CHAPTER 16
Dr. Jess Carter had offered to let me observe the autopsy, an invitation I accepted eagerly. I wasn’t qualified to testify in court about pathology — the medical aspects of disease and trauma, manifested in bodies that were fresher than the ones I usually studied — but I seized every opportunity I could to learn more about it. After all, what separated Jess’s work from mine was only a few days of decomposition — or even a few hours, in conditions of extreme heat, or a few saw cuts, in cases of dismemberment. So the more I knew about finding forensic evidence in fresh tissue, the better I’d be able to spot evidence in not-so-fresh tissue. Besides, Jess was a hoot — funny and irreverent, yet also dead serious about the quality of her work. She had a keen wit, a quick scalpel, and sharp eyes, and she wielded them all with equal deftness.
Her red Porsche Carrera was already parked behind the morgue when I pulled in, followed by the Cadillac hearse bearing Ledbetter’s sodden coffin. As the hearse backed into the loading dock, the metal door opened and Jess emerged in scrubs, followed by Miranda, whom I hadn’t seen since the night she walked in on Sarah and me kissing. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be in on this autopsy after all.
They looked up as I approached, so I waved. “Hi,” I called to Jess, “welcome to the hornet’s nest. You’re pretty gutsy to get mixed up in all this.”
She shrugged. “Or not too bright. Never did like to take the safe route — usually boring.” She gave me a smile. A very tight smile, first cousin to a grimace. “Miranda’s been telling me about some of your recent doings. Sounds like you’ve got a handful of trouble yourself.” I looked at Miranda, whose eyes flashed when they met mine. My face flushed, and I turned toward the hearse. Why was that infernal driver taking so long to unload the damn coffin?
I cleared my throat. “Well, I do have an interesting, um, case right now. I’ll t-t-tell you about it later. Right now, let me go get changed so I don’t keep you waiting.” With that, I fled into the morgue, slinking into the safety of the men’s changing room. What a mess I’d made of things with Miranda. What an idiot.
When I entered the autopsy room, taking refuge behind a surgical mask, I saw only Jess, scalpel in hand and headlamp on her forehead, leaning over the body. The coffin sat in a corner by a floor drain, still oozing a bit of water, or something. “Looks like you’re my diener today,” she said.
“What’s a diener?” The word rhymed with “wiener,” which is what I felt like; it was also the way a foreigner might say “dinner,” a realization that did little to ease my apprehension as she and the scalpel turned in my direction.
“Autopsy assistant. German word. Actually means ‘servant.’ Just so you’re clear on the pecking order at the moment.” She sounded mad and looked even madder.
“Where’s Miranda?” I asked.
“She said she had a lab to teach. Does she? Or does she just not want to be here?” Her eyes glittered above her mask.
“I…I don’t know. She…I guess maybe she didn’t want to be here.”
She slammed the scalpel down onto the steel table. “Damnit, Bill, this is ridiculous and unprofessional.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m very ashamed.”
“I respect you and I like you, but that doesn’t make me any threat to her.”
“I know. I — huh?”
“She’s got no reason to dislike me.”
“You? What are you talking about?”
“That…that girl. While you were taking your sweet time about changing, she practically started a catfight with me. Like I was here to snatch away her boyfriend or something.” Again she slammed the scalpel down on the metal table — it seemed to make her feel better — and again I flinched. “Goddamnit, this is not junior high school.”
I had misunderstood utterly, had misinterpreted the tension and angry looks completely. A wave of giddy relief washed over me. I started to laugh, and found I couldn’t stop. I laughed so hard my stomach muscles began to ache; my mask grew so wet with tears that I had to rip it off just to breathe.
She stared openmouthed at me. Then, slow and bright as sunrise, a smile dawned across her face. She waggled a gloved finger at me, shook her head, and said, “And what were you talking about? Are you her boyfriend?”
“No. No!” I thought I was starting to laugh again, but I was crying. She laid a hand on my arm and left it there till I got hold of myself. “Oh, God, Jess, I’ve made a royal mess of things.”
“You screwing a student? Hey, it’s not like you’re the first professor to take a bite out of that shiny apple. Just between you and me, back in my own reckless youth…”
I stared at her. “You?!”
“Dr. Crowder. Microbiology. And talk about microscopic!” She laughed. “So you and Miss Priss got something going on? That why she bared her fangs at me?”
“No. At least, not like that. It’s complicated.” She raised her eyebrows quizzically, and so I told her everything: how I came unglued in class; how Sarah came to my office that night to return the bones; how we fell into a torrid clutch; how Miranda reacted to the sight. “Jesus, Jess. I’ve compromised myself with a student — an undergraduate, at that — and simultaneously alienated my best graduate assistant. I don’t know how to fix things.”
She fixed me with a stern, no-bullshit look. “Bill, when’s the last time you got laid?”
I flushed. “It’s been awhile. Not since Kathleen died. A few months before Kathleen died.”
She held the look. “So, what, two years or more? That’s a long damn time for a man in his prime. And you’re around young women — smart, attractive young women, women who look up to you — day in and day out. I’m amazed you haven’t thrown some poor lass to the floor and ravished her by now. Jesus, Bill, give yourself a break. Yeah, you kissed a student. Probably as much her doing as yours — take my word for that. And yeah, your timing sucked. Too bad. You want to apologize to one of them, or both of them, go ahead. And then go on.” Her voice softened. “Bill, Bill. We all make mistakes. Even you. Grieving, lonely, stiff-upper-lip you. And if getting caught in a kiss knocks you off that pedestal your diener’s put you on, well, maybe that’s best.” She leaned closer, right into my face. “Understandable as it is, Bill, it’s not healthy for her to idolize you.”
I blinked. A lot had just happened: confession, understanding, forgiveness, counsel. “I thought you were supposed to be a pathologist. Sound more like a shrink. A damn good one, by the way.”
She smiled. “Nope, just a woman who’s been around the block a time or two. If I weren’t happily lesbian now, I might take you for a spin myself, try to put a smile back on your face. But enough with the therapy. We’ve got a corpse to dissect.”
She left me with my jaw hanging open—“happily lesbian now”? Whatever happened to the husband she’d introduced me to at that forensic conference a year or so ago? — and turned her attention to Ledbetter’s corpse. The Y incision from Dr. Hamilton’s autopsy had been stitched shut with coarse black baseball-style sutures, which Jess cut with a flick of the scalpel. Stuffed into the abdomen was a red plastic biohazard bag; extricating it and laying it on the table, she said, “Well, at least he bagged the organs instead of just dumping them into the cavity. We might as well look at the lungs first, although I’m not feeling optimistic about what kind of shape they’re in.”