“Listen, Ruth, get him now. I don’t care what he’s doing.” Hammer started drumming polished nails on the blotter.
West was in a worse mood when she left her boss’s office. It wasn’t fair. Life was hard enough, and she was beginning to wonder about Hammer. What did West know about her, anyway, except that she had come to Charlotte from Chicago, a huge city where people froze their asses off half the year and the mob had its way with public officials. Next thing, Hammer sailed here, that housewife husband of hers tagging along.
Brazil wasn’t pleased with his circumstances, either. He was punishing himself again this morning, pounding up bleacher steps in the stadium where the Davidson Wildcats lost every football game, even some they hadn’t played, it seemed. He was going at it and didn’t care if he had a heart attack or was sore tomorrow. Deputy Chief West was a lowlife cowboy, and as insensitive as shit, and Chief Hammer wasn’t at all what he had fantasized. Hammer could have at least smiled or glanced at him, and made him feel welcome last night. Brazil headed back up the steps again, sweat leaving gray spots on cement.
Hammer wanted to hang up on the mayor. She had had just about enough of his unimaginative way of solving problems.
“I understand the medical examiner believes these murders have a homosexual connection,” he was saying over the phone.
“That’s one opinion,” Hammer answered.
“The fact is that we don’t know. All the victims were married with children.”
“Exactly,” he slyly said.
“For God’s sake, Chuck, don’t pile this on me so early in the morning.” Hammer looked out the window and could almost see the bastard’s office from where she sat.
“Point is, the theory is helpful,” he went on in his South Carolina drawl.
Mayor Charles Search was from Charleston. He was
Hammer’s age and often considered what it might be like to bed her. If nothing else, it would remind her of things she seemed to have forgotten. Her place, for starters. If she wasn’t married, he would swear-she was a lesbian. He sat in his leather judge’s chair, headset on, and doodled on a legal pad.
“The city, out of town businesses, won’t be as bothered by this…”
he was trying to say.
“Where are you so I can break your neck,” Hammer said over the phone.
“When was your lobotomy? I would have sent flowers.”
“Judy.” This doodle was really good. He focused on it, putting his glasses on.
“Calm down. I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Maybe she was a lesbian, or bisexual, anyway, with a grating Midwestern accent. He reached for a red pen, getting excited over his art. It was an atom with orbits of little molecules that looked weirdly like eggs. Birth. This was seminal.
To make matters ever so much worse this morning, West had to go to the morgue. North Carolina didn’t have the best system, it was West’s opinion. Some cases were taken care of locally, by Dr. Odom and the police forensic labs. Other bodies were sent to the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill. Go figure. It was probably all about sports again. Hornets fans stayed in town, Tarheels got their lovely Y-incision in the big university town.
The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s office was on North College Street, across from the award- winning new public library. West was buzzed in at the glass entrance. She had to give the place credit. The building, which was the former Sears Garden Center, was brighter and more modern than most morgues, and had added another cold room the last time US Air had crashed another plane around here. It was a shame that North Carolina didn’t seem inclined to hire a few more MEs for the great state of Mecklenburg, as some sour senators were inclined to disparage the state’s fastest-growing, most progressive region.
There were only two forensic pathologists to handle more than a hundred homicides a year, and both of them were in the necropsy room when West arrived. The dead businessman didn’t look any better now that Dr. Odom had started on him. Brewster was at the table, wearing a disposable plastic apron and gloves. He nodded at her as she tied a gown in back, because West didn’t take chances. Dr. Odom was splashed with blood, and holding the scalpel like a pencil as he reflected back tissue. His patient had a lot of fat, which always looked worse inside out.