stainless-steel plated doors, the detectives could see Dr. Hove inside. She was sitting on a tall stool, completely absorbed by something on her computer screen.

Hunter knocked three times.

Dr. Hove looked up and as she recognized the detectives she turned and hit the round green button on the wall behind her. The doors unlocked with a pressure-seal-like hiss. With a hand gesture, she motioned them inside.

Hunter and Garcia pushed the doors open and finally stepped into the large and uncomfortably cold room. Its walls were tiled in brilliant white. Its floor, just like the corridors outside, were done in shiny, squeaky-clean linoleum. Two stainless-steel autopsy tables sprang out of a long and wide drainage counter that hugged the west wall. At the end of each table sat an oversized sink equipped with a powerful water jet. Cassandra Jenkinson’s body, half covered by a light-blue sheet, lay on the table closest to them. Her head had been clean-shaved. Her hair would now be at the forensics lab for analysis.

‘Robert, Carlos.’ The Chief Medical Examiner for the Los Angeles County greeted both detectives.

Dr. Carolyn Hove was tall and slim, with piercing green eyes and long chestnut hair that had been tied back into a ponytail. Her surgical mask hung loosely from her neck, revealing full lips, prominent cheekbones and a small Grecian nose. Her voice had the sort of velvety and calm tone usually associated with experience and knowledge.

‘Not really how I’d like to spend my Saturday morning,’ she said. ‘But one can’t always choose.’

‘We’re sorry about that, Doc,’ Hunter said. ‘I guess we would all rather be somewhere else.’

‘No need to apologize, Robert,’ the doctor replied. ‘It’s not your fault and I was scheduled to be here anyway. If not this case, I’d be working on a different one. The backlog is weeks long.’

Neither detective doubted that for a second. The LACDC was one of the busiest coroners in the country, and despite performing anywhere between twenty and forty postmortem examinations every day, the work would still sometimes accumulate.

‘OK,’ Dr. Hove said in a subdued tone, turning towards the body on the table. ‘Let me show you what this monster has done.’

Something in her tone of voice worried both detectives.