The Sin Collector

ANDREY

Everyone should have a friend who examines corpses. Andrey chuckled to himself. Probably some people would disagree.

People on this particular career path fell into one of two categories. The first type were the mimics. Somebody who hung out with dead bodies all day could start to resemble their clients. Pale and gloomy, basically. The second type just got more hearty and healthy, optimists with a very specific sense of humor. The only thing they all had in common was a propensity for strong drink—and in this, Andrey could deftly provide company to either type. Business dictated that they could often be found together: Andrey; the coroner; and corpses, corpses and more corpses.

Pasha belonged to the second category. He had three kids and a very practical wife with her own travel business. She covertly supported the family and openly adored her husband, a guy who cheerfully spent his time digging around in dead people’s guts.

Andrey had stopped by the morgue to pick Pasha’s brain, but the coroner was on his way out; his middle kid had a middle school concert, and these horrific amateur performances—“You’ll understand when you have kids, man”—could not be missed.

Before leaving, though, Pasha did tell him that the cause of death was asphyxiation under water. That was the first thing. Also, the corpse had been frozen. It could be that the guy had not in fact died just a few days ago, as the condition of the soft tissues might indicate. That was the second thing.

“Wait!” Andrey grabbed Pasha by his sleeve. “What do you mean, frozen? It’s summer!”

“Let go!” Pasha twisted out of Andrey’s grip. Running out the door, he answered in a sing-song falsetto. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, and not today, as all the lazy men say!”

And he left Andrey alone in the morgue, rubbing with annoyance at the bridge of his nose.