‘Obviously, she lived alone.’
‘Yes.’
‘And she was last seen alive when?’
‘The chief’s working on that.’
‘What chief?’ I said.
‘The Tangier police department has one officer. He’s the chief. I’m in his trailer now, using the phone.’
‘He’s not overhearing this.’
‘No, no. He’s out talking to neighbors. I did my best to get information, without a whole lot of luck. You ever been out here?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Let’s just say they don’t exactly rotate their crops. There are maybe three family names on the whole island. Most folks grow up here, never leave. It’s mighty hard to understand a word they’re saying. Now that’s a dialect you won’t hear in any other corner of the world.’
‘Nobody touches her until I have a better idea what we’re dealing with,’ I said, unbuttoning my pajamas.
‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.
‘Get the police chief to guard the house. No one goes in or near it until I say. Go home. I’ll call you later in the day.’
The labs had not completed microbiology on the torso, and now I could not wait. I dressed in a hurry, fumbling with everything I touched, as if my motor skills had completely left me. I sped downtown on streets that were deserted, and at close to five was parking in my space behind the morgue. As I let myself into the bay, I startled the night security guard and he startled me.
‘Lord have mercy, Dr Scarpetta,’ said Evans, who had watched over the building for as long as I had been here.
‘Sorry,’ I said, my heart thudding. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’
‘Just making my rounds. Is everything all right?’
‘I sure hope so.’ I went past him.
‘Is something coming in?’
He followed me up the ramp. I opened the door leading inside, and looked at him.
‘Nothing I know of,’ I replied.
Now he was completely confused, for he did not understand why I was here at this hour if no case was coming in. He started shaking his head as he headed back toward the door leading out into the parking lot. From there, he would go next door to the lobby of the Consolidated Labs, where he would sit watching a small, flickering TV until it was time to make his rounds again. Evans would not step foot into the morgue. He did not understand how anyone could, and I knew he was scared of me.
‘I won’t be down here long,’ I told him. ‘Then I’ll be upstairs.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, still shaking his head. ‘You know where I’ll be.’
Midway along the corridor in the autopsy suite was a room not often entered, and I stopped there first, unlocking the door. Inside were three freezers unlike any normally seen. They were stainless steel and oversized, with temperatures digitally displayed on doors. On each was a list of case numbers, indicating the unidentified people inside.
I opened a door and thick fog rolled out as frigid air bit my face. She was in a pouch, and on a tray, and I put on gown, gloves, face shield, every layer of protection we had. I knew I might already be in trouble, and the thought of Wingo and his vulnerable condition thrilled me with fear as I slid out the pouch and lifted it onto a stainless steel table in the middle of the room. Unzipping black vinyl, I exposed the torso to ambient air, and I went out and unlocked the autopsy suite.
Collecting a scalpel and clean glass slides, I pulled the surgical mask back down over my nose and mouth, and returned to the freezer room, shutting the door. The torso’s outer layer of skin was moist as thawing began, and I used warm, wet towels to speed that along before unroofing vesicles, or the eruptions clustered over her hip and at the ragged margins of the amputations.
With the scalpel, I scraped vesicular beds, and made smears on the slides. I zipped up the pouch, marking it with blaze orange biological hazard tags, almost could not lift the body back up to its frigid shelf, my arms trembling under the strain. There was no one to call for help but Evans, so I managed on my own, and placed more warnings on the door.