"What are you getting at?" Elise asked.
"They're all groups in which a band member committed suicide," Casper told her.
"Whoa. You're right," commented the technician.
Elise glanced at Gould. She could see her own question in his eyes. Had the CDs been left as a joke by a friend? Or had Turello's killer attended the funeral?
There were too many people in the room. It wouldn't be wise to discuss the case in front of them.
We have to talk about this, Elise wanted to tell him.
He lifted his eyebrows. Later.
Casper and the technician were still chattering.
"But hey, didn't they think Michael Hutchence maybe died of autoerotic asphyxiation?" the technician asked.
"I think his case was finally ruled a suicide," Casper told him.
"Are you sure?" The tech tapped a finger to his chin, then pointed to Casper, his head tilted. "Maybe you're thinking of that guy from Max Under the Stars. What was his name?"
"Jerome somebody."
"Yeah. He hung himself too."
"Then there are all the ones who died of drug overdoses. Some of those had to be suicides."
"And think of all the guys who just disappeared."
Casper nodded. "Suicide."
"Creativity spawns instability. Or is it the other way around?"
"Boys, boys, boys," Dr. Vince said with humor in her voice. "Would it be terribly rude of me to suggest we quit discussing rock trivia and get back to the autopsy?"
Casper 's face turned red. "Yeah. Sure. Sorry." He sheepishly scanned the room.
When all possible evidence was collected, attendants jockeyed for position in order to lift the body from the wooden box to the stainless steel exam table.
In a normal autopsy, every item of clothing was tagged and cataloged, but this wasn't a normal autopsy. John Casper and two assistants began removing the clothing. First the laced red tennis shoes.
The room was silent except for the ticking of a large, industrial wall clock and the downdraft fan.
The human body is so frighteningly fragile, Elise thought.
Beginning at the hem, the state ME cut the pants. The scissors were sharp, and it wasn't difficult to get through the leather.
The material fell away.
"No underwear?" Casper said. "What the hell's wrong with that mortuary?"
The T-shirt followed, revealing the Y autopsy stapled incision across the sunken chest.
Elise recognized the body for what it was: a vessel that had harbored the spirit of Gary Turello.
The autopsy couldn't be as extensive as the original, but every one followed a rigid blueprint, which the ME adhered to as closely as possible.
They took a series of X rays, which were sent to a technician. Then Dr. Vince began her external exam.
"As far as physical evidence," she said, "it would be almost impossible to find anything on an embalmed body like this. Certainly nothing that would stand up in court."
Organs that had already been removed and replaced once before were lifted free of the body cavity and weighed, with samples taken. The liver, the organ that would be most important if they were to find any toxins, had shriveled to less than half its original size.
Two hours later, they were done.
"When can we expect results?" Elise asked.
"It depends on a lot of things," Dr. Vince told her. "We'll start by running some of the cheaper, more rapid tests, like the radioimmunoassay and enzyme-mediated immunoassay. If those don't show anything, then we'll have to pull out the big, expensive guns, like mass spectrometry and gas chromatography. That would take quite a bit longer."
"How much longer?"
"A week. Maybe two. Sorry, but we have to adhere to a certain protocol."
Elise and Gould thanked her and left the autopsy suite.
"I know how anxious you are about this," Gould said when they were alone in the adjoining supply room, "but I'm actually impressed with how quickly we got that guy out of the ground and to the morgue."
Elise untied her gown and tossed it in the biohazard container. "If Turello is a victim, then our killer goes back a lot farther than we think. And it will also give us a whole new thread of clues to follow. And what about those CDs? What significance do they have?"
"You're getting ahead of yourself. We have no idea if this guy is connected to the recent crimes."
"But what if he is? What if the CDs were left by the killer?"
"Justification for the killing, maybe. Someone could reason that a prostitute is killing himself. Committing slow suicide. And our killer just helped him along."
"Or it could be a death obsession."
She looked through the glass, to the body still on the table. Two workers from a Savannah funeral home were there, signing paperwork.
"The family is going to have a memorial service," she said. "Then he's to be reburied."
Gould wadded up his gown and tossed it in the bin. "That'sjustsadashell."
"I don't know," Elise said. "Years ago, it wasn't unusual for Gullahs to bury their loved ones twice."
"A second burial? I don't get it."
"The body decomposed so quickly in the heat that they would bury the deceased, then dig him up a year or two later at a more convenient time when all of the family and friends could gather."
"Ah," Gould said with exaggerated satisfaction. "Just another quaint local custom."
Chapter 20
"I've heard people aren't getting embalmed and are holding three-day wakes," Gould said as he and Elise walked side by side in the direction of the Savannah Police Department conference room.
It was the day after the exhumation, and Major Hoffman had called an impromptu meeting. Elise was suspicious, because so far nothing had really changed. Except for Harrison 's unconnected death, they were still dealing with one prostitute, maybe two, and insufficient evidence. And the police department was still broke and short of officers.
They missed the elevator. Already late, Elise headed in the direction of the stairs. "Funeral homes are complaining because of the smell and potential health risks."
"When I die," Gould said, jogging up the steps beside her, "be sure to bury me with a bell."
"Not a cell phone?" Elise asked. "I just saw an advertisement for a company claiming to offer crystal clear service six feet under."
"Cell phones are undependable. We need to get back to basics. I want one of those contraptions they sold back in the days when the definition of death was even murkier than it is now. We should think about going into a new business," he told her. "Those are going to be a hot commodity. We won't be able to make them quickly enough. What could you call them? Let's see____________________Death bells. Coffin bells. I like that. Or burial bell. How about burial bell?"
"And the slogan would be 'For whom the burial bell tolls.'"
They were bantering. Gould paused at the fire door and beamed at her as if she'd suddenly given him a long-desired gift. "Exactly."
In the conference room, Elise recognized a couple of agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Abe Chilton, a woman from the crime lab, plus the local FBI and the press liaison. Starsky and Hutch- or rather Mason and Avery-were also present. But the majority of occupants were uniformed police officers there to be briefed on the TTX case.