Bobb pursed his lips and shook his head. “Sorry. Wish could just say I know him.”
“Your graduates? You keep their records here?”
Bobb nodded. “And yes, there’s a student photograph with each file. I won’t offer to let you see them. But I won’t disallow a request.”
“I understand. If I could see the last ten years of graduates, that would be good.”
Bobb picked up his phone and spoke to someone about graduate records for the last ten years.
“It will take about fifteen minutes to have them ready, Detective. Would you like to see the procedure? We’ve got three student embalmings going on right now.”
“That might be helpful.”
On the door of the embalming room was a framed copy of the California Health & Safety Code forbidding anyone but family, police, doctors, nurses, mortuary personnel and students from being in the room during an embalming.
Hess followed the Director in. The lights were bright against the tile and the sweet smell of aldehyde compounds was strong.
The tables were laid out in the center of the room, with the corpses’ heads toward the far wall. Hess heard the metallic ping of instruments hitting pans, low voices and a heavy, rhythmic chunka-thunk, chunka-thunk. Bobb guided Hess past the first three tables.
“Here’s one just starting, Detective. The features have been set and the corpse has been disinfected and bathed. The student, Bonnie, has chosen a fluid she believes is right for the decedent — based on age, condition, cause of death, medications, et cetera. In this case she’s chosen a formalin solution called PSX. It’s made by Champion. It’s one of my favorites. Did you know that good cosmetic results come from inside the body and not outside?”
“I did not.”
“Sometimes you don’t even need makeup.”
Hess joined Bobb beside the last table, where an old man lay stretched on the aluminum. He looked to be about Hess’s age, and he was surprised how bad this made him feel. He glanced at the Case Report Record: Age — 69, Cause of Death — cirrhosis of the liver. The sonofabitch is two whole years older than me, he thought, and that’s a lifetime of a difference.
Hess had always assumed, for no particular reasons, that he would live to be seventy-five. It was a good number, a number with bulk and character, a number that always seemed far off in the future. This assumption had sat well with him until the diagnosis. At that moment he’d resolved to get those seventy-five years no matter what it took. The last eight were his and he was going to live them to the fullest. Sometimes he told himself it was a matter of principle. Other times, he admitted he was just plain scared to death and didn’t want to leave yet.
The smell of the aldehydes started to sicken him. He hadn’t gotten queasy at an autopsy for forty years. He looked at the student across the corpse from him and saw that she was early twenties, tall, wholesome and probably beautiful. A surgical mask covered her nose and mouth. She looked at him and her eyes smiled, but there was concern in her expression, too.
“Stand back just a little for this, Detective. Okay, Bonnie, locate the main right carotid and make your incision above the clavicle. Oh, this is Detective Hess. He’s interested in what we do.”
“Hi,” said Bonnie.
“Morning,” said Hess.
“Not going to tip over, are you?”
“I’ll stay up.”
Her eyes conveyed the powerful smile of youth and she picked up a surgical scalpel to make her cut. Hess watched her.
“Good, Bonnie. Not too deep. Now use the aneurysm hook to lift out the artery. Good. Do your ligatures now, and not so hard this time. You don’t want to—”
“—I know.”
“Bonnie overdid her ligatures last time, and the artery burst.”
“I am capable of learning, Al.”
“Make me look good.”
Her fingers were nimble. “There.”
“Very good. Go ahead with the insertion tube now.”
“Roger.”
Hess watched her slide the two smaller ends of a metal joint into the cut of the artery and connect the tube to a black hose coming from a machine. It was like setting up a drip irrigator for your tomatoes. Bonnie flipped a switch on the machine. A moment later it was chunka-thunking.
Hess noted that the machine was a Porti-Boy. It looked kind of like a giant blender. The clear canister on the top held the embalming fluid that Bonnie had chosen. There were controls and indicators for flow and pressure. Bonnie looked at the dials, then down at the body, setting one gloved hand on his thigh, the other on his shoulder.
“I’d like to start a little early on the massage, Al. I want this to be the best embalming in the history of Western civilization.”
“Go ahead, then.”
Hess watched as Bonnie squeezed something onto her left palm, added some water from the counter faucet, then rubbed her hands together and applied them to the dead man’s right breast. Palms down and fingers together, she began kneading the tissue. She started in a tight circle and spread slowly outward, glancing up every few seconds to check the Porti-Boy.
“Detective, what Bonnie’s doing now is helping the PSX work in. The pressure of the machine pushes the fluid through the entire arterial system — right down to the level of the capillaries. Then, of course, it backs into the veinous system and eventually moves into the large veins. What we’re looking for are distribution and diffusion. Massage helps the fluid proceed evenly and easily. It overcomes clots and obstructions. It’s an overlooked aspect of good embalming. We know we’re ready for the next step when the veins in the forehead start to swell, the eyelids engorge, and a natural color begins returning to the face. It’s almost like they’re coming alive again.”
“Boy, I wish,” said Bonnie. “I’d make a fortune.”
Bobb took Hess into a small back room that was lined on three sides with shelves. The shelves held scores of bottles, all labeled. There were cases stacked against the other wall.
“These are the solutions,” he said. “Most are formaldehyde based, but there are others. Glutaraldehyde is becoming popular these days. They’re mixed with humectants in most cases, then diluted. There’s an embalming fluid for almost every circumstance. For instance, this one.”
Bobb handed Hess a dark plastic bottle of Specialist Embalming Fluid. The label said it was “specially formulated for ‘floaters,’ burned, decomposed, frozen or refrigerated bodies.” He set the bottle back on the shelf and read more labels: Champion, Embalmers’ Supply, Dodge, Naturo.
Back at Bonnie’s station, she was massaging the old man’s face, both hands up on his cheeks. It looked like she was imploring him. Hess could see the temporal veins starting to fill.
“The color is beginning to come to the face,” said Bobb. “That means he’s filled with so much blood and solution that he’s basically full. So you’re ready to start draining, Bon. Find that jugular and open her right up.”
Bonnie gave him a remonstrative glance over her mask. She looked at Hess and winked. He watched her take up the scalpel again, open the neck, deftly pull out the jugular with the hook. With one hand she pulled and “v”-ed the vein toward the table drain. With the other she cut it in half with a pair of scissors. She controlled the flow with finger pressure.
“You’ll see the pressure inside release almost immediately,” said Bobb. “Right now, the solution is pushing the blood out. The draining process should take around ten minutes in normal temperatures. A good embalmer will continue the massage, in order to move the fluid further in.”
Bonnie was already at work again with her hands, rubbing them over the lifeless gray flesh in opposing circles. The man’s head and feet rocked and his thin white hair lifted in the breeze from the air conditioner.