longfingered hands were singularly spare of flesh, almost skeletal.
His white shirt looked as if it had been laundered only five minutes
ago, and the straight creases in each leg of his dark brown trousers
were so sharp they almost glinted in the fluorescent light.
When Rachael and Benny were settled in a pair of dark pine chairs with
forest-green leather cushions, Kordell went around the desk to his own
chair. “This is most distressing to me, Mrs. Leben-to add this burden
to what you’ve already been through today. It’s quite inexcusable. I
apologize again and extend my deepest sympathies, though I know nothing
I say can make the matter any less disturbing. Are you all right? Can
I get you a glass of water or anything?”
“I’m okay,” Rachael said, though she could not remember ever feeling
worse.
Benny reached out and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. Sweet,
reliable Benny. She was so glad he was with her. At five eleven and a
hundred fifty pounds, he was not physically imposing. With brown hair,
brown eyes, and a pleasing but ordinary face, he seemed like a man who
would vanish in a crowd and be virtually invisible at a party. But when
he spoke in that soft voice of his, or moved with his uncanny grace, or
just looked hard at you, his sensitivity and intelligence were instantly
discernible. In his own quiet way, he had the impact of a lion’s roar.
Everything would be easier with Benny at her side, but she worried about
getting him involved in this.
To the medical examiner, Rachael said, “I just want to understand what’s
happened.”
But she was afraid that she understood more than Kordell.
“I’ll be entirely candid, Mrs. Leben,” Kordell said.
“No point in being otherwise.” He sighed and shook his head as if he
still had difficulty believing such a screwup had happened. Then he
blinked, frowned, and turned to Benny. “You’re not Mrs. Leben’ s
attorney, by any chance?”
“Just an old friend,” Benny said.
“Really?”
“I’m here for moral support.”
“Well, I’m hoping we can avoid attorneys, Kordell said.
“I’ve absolutely no intention of retaining legal counsel,” Rachael
assured him.
The medical examiner nodded glumly, clearly unconvinced of her
sincerity. He said, “I’m not ordinarily in the office at this hour.”
It was nine-thirty Monday night.
“When work unexpectedly backs up and it’s necessary to schedule late
autopsies, I leave them to one of the assistant medical examiners. The
only exceptions are when the deceased is a prominent citizen or the
victim of a particularly bizarre and complex homicide. In that case,
when there’s certain to be a lot of heat involvedthe media and
politicians, I mean-then I prefer not to put the burden on my
subordinates, and if a night autopsy is unavoidable, I stay after hours.
Your husband was, of course, a very prominent citizen.”
As he seemed to expect a response, she nodded. She didn’t trust herself
to speak. Fear had risen and fallen in her ever since she had received
the news of the body’s disappearance, and at the moment it was at high
tide.
“The body was delivered to the morgue and logged in at 12,14 this
afternoon,” Kordell continued. “Because we were already behind schedule
and because I had a speaking engagement this afternoon, I ordered my
assistants to proceed with the cadavers in the order of their log
entries, and I arranged to handle your husband’s body myself at 6,30
this evening.” He put his fingertips to his temples, massaging lightly
and wincing as if merely recounting these events had given him an
excruciating headache. “At that time, when I’d prepared the autopsy
chamber, I sent an assistant to bring Dr. Leben’s body from the
morgue… but the cadaver couldn’t he found.”
“Misplaced?” Benny asked.
“That’s rarely happened during my tenure in this office,” Kordell said
with a brief flash of pride. “And on those few occasions when a cadaver
has been misplaced-sent to a wrong autopsy table, stored in the wrong
drawer, or left on a gurney with an improper ID tag-we’ve always located
it within five minutes.”
“But tonight you couldn’t find it,” Benny said.
“We looked for nearly an hour. Everywhere. Everywhere,” Kordell said