“Herself, and you are, ma’am,” the blonde corrected, and gestured to the nametag on her lab coat. It read c. BAKER, RUSSELL COUNTY CORONER. “And I’d be happy to answer any questions you have, since the postmortem report might be . . . confusing to you.”
Patricia opened the folder and scanned the top sheet: Anomalous death—COD, it read. Decapitation via smooth Transection of levator scapulae muscular process and #5 & 6 cervical vertebrae. Mode of transection as yet undetermined and curious. She blinked, looked back up at Baker, and admitted, “I’m only good with legalese, not medical tech talk. I guess this means that the manner in which Dwayne Parker lost his head . . . that’s what they’re calling ‘undetermined and curious’?”
The coroner nodded curtly, but she was obviously curtailing something. “It’s just kind of odd, and its difficult to explain in any way that makes sense. But every now and then any medical examiner’s office will get a cause of death that simply can never be determined.”
Patricia frowned at the sheet. This was much less than she’d hoped for. “How was his head cut off, is what I want to be able to tell the family. Was it cut off, shot off? Was it knocked off in some sort of freak accident?”
Another curt look from the pretty coroner. “It was . . . none of those things, and that’s about the only thing we do know. No blade striations, no evidence of severe impact to the body, no evidence of firearm discharge.”
“But the head was never recovered—that’s what I heard from the locals, anyway. Is that true?”
“Quite true, ma’am.”
This was frustrating. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it.”
“Look on the next page, Ms. White.”
Patricia followed the instruction and immediately fell silent.
What she looked at now was the most macabre photograph she’d ever seen in her life. . . .
The clarity of the bright digital picture—Dwayne’s autopsy photo—seemed to shout at her. “This . . . can’t be real, can it?”
“Oh, it’s real, ma’am. I took the picture myself. It hasn’t been altered, and there weren’t any defects in the film or processing. I took several with several different cameras.”
The photograph framed Dwayne’s chest and shoulders, as well as the area of space that his head would occupy, if he’d had a head. Patricia expected a clot-caked stump or some other kind of ragged wound to indicate the decapitation. But there was nothing.
There was just skin.
“There’s not even a—”
“Not even a neck,” Baker finished. “And the osteo X-rays actually show a round—not a severed—cervical vertebra. There’s actually no clinical evidence of a decapitation—which I know is silly, because he’s got no head. But the picture looks like he’d never had one. Look at the next picture.”
Patricia, with some trepidation, turned to the next sheet: a close-up of where the “stump” should be.
“This,” she started, shaking her head, “this . . .” She tried to frame words. “This looks like there’s just skin grown over the place where his neck should be.”
“Um-hmm.”
Patricia looked up again, grateful to take her eyes off the creepy photograph. “You’re the coroner. How do you account for this?”
“I really can’t. It happens in this business, and I realize that’s not an acceptable answer, but it’s all I can give you. It’s just one of those rare deaths that’s a big question mark.”
“And you’re sure this is Dwayne Parker? You’re sure it’s not some elaborate stage dummy or something, some kind of joke?”
“It’s no dummy, Ms. White. I personally performed the Y-section and a clinical evisceration. I weighed every organ in that man’s body. There are pictures of that too, if you’d like to—”
“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” Patricia hastened to say.
“The Bureau of Prisons verified the fingerprints, along with two five-probe DNA profiles. And the body that I autopsied had tattoos that matched the county corrections inductee log of distinguishing marks. The body in the photograph is Dwayne Parker, and I’m very sorry I can’t give you any useful information regarding his decapitation. One of the dermatologists at the hospital suggested that maybe some kind of mold or fungus grew over the transection area—”
“Is that possible?”
“In my opinion, no.” The coroner shrugged, just as frustrated now as Patricia. “That’s why we call this kind of death undetermined and curious.”
You can say that again. . . . Patricia passed back the folder. She was glad not to have it in her hands anymore. What am I going to tell Judy? She struggled with the thought.
Nothing, I guess. I just won’t tell her anything.
“What’s stranger,” Baker said, “is the fact that Dwayne Parker was a resident of Agan’s Point, the crabbing town out on the water.”
“Why is that strange?” Patricia asked.
“Because it really is a quiet little place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a decedent from Agan’s Point who didn’t die from old age. Then all of a sudden, in little more than a week we get Dwayne Parker, plus two brutal mutilations and two people burned to death.”
The Hilds and the Ealds, Patricia knew. “All from Agan’s Point. Did you find any evidence of drugs in any of the bodies?”
Baker shook her head. “The narcotics unit and the Agan’s Point police chief both asked me for full tox screens—something about crystal methamphetamine. There was nothing in any of them, no CDS of any kind, no marijuana, not even any trace alcohol. But that’s not even what I was going to mention. That’s not the strange part.”
“What is?”
“The body that came in this morning.”
Patricia’s brow furrowed. “Not another Agan’s Point resident . . .”
“I’m afraid so. The sixth one now.”
“Who?”
“Forty-five-year-old male Caucasian named Robert Caudill, aka Junior.”
The name rang a bell. “I remember when I was a kid, he and his twin brother were the neighborhood bullies.” Patricia pinched her chin. “And he was murdered?”
“Don’t know,” Baker replied. “I don’t see how it could be a homicide, but . . .” She sighed, blowing a tress of blond hair. “Since the governor’s office told me to open all doors to you . . . I guess I can show you. You want to see?”
She’s asking me if I want to see a fat redneck’s corpse. Patricia told herself. She gritted her teeth and said, “Yes, please.”
Whatever it is, it can’t be any weirder than the picture of Dwayne.
Patricia was quite wrong about that, which she would discern in a moment. She followed the attractive coroner through the front office and into a door that read, SUITE 1—DO NOT ENTER. At once a strong scent accosted her nostrils. “It’s formalin; you’ll get used to it,” Baker said. “All-purpose preservative.” Overhead fluorescent tubes threw the ghastliest tint about the room; Patricia supposed it was just her imagination—she was in a morgue—but somehow that tint made her feel unnaturally close to death. Ranks of storage shelves behind them sat heavy with big smoke-colored glass bottles: JORE’S, ZENKER’S SOLUTION, PHENOL 20 PERCENT. A tin tray marked AMYLOID/FAT NECROSIS PREP held several bottles of iodine and copper sulphate. A large sink and heat-sealing iron hung on the same wall. Basically the room could’ve passed for any high school biology lab, save for one fact: high school biology labs didn’t have a covered dead body sitting in the middle of them.