The medical examiner went across to get them, also finding a pair of rubber gloves. He put them on, and he was conscious of the buzzing lights up in the ceiling as he walked back to the table.
"First, let's get this collar off." Owens fumbled to unsnap it, staring at the battery attachment. "What I'd like to do to that guy." He set it aside. "You ought to meet some people who come in here, wanting us to make their dog mute, cut its voice box out, its vocal cords. Hell, I'd like to cut on them. At least they wouldn't talk so much then. And they wonder why a dog without a voice will bite somebody when it's got no other way to warn him off." Owens' face was red above his mask. He shook his head. "Well, let's get to it."
"How can I help?"
"I need that scalpel."
Four quick strokes, and Owens peeled the scalp off. They stared at the blood-smeared skull.
Then the drill. Owens flicked the switch. The bit was whirring, grinding through the bone. Four holes, widely spaced to form the corners of a square. And then the saw. Owens used it neatly, its motor buzzing as he cut from one hole to another, swiftly, gently, not too deeply. Then the job was done, and he was prying at the skull bone.
"Well, the brain is swollen and discolored. You can see that slight pink color. Indications. On the other hand, distemper sometimes looks like that. I need to take the brain out and dissect it."
The medical examiner again handed him the scalpel, then forceps, and Owens placed the brain in a glass dish on the table.
"Ammon's horn," the medical examiner said.
"That's right." Owens cut past the hippocampal region. Then he had it. "You can do the slides."
"Which way do you want them? Pressed or done in sections?"
"The sections take too long. Just do impressions. What we're looking for will show up just as well."
So the medical examiner, instead of placing tissue from that portion of the brain into fixing fluid and embedding it within paraffin, a process that took several hours, simply pressed a bit of tissue on the slide and smeared it evenly, then looked around to find a microscope.
"Over by that cabinet."
The microscope had ajar of Seller's stain beside it. The medical examiner put stain across the specimen to make sure that what he was looking for would stand out in contrast. He arranged the slide and peered down through the lenses.
"Can you see them?" Owens asked.
The medical examiner kept peering.
"What's the matter? You should see them."
But the medical examiner just turned to him and shook his head. "I think you'd better look."
"You mean you didn't see them, and we have to do the other tests?"
"I mean that you should have a look."
Now Owens frowned as he peered down through the lenses.
What the medical examiner had looked for was some evidence of Negri bodies. Negri was a scientist in Italy who first identified them in the early 1900s. They were tiny, round, and sometimes oval bodies in the protoplasm of the nerve cells in that portion of the brain called Ammon's horn. No one knew exactly what they were. In current theories, they were either rabies virus particles, or else degenerative matter from the cells affected by the virus. Maybe both. But seeing them was certain proof that rabies was at work here. And the medical examiner had seen them. On the other hand, he maybe hadn't.
"I don't get it," Owens said. "Something's wrong here. These things shouldn't look like that."
The medical examiner understood. He watched as Owens peered down through the microscope again. Because the things he'd seen were neither round nor oval. They were oblong with an indentation on one side.
"They look like god-damned peanuts," Owens said. "What's going on here?"
"This could be some related virus."
"What? You tell me what."
"I just don't know."
"You bet you don't, and I don't either. Rabies is something I'd recognize, and you can bet there's nothing in the books about these things we're looking at."
"We'll have to do the antibody test."
"It takes a couple of hours, and the mouse test takes at least a week. I want to know what this thing is."
"We have to guess for now it's rabies. Or a virus that has all its symptoms."
"Which is fine if no one were exposed to it," Owens said. "But what about that owner? And yourself? If this is rabies, you'll have to take the serum shots, but we don't know if they'd do any good."
They studied one another, and the medical examiner reached up to touch his mask, the swollen lip beneath it. He'd forgotten. Or more truthfully, he'd tried to keep from thinking of those shots. "I'll take them anyway."
"But what if they don't work well with the virus? What if there's a bad reaction?"
"Hell, if I've already got it, I'll be dead soon anyway. What difference does it make?"
The medical examiner suddenly remembered something that the owner had first told him, that he'd let slip by in the excitement, something that the rabies serum shots reminded him about.
"He said his dog had been inoculated."
"What?"
"The owner. He mentioned that the dog had received its shots."
"What's his name?"
The medical examiner told him.
"Okay, there isn't any other animal clinic, so his file will have to be here. Try some other slides. Make sure we didn't do them wrong. I'll come back in a minute." Owens hurried toward the door that led down to the offices in front.
The medical examiner obeyed the instructions he'd been given. His legs were shaking as he stumbled toward the microscope. He peered at all the slides, and each one was the same, and he was really scared now.
Owens pushed the door open so forcefully that the medical examiner flinched.
"He was right." Owens had a file in one hand, raising it. "That dog is five years old. It had its puppy shots, its boosters every year."
"Well, could the boosters be the cause of this? Contamination in the vaccine?"
"I don't know, but sure as hell I'm going to learn."
"Even if the vaccine were prepared correctly, could it have been so strong that it caused the virus?"
"In the case of rabies, maybe. With a weak dog. One chance in a hundred thousand. But I don't know how the vaccine would produce the thing we're looking at."
"One chance might be all this thing might need."
They frowned at each other.
"Look, I've got to make a call." The medical examiner grabbed the phone and dialed. Marge was answering. "I've got to talk to Slaughter."
"He's been looking everywhere for you," she said. "He's at the Baynard mansion."
"What?"
Then she told him the rest, and he felt sicker.
"I'm on my way."
He hung up, turning to Owens. "Run the antibody test, the fluoroscope. I'll get back as soon as I can manage."
"But what's wrong?"
There wasn't time to explain. The medical examiner tugged off his gloves and face mask. Urgent, he yanked at the door to meet the darkness.
TEN
It kept howling.
"Jesus. Lord, I wish that thing would stop."
The policemen stood in the glare of the headlights, a net spread out before them. Rettig had come back a little while ago. He'd looked everywhere to find a net, the sporting-goods stores, the zoo down in the park as Slaughter had suggested, but he hadn't seen one. He'd been frantic since the stores had all been closed, and he'd been forced to call the owners, but they hadn't been home. Then as he had given up and started back to Slaughter, he had slammed his brakes on, staring at the restaurant across the street. It hadn't done well, and the business had been sold. A seafood place in cattle country. Why had anyone put money in it? But the decorations still were in there, and he saw the heavy sea nets hanging in the window. He had run across. The doors were locked. He didn't know the owners. He finally pulled out his gun and smashed the back-door window.
Slaughter hadn't liked that, but he didn't want to say so. After all, the man had tried. At least they had the net now, and that really was what mattered. He told his men how they would have to do this as the howling kept on from the upper stories, and they clearly didn't want to go in. For that matter, Slaughter didn't want to go himself. "The main thing is, don't hurt the boy." He glanced to see if Dunlap heard that. If this thing turned sour, he wanted to avoid accusations about police brutality. He wanted all his men to know without a doubt that they were only to restrain the boy.