Whispers of the Dead

CHAPTER 8

‘THIRTEEN?’

Gardner picked up a sample jar from the collection on the stainless steel trolley and held it up to see its contents. Like all the rest it contained a single hypodermic needle taken from the exhumed body, a slender steel sliver encrusted with dark matter.

‘We found another twelve,’ Tom said. He looked and sounded exhausted, the strain of the day’s events clearly visible. ‘Most of them were embedded in the soft tissue of the arms, legs and shoulders, where anyone who tried to move the remains would be most likely to take hold.’

Gardner set down the jar again, his world-weary features folded into lines of disgust. He’d come alone, and I’d tried to ignore my disappointment when I saw that Jacobsen wasn’t with him. The three of us were in an unused autopsy suite, where Tom and I had taken the remains after we’d finished X-raying them. The hypodermic needles had shown up as stark white lines against the greys and blacks. He’d insisted on removing them all himself, declining my offer of help. If he could have lifted the body from the casket by himself as well he would. As it was, he’d checked it thoroughly with a handheld metal detector before allowing either of us to touch it.

After what had happened to Kyle, he wasn’t taking any chances.

The assistant had been sent home after spending all afternoon at Emergency. He’d been pumped full of broad spectrum antibiotics, but neither they nor anything else would be effective against some pathogens the needle might have introduced into his bloodstream. He’d have the results of some tests in a few days, but others would take much longer. It would be months before he’d know for sure if he’d been infected or not.

‘The needles had been planted with the points facing outwards, so that whoever handled the body was almost certain to impale themselves,’ Tom went on, his face drawn with self-reproach. ‘This is my fault. I should never have let anyone else handle the remains.’

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ I said. ‘There was no way you could have known what was going to happen.’

Gardner gave me a look that said he still wasn’t happy about my presence, but kept his thoughts to himself. Tom had already made it clear that he considered I’d as much right to be there as he had, pointing out that it could just as easily have been me who’d been injured.

If Tom hadn’t felt sorry for Kyle it might well have been.

‘There’s only one person to be blamed, and that’s whoever did this,’ Gardner said. ‘It’s lucky no one else was hurt.’

‘Try telling that to Kyle.’ Tom stared at the specimen jars, his eyes ringed with fatigue. ‘Have you got any idea yet whose corpse was in the casket?’

Gardner’s eyes flicked to the body lying on the aluminium table. We’d hosed it down thoroughly, washing off the worst of the decompositional fluids before Tom had removed the needles. The smell was nothing like so intense as when the casket had first been opened, but it was there, all the same.

‘We’re working on it.’

‘Someone at the funeral home has to know something!’ Tom protested. ‘What does York have to say about it?’

‘We’re still questioning him.’

‘Questioning him? Christ almighty, Dan, never mind that there was the wrong body in the grave, someone stuck thirteen hypodermic needles in it while it was at Steeple Hill! How the hell could that have happened without York knowing about it?’

The TBI agent’s face had set. ‘I don’t know, Tom. That’s why we’re questioning him.’

Tom took a deep breath. ‘I apologize. It’s been a long day.’

‘Forget it.’ Gardner seemed to regret his earlier reticence. Some of the tension in the autopsy suite seemed to lift as he leaned against the workbench behind him, rubbing the back of his neck. The bright overhead light bleached what little colour there was from his face. ‘York claims to have hired someone called Dwight Chambers about eight months ago. According to him this guy was a godsend; worked hard, eager to learn, didn’t mind putting in the hours. Then one day he didn’t show up and York says he never saw him again. He insists it was Chambers who oversaw Willis Dexter’s funeral, who prepared the body and sealed the casket.’

‘And you believe him?’

Gardner gave a thin smile. ‘I don’t believe anyone, you know that. York’s a worried man, but I don’t think it’s because of the murders. Steeple Hill’s a mess. That’s why he was so keen to help us, hoping if he was nice we’d go away. By the look of things he’s been struggling to keep it afloat for years. Cutting corners, hiring casual workers to keep costs down. No taxes, no medical insurance, no questions asked. The bad news is there aren’t any records of who’s worked there, either.’

‘So is there any proof this Dwight Chambers actually existed?’ It wasn’t until I’d spoken that I remembered I was only there on sufferance. Gardner looked as though he might refuse to answer, but Tom was having none of it.

‘It’s a legitimate question, Dan.’

Gardner sighed. ‘The funeral home’s employees come and go so often that Chambers would only have been one of many. It wasn’t easy finding anyone who’d worked there long enough to remember him, but we found two who thought they could. The description they gave was pretty vague but matched the one we got from York. White, dark hair, somewhere between twenty-five and forty.’

‘Does that fit Willis Dexter?’ I asked.

‘It fits half the men in Tennessee.’ He absently straightened a box of microscope slides so it was aligned with the edge of the workbench. Catching himself, he stopped and folded his arms. ‘But we’re looking into the possibility that Dexter and Chambers might be the same person, and that Dexter was cute enough to preside over his own funeral as well as fake his own death. According to the autopsy report he died from massive head trauma when his car hit a tree. No other vehicle was involved, and there was enough alcohol in his system to kill a horse. It was assumed he just lost control.’

‘But?’ Tom prompted.

‘But… the car caught fire. The body was only identified through personal effects. So it’s possible that a routine autopsy might have overlooked any racial characteristics. And Dexter didn’t have any family, so the funeral was just a formality. Closed casket, no embalming.’

It wouldn’t have been the first time a burnt-out car had been used to disguise a corpse’s identity. But there were still aspects of this that didn’t add up.

Tom obviously thought so too. He looked across at the body lying on the table. ‘From what I’ve seen so far that doesn’t look burned to me. How about you, David?’

‘I wouldn’t say so, no.’ Although the decomposition could have disguised it to an extent, the body didn’t show any evidence of intense heat. Its limbs weren’t drawn up into the boxer’s crouch characteristic of fire deaths, and while they could have been forcibly straightened afterwards, I would still have expected to see some outward signs, even so.

‘Then maybe it was only superficially burned, just enough to scorch the skin,’ Gardner said. ‘The fact is that Willis Dexter’s still missing, and until we’ve got proof that he’s dead that makes him a suspect.’

I spoke without thinking. ‘It doesn’t make sense for it to be Dexter.’

‘Excuse me?’

Go on. Too late to change your mind now. ‘If Dexter wanted everyone to think he was dead, why didn’t he arrange it so the body was cremated instead of buried? Why go to all that trouble and then leave a corpse in the casket that obviously wasn’t his?’

Gardner’s face was stone. ‘He might have thought that wouldn’t matter if it was burned in the car crash. If not for the fingerprints we found in the cabin it wouldn’t have.’

‘But whoever put the needles in the body obviously expected— wanted—it to be exhumed.’

He studied me, as though debating whether to answer or throw me out. ‘I’m aware of that. And in case you’re wondering, it’s also occurred to us that the fingerprint might have been left deliberately. Maybe Dexter did it himself, or maybe he’s buried in another grave at Steeple Hill, and someone’s got his hand in an icebox. But until we know one way or the other, then he’s going to stay a suspect. That all right by you, Dr Hunter?’

I didn’t say anything. I could feel the planes of my face tightening.

‘David’s only trying to help, Dan,’ Tom said, which somehow made it worse.

‘I’m sure he is.’ Gardner’s expression could have meant anything. He stood up to go, then paused, addressing Tom as though I wasn’t there. ‘One more thing. The X-rays of the body from the cabin match Terry Loomis’s dental records. We might not be Scotland Yard, but at least we got an ID on one of the victims.’

He gave Tom a nod as he went to the door.

‘I’ll be in touch.’

The day was nearly over by the time we resumed work. We were badly behind schedule, and it didn’t help that there were just the two of us. After what had happened to Kyle, Tom wasn’t prepared to let Summer help any more.

‘It might be bolting the stable door after the horse has gone, but she’s only a student. I don’t want anything else on my conscience,’ he said. He regarded me solemnly over his glasses. ‘I’ll understand if you want to back out.’

‘What happened to “last chance to work together”?’ I joked.

The attempt to lighten his mood failed. He rubbed at his breastbone with the heel of his hand, but stopped when he realized I was watching. ‘I didn’t know then what I’d be getting you into.’

‘You didn’t get me into anything. I volunteered.’

Tom took off his glasses and began to clean them. He didn’t look at me. ‘Only because I asked you to. Maybe it would be better if I asked Paul or one of the others to lend a hand.’

The depth of my disappointment surprised me. ‘I’m sure Gardner would be happier.’

That at least raised a smile. ‘Dan doesn’t have anything against you personally. He just likes to do things by the book. This is a high profile homicide investigation and as ASAC he’s under pressure to get results. You’re an unknown quantity as far as he’s concerned, that’s all.’

‘I get the feeling he’d like me to stay that way.’

The smile became a chuckle, but it soon faded. ‘Look at it from my viewpoint, David. After what happened to you last year…’

‘Last year was last year,’ I said, more forcefully than I’d intended. ‘Look, I know I’m only here at your invitation, and if you’d rather bring in Paul or someone else to help out, then fine. But I can’t duck and run whenever things get complicated. You said as much yourself. Besides, we’ve found the needles now. What else can happen?’

Tom stared broodingly down at his glasses, still wiping the lenses even though they must have been spotless by now. I stayed silent, knowing he had to decide for himself. Finally, he put the glasses back on.

‘Let’s get back to work.’

But the relief I felt was soon crowded out as my doubts returned. I found myself wondering if it wouldn’t be better for Paul or one of Tom’s other colleagues to step in after all. I hadn’t come here to take part in an investigation, and my presence was clearly causing friction with Gardner. Tom was every bit as stubborn as the TBI agent, especially when it came to who he worked with, but I didn’t want to make things difficult for him.

Even so, I was reluctant to back out now. Whether it was because of what had happened to Kyle, or just that my professional instincts had finally kicked back into life, something in me had changed. For a long time I’d felt as though an essential part of me had been missing, amputated by Grace Strachan’s knife. Now something of the old obsessiveness had begun to stir; the need to get to the truth behind a victim’s fate. I might only be assisting Tom, but I still felt I had a stake in the investigation. I was loath to simply walk away.

Unless I wasn’t given any choice.

While Tom made a start on reconstructing the skeleton that had been confirmed to be Terry Loomis’s in one autopsy suite, I began processing the anonymous body from Willis Dexter’s casket in the other. It had been hosed down, but the remaining soft tissue still needed to be stripped from it. I hadn’t been at it long when Tom poked his head round the door.

‘You might want to take a look at this.’

I followed him down the corridor to the other autopsy suite. He’d arranged the large bones of the arms and legs on the examination table, laying them out in an approximation of their anatomical positions. The other bones would follow one by one, until the entire skeleton had been reassembled; a painstaking but necessary job.

Tom went to where the cleaned skull sat at the top of the table and picked it up.

‘Beautiful, aren’t they? As perfect an example of pink teeth as I’ve ever seen.’

Cleaned of any decomposing soft tissue, the pink hue was unmistakable. Something had caused blood to be forced into the pulp of Terry Loomis’s teeth, either as he’d been killed or shortly afterwards.

The question was what?

‘His head wasn’t tilted back far enough for gravity to have caused it,’ Tom said, voicing my own thoughts. ‘I’d say he’d almost certainly have to have been strangled, except for the amount of blood at the cabin.’

I nodded. Judging from what we’d seen, Terry Loomis had virtually bled out. The only problem was if that had happened, then he shouldn’t also have had pink teeth. And while it was possible that the wounds we’d seen on his body had been inflicted post mortem, if that were the case they wouldn’t have bled nearly so much. So while there was evidence for both strangulation and stabbing as the cause of death, it couldn’t be both. Either one ruled the other out.

So which was it?

‘Any sign of cuts to the bone?’ I asked. If there were, that might indicate a frenzied attack that would point to the wounds being the cause of death.

‘None that I’ve seen so far.’

‘What about the hyoid?’

‘Intact. No help there, either.’

If the slender bone that sits around the larynx had been broken, it would have meant that Loomis had almost certainly been strangled. But the opposite doesn’t apply. It’s a common misconception that strangulation always causes the hyoid to break. For all its delicate appearance it’s stronger than it looks, so the fact that Loomis’s was undamaged didn’t prove anything one way or the other.

Tom gave a tired smile. ‘Tricky one, isn’t it? Be interesting to see if the body from the casket has pink teeth as well. If it has, then my money’s on strangulation, cuts or not.’

‘We’ll have to wait till the skull’s been cleaned to know that,’ I said. ‘The teeth are pretty rotten, and by the look of it the victim was a heavy smoker. There’s too much nicotine staining to tell if there’s any other discoloration.’

‘Well, I suppose we’ll just have to—’

Before he could finish the door to the autopsy suite was flung open and Hicks barged in. His face held an alcohol flush, and even from across the room I could smell the sour odour of wine and onions on his breath. He’d clearly enjoyed a good lunch.

Ignoring me completely, he strode up to Tom, bald head gleaming under the fluorescent lights.

‘Who the hell do you think you are, Lieberman?’

‘If this is about Kyle, I’m sorry—’

‘Sorry? Sorry doesn’t begin to cover it. Use your own damn students, not one of my dieners!’ He made the unofficial term for morgue assistant sound like an insult. ‘Have you any idea of how much this could cost if Webster decides to sue?’

‘Right now I’m more worried about Kyle himself.’

‘Pity you didn’t think of that before. You better pray that needle wasn’t infected, because if it was I swear this is going to be on your head!’

Tom looked down. He didn’t seem to have either the will or the energy to argue.

‘It already is.’

Hicks was about to launch into another attack when he became aware of me watching. He glared at me angrily.

‘Got something to say?’

I knew Tom wouldn’t thank me for interfering. Bite your tongue. Don’t say anything.

‘You’ve got gravy on your tie,’ I said, before I could stop myself.

His eyes narrowed. Until then I think I’d barely registered with him, other than as an extension of Tom. Now I knew I’d put myself in his sights as well, but I didn’t care. The Hickses of this world look for excuses to be outraged. Sometimes it’s easier just to let them get on with it.

He nodded thoughtfully, as though promising something to himself. ‘This isn’t over, Lieberman,’ he said, giving Tom a final glare before going out.

Tom waited until the door had shut behind him. ‘David…’ He sighed.

‘I know, I’m sorry.’

He gave a chuckle. ‘Actually, I think it was tomato soup. But in future—’

He broke off with a gasp, his hand going to his chest. I started towards him but he waved me away.

‘I’m all right.’

But it was obvious he wasn’t. Fumbling off his gloves, he took a small pill case from his pocket and slipped a small tablet under his tongue. After a moment the tension began to go out of him.

‘Nitroglycerin?’ I asked.

Tom nodded, his breathing gradually becoming less strained. It was a standard treatment for angina, dilating the blood vessels to allow blood to flow more easily to the heart. His colour was already better, but under the harsh lights of the morgue he looked exhausted as he put the pills away.

‘OK, where were we?’

‘You were just about to go home,’ I told him.

‘No need. I’m fine now.’

I just looked at him.

‘You’re as bad as Mary,’ he muttered. ‘All right. I’ll just clear up…’

‘I can do it. Go on home. This’ll still be here tomorrow.’

It was a sign of how exhausted he was that he didn’t argue. I felt a pang of concern as I watched him go out. He looked stooped and frail, but it had been a stressful day. He’ll be better after some food and a good night’s sleep.

I almost made myself believe it.

There wasn’t much clearing away to be done in Tom’s autopsy suite. After I’d finished I went back to my own, where I’d been working on the remains from the exhumed casket. I wanted to finish denuding them of soft tissue and get them into detergent overnight, but as I was about to start I was overcome by a jaw-cracking yawn. I’d not realized till then how tired I was myself. The wall clock said it was after seven, and I’d been on the go since before dawn.

Another hour. You can manage that. I turned to the remains on the examination table. Tissue samples had been sent off to the lab to provide a more accurate time since death, but I didn’t need the results of the VFA and amino acid analysis to know that something here didn’t add up.

Two bodies, both more decomposed than they should be. There was a pattern there, I’d agree with Irving about that much. Just not one I could make any sense of. The bright overhead light shone dully on the scratched aluminium of the table as I picked up the scalpel. Partially stripped of its flesh, the body lying in front of me resembled a badly carved joint. I bent to start work, and as I did something registered at the edge of my vision.

Something was snagged in the ear cavity.

It was a brown half-oval, no bigger than a grain of rice. Setting down the scalpel, I picked up a pair of small forceps and gently teased it free from the whorl of cartilaginous tissue. I raised it up to examine it, my surprise growing as I saw what it was. What on earth…?

It took me a few seconds to realize that the racing in my chest was excitement.

I started searching round for a specimen jar, and gave a start when there was a rap on the door. I looked round as Paul entered.

‘Not disturbing you, am I?’

‘Not at all’.

He came over and looked down at the body, eyes professionally assessing its tissue-stripped form. He’d have seen worse, just as I had. Sometimes it’s only when you see someone else’s reaction— or lack of it—that you realize how we become accustomed to even the most grotesque sights.

‘I just saw Tom. He said you were still working, so I thought I’d see how you were getting on.’

‘Still behind schedule. You don’t happen to know where the specimen jars are, do you?’

‘Sure.’ He went to a cupboard. ‘Tom wasn’t looking so good. Was he OK?’

I wasn’t sure how much to say, unsure if Paul knew about Tom’s condition. But he must have read my hesitation.

‘Don’t worry, I know about the angina. Did he have another attack?’

‘Not a bad one, but I persuaded him to go home,’ I said, relieved I didn’t have to pretend.

‘I’m glad he pays attention to someone. Usually you can’t beat him away with a stick.’ Paul handed me a specimen jar. ‘What’s that?’

I put the small brown object into it and held it up for him to see. ‘An empty pupal case. Blowfly, by the look of it. It must have lodged in the ear cavity when we hosed down the body.’

Paul looked at it incuriously at first; then I saw the realization hit him. He stared from the specimen jar to the body.

‘This came from the body you exhumed this morning?’

‘That’s right.’

He whistled, taking the jar from me. ‘Now how the hell did that get there?’

I’d been wondering that myself. Blowflies were ubiquitous in our line of work, laying their eggs in any bodily opening. They could find their way into most places, indoors or out.

But I’d never heard of any laying their eggs six feet underground.

I screwed the lid on to the jar. ‘The only thing I can think of is that the body must have been left on the surface before it was buried. Did Tom tell you about the decomposition?’

‘That it was worse than it should have been after six months?’ He nodded. ‘The casing’s empty, so the body must have been left out for at least ten or eleven days for the fly to hatch. And six months ago puts the time of death sometime last fall. Warm and wet, so the body wouldn’t mummify like it would in summer.’

It was starting to make sense. Either by accident or design, the body had been left to rot before it was put into the casket, which would explain why it was so badly decomposed. Paul was silent for a moment. I knew what he was thinking, and when he turned to me I saw that his excitement matched my own.

‘Is the casket still here?’

We left the autopsy suite and went to the storeroom where the casket and aluminium container were awaiting collection by forensic agents. When we opened it the smell of putrefaction was as bad as ever. The shroud was crumpled inside, clotted and rank.

Using a pair of forceps, Paul drew it open.

Until now it had been the body itself that had commanded everyone’s attention, not what it had been wrapped in. Now we knew what to look for, though, they weren’t hard to find. More pupal cases lay in the cotton sheet, camouflaged by the viscous black slurry from the corpse. Some were broken and empty, already hatched like the one I’d found, but others were still whole. There were no larvae, but after six months their softer bodies would have long since disintegrated.

‘Well, that settles it,’ Paul said. ‘You might explain away one, but not this many. The body must have been pretty badly decomposed before it was sealed in here.’

He reached for the casket lid, but I stopped him. ‘What’s that?’

Something else was half hidden in the folds of cotton. Taking the forceps from Paul, I gently teased it free.

‘What is it, some kind of cricket?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so.’

It was an insect of some kind, that much was obvious. Well over an inch in length, it was slender with a long, segmented carapace. It had been partially crushed, and its legs had curled in death, emphasizing the elongated teardrop shape of its body.

I set it down on the sheet. Against the white background, the insect looked even more out of place and alien.

Paul leaned forward for a closer look. ‘Never seen anything like that before. How about you?’

I shook my head. I’d no idea what it was either. Only that it had no right to be there.

I worked for another two hours after Paul left. Finding the unknown insect had blown away any vestiges of my earlier tiredness, so I’d carried on until I’d got all the exhumed remains soaking in vats of detergent. I was still buzzing with adrenaline as I left the morgue. Paul and I had decided not to bother Tom with our discovery that night, but I felt convinced that it was a breakthrough. I didn’t know how or why, not yet. But my instincts told me the insect was important.

It was a good feeling.

Still preoccupied, I made my way across the car park. It was late and this part of the hospital was deserted. My car was almost the only one there. Streetlights ran round the edges of the car park, but its interior was in almost total darkness. I was halfway across, starting to reach in my pocket for my car keys, when suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I knew I wasn’t alone.

I turned quickly, but there was nothing to see. The car park was a field of darkness, the few other cars there solid blocks of shadow. Nothing moved, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something—someone—nearby.

You’re just tired. You’re imagining things. I set off for my car again. My footsteps sounded unnaturally loud on the gravelled surface.

And then I heard a stone skitter behind me.

I spun round and was blinded by a bright stab of light. Shielding my eyes, I squinted past it as a dark figure with a torch emerged from behind the tank-like shape of a pick-up truck.

It stopped a few feet away, the torch still directed on to my face. ‘Mind tellin’ me what you’re doing here?’

The voice was gruff and threateningly civil, the accent a heavy twang. I made out epaulettes beyond the torch beam, and relaxed as I realized it was only a security guard.

‘I’m going home,’ I said. He didn’t move the light from my face. Its brightness prevented me from making out anything apart from the uniform.

‘Got some ID?’

I fished out the pass I’d been given for the morgue and showed it to him. He didn’t take it, just dipped the torch beam on to the plastic card before raising it to my face again.

‘Could you shine that somewhere else?’ I said, blinking.

He lowered the torch a little. ‘Workin’ late, huh?’

‘That’s right.’ Blotches of light danced in my vision as my eyes tried to adjust.

There was a throaty chuckle. ‘Graveyard shift’s a bitch, ain’t it?’

The torch beam was switched off. I couldn’t see anything, but heard his footsteps crunch away across the gravel. His voice floated back to me from the darkness.

‘Y’all drive carefully, now.’

You watch the lights from the car recede, waiting until they’ve disappeared before you step out from behind the pickup. Your throat is sore from deepening your voice, and your pulse is racing, either from excitement or frustration, you can’t be sure.

The idiot never realized how close he came.

You know you took a chance confronting him like that, but you couldn’t help it. When you saw him coming across the car park it seemed a God-given opportunity. There was no one else around, and chances were no one would have missed him till the next day. Without even thinking about it, you dogged his steps from the shadows, closing the distance between you.

But quiet as you were, he must have heard something. He stopped and turned round, and although you could still have taken him if you’d wanted, it made you think again. Even if your foot hadn’t stubbed that damn stone, you’d already decided to let him go. Lord knows, you’re not afraid to take chances, but some Brit no one’s ever heard of wasn’t worth the risk. Not now, not when the stakes are so high. Still, you’d been sorely tempted.

If it hadn’t been for what you’ve got planned for tomorrow you might have gone ahead anyway.

You smile as you think of it, anticipation bubbling up inside you. It’s going to be dangerous, but no one wins any prizes by playing safe. Shock and awe, that’s what you want. You’ve hidden your light under a bushel for long enough, watched your lessers take all the glory. High time you got the recognition you deserve. And after tomorrow no one’s going to be in any doubt what you’re capable of. They think they know what they’re dealing with, but they’ve no idea.

You’re just getting started.

You take a deep breath of the warm spring night, savouring the sweetness of blossom and the faintly treacly smell of asphalt. Feeling strong and confident, you climb into the pick-up. Time to go home.

You’ve got a busy day ahead.