I swiftly ran the scalpel from the clavicles to the sternum and down to the pelvis in the usual incision shaped like a Y Marino was quiet for a moment.
“You think you could stick that needle in his arm, Doc? You think you could turn on the gas or strap him in the chair and hit the switch?”
I didn’t reply.
“I think about that a lot,” he went on.
“I wouldn’t think about it too much,” I said.
“I know you could do it.” He wouldn’t let it rest. “And you know what else, I think you’d like it but just won’t admit it, not even to yourself Sometimes I really want to kill someone.”
I glanced up at him, blood speckling my face shield and saturating the long sleeves of my gown.
“Now you’re really worrying me,” I said, and I meant it.
“See, I think a lot of people feel that way and just won’t admit it.”
Her heart and lungs were within normal limits.
“I think most people don’t feel that way.”
Marino was getting more belligerent, as if his rage over what had been done to Kim Luong made him feel as powerless as she had been.
“I think Lucy feels that way;” he said.
I glanced up at him, refusing to believe it.
“I think she just waits for an opportunity. And if she don’t get that out of her system, she’s gonna end up waiting tables.”
“Be quiet, Marino:”
‘Truth hurts, don’t it? Least I admit it. Take the asshole who did this. Me? I’d like to handcuff him to a chair, shackle his ankles and put the barrel of my pistol in his mouth and ask him if he had an orthodontist because he was about to need one.”
Her spleen, kidneys, liver were within normal limits.
“Then I’d stick it against his eye, tell him to take a look and let me know if I needed to clean the inside of the barrel.”
Inside her stomach were what appeared to be remnants of chicken, rice and vegetables, and I thought of the container and fork that had been found in a paper bag near her pocketbook and coat.
“Hell, maybe I’d just backup like I’m on the fucking firing range and use him as a target, see how much he liked. . : ‘
“Stop it!” I said.
He shut up.
“Goddamn it, Marino. What’s gotten into you?” I asked, scalpel in one hand, forceps in the other.
He was quiet for a while, our silence heavy as I worked and kept him busy with various tasks.
Then he said, “The woman who ran up to the ambulance last night is a friend of Kim’s, works as a waitress at Shoney’s, was taking night classes at VCU. They lived together. So the friend gets home from class. She’s got no idea what’s happened and her phone rings, and this dumbass reporter says, `What was your reaction when you heard?’ ”
He paused. I looked up at him as he stared at the openedup body, the chest cavity empty and gleaming red, pale ribs gracefully bowed out from the perfectly straight spine. I plugged in the Stryker saw.
“According to the friend, there’s no indication she might have known anybody who struck her as weird. Nobody coming into the store and bothering her, giving her the creeps. There was a false alarm earlier in the week, Tuesday, same back door, it happens a lot. People forget it’s armed,” he went on, his eyes distant. “It’s like he just suddenly flew out of hell:’
I began sawing through the skull with all its comminuted fractures and areas punched out by violent blows of a tool or tools I couldn’t identify. A hot bony dust drifted through the air.
26
By early afternoon, roads had thawed enough so that other diligent, hopelessly behind forensic scientists could come to work. I decided to make my rounds because I was frantic.
My first stop was the Forensic Biology Section, a tenthousand-square-foot area where only an authorized few had access to electronic cards for the locks. People didn’t drop by to chat. They traversed the corridor and glanced at intense scientists in white behind glass but rarely got any closer than that.