"Here we are," Tim said. "Table four." He moved around to the far side of the green-sheeted form. "And here's Mr. Cadaver." He lifted the edge of the sheet and peeked beneath. "Oops. Sorry. Mrs. Cadaver."
"Tim," she whispered. "Knock it off. Aren't you...the least bit...?" Words failed her.
Tim lowered his dark glasses and looked over the rims with his blue eyes.
"Want to know the truth?" he said softly. "I'm terrified. And I'm completely grossed out." Then he snapped the glasses back up over his eyes and gave her a steely smile. "But don't tell anyone."
Well, we've all got our own ways of dealing with things, I guess, Quinn told herself. This must be his.
Better than throwing up, which was what she felt like doing.
She jumped as the overhead speakers came to life.
"All right, gentlemen and ladies. We're about to start the first dissection. But before we begin, I want each of you to listen very carefully to me."
Quinn looked around and saw their anatomy professor, Dr. Titus Kogan, short, balding, puffy, looking like he'd spent some time in the formaldehyde baths himself. He stood in the lecture/demonstration area, holding a microphone.
"For the next nine months you will be dissecting the cadavers at your assigned tables. They are no doubt intimidating now but you will soon enough become familiar with them. Do not become too familiar with them. I will repeat that for anyone who might have missed it: Do not become too familiar with your cadaver.
"Never forget that you are dismantling the body of a fellow human being. This is a rare and precious privilege. Many of these people donated their bodies for this purpose. Others belonged to the least of our species—the homeless, the unidentified, the unclaimed. All of them are anonymous, but that doesn't mean they didn't have names, didn't have friends and family. Remember that as you carve them up. No matter what their past histories, no matter what their socioeconomic status when they were alive or what route they took to get here, they all deserve our respect. And I shall demand that you accord them that respect.
"I should inform you that this lab will be open at all times. One good thing about an enclosed campus with its own security force is that it allows students access to the labs whenever they need them. Do not hesitate to take advantage of that.
"Now. Roll your cover sheets down to the foot of the table. It is time to begin."
Quinn looked at Tim across the table. He raised his eyebrows.
"Ready, partner?"
"Sure," she said, steeling herself. "Now or never. Let's get to it."
They each grabbed a corner of the green plastic sheet and drew it swiftly toward the end of the table.
Gray hair...sallow, wrinkled, sagging, turgorless skin... flabby buttocks...skinny legs—the images, strobed close-ups, bits and pieces, catapulted into her brain. She blinked, got the whole picture. Female. A thin old woman. No jolting surprises in the appearance of their cadaver except that it was lying face down on the table.
Quinn glanced around at the other tables. All the cadavers were face down.
She turned back to her table. Whoever the woman was—or had been—Quinn felt embarrassed for her, laid bare like this under these pitiless lights. She wanted to edge the sheet up, at least to cover her buttocks, but she left it where it was. As she tucked the plastic sheet under the cadaver's feet she noticed a tag tied to her left great toe. She turned it over and read the print:
Fredrickson Funeral Home
Towson, MD
A name had been block printed in blue ink below the heading:
Dorothy Havers.
Dorothy Havers...that couldn't be anything but the woman's name. They weren't supposed to know their cadaver's name. Nobody was.
Quinn pulled her dissection kit from her labcoat pocket, removed the scissors, and snipped the string. The back of her hand brushed the cold, stiff flesh. She shuddered.
"What are you doing?" Tim asked, leaning over from his side.
"Nothing." She stuffed the tag into her pocket. "Just checking out my kit."
"Good afternoon, Miss Cleary."
Quinn turned and recognized the white-haired figure standing by the head of their table. He wore a stained, wrinkled labcoat and had a battered hardcover copy of Gray's Anatomy clamped under his left arm.
"You lucked out," he said, looking over the cadaver. "You got yourself a thin one."
"Dr. Emerson. I didn't expect to see you here."
"Oh, you'll see a lot of me around here," he said, smiling. "Neuropharmacology is my field and my love, but you can spend only so many hours a day calculating minuscule changes in the reuptake rates of sundry neurotransmitters without going batty. A few afternoons a week it does me good to get back to the basics of gross anatomy."
Quinn was glad he was here. She liked Dr. Emerson. She had a feeling he'd played an important part in her acceptance, but she would have liked him anyway. He radiated a certain warmth that invited trust. And it was certainly good to know that she had someone willing to go to bat for her at The Ingraham.
She introduced him to Tim.
"Do you have a photophobic condition, Mr. Brown?" he said, eying Tim's shades.
"Yes," Tim said slowly. "In a way."
Quinn then asked the question that had been plaguing her since they'd removed the plastic sheet.
"Why is she face down?"
"Because the first dissection you'll be doing is the nuchal region, the back of the neck. You'll be looking to isolate the greater occipital nerve. Dr. Kogan will be starting you off momentarily but if you want to get a jump, take a look at Section One in your lab workbook."
"Okay," Quinn said. "But first..."
She freed the end of the plastic sheet from under Dorothy's feet and drew it up to the middle of her back.
Dr. Emerson was looking at her curiously. A faint smile played about his lips. "Are you afraid your cadaver's going to catch a chill?"
She's not just a cadaver, Quinn thought. She's Dorothy.
She shrugged. "We'll only be working on the neck, so I just thought..." She ran out of words.
Apparently she didn't need any more. Dr. Emerson was nodding slowly, his eyes bright.
"I understand, Miss Cleary. I understand perfectly."
*
Quinn made the first cut.
With Dr. Kogan instructing over the loudspeaker and Dr. Emerson watching, Quinn gloved up, fixed a blade to her scalpel handle, and poised the point over the white-haired scalp. The diagram showed a central incision running from the back of the head down to the base of the neck.
She hesitated.
"Want me to do it?" Tim said.
She shook her head. She was going to have to get used to this and the quickest way to acclimate to the water was to jump in.
"Press hard," Dr. Emerson told her. "Human skin is tough. And human skin that's been in a formaldehyde bath can be almost like shoe leather."
Quinn gritted her teeth and pushed the point through the skin. Dr. Emerson hadn't been exaggerating. Even with a brand-new scalpel blade it was tough going. The honed edge rasped and gritted as she dragged the blade downward to the base of the skull and along the midline groove above the vertebrae of the neck.
"Very good," Dr. Emerson said. "Now you've started. From here on you're each on your own, each responsible for the dissection of your own side. Later, of course, when we get to them, you'll have to share the unpaired internal organs." He patted Quinn on the shoulder. "I'll be back later to see how you're doing."
"Wow," Tim said to the air when Dr. Emerson had moved on to another table. "Only just got here and already she's teacher's pet."
She flashed him a grin. "Some of us have engaging personalities, some of us don't."