Then you’d seen her emerge from the bar, her gait unsteady as she tried to pull on a coat that was too thin for the season. She’d walked right past the doorway without noticing you. You’d hurried after her, your heart rapping a staccato counterpoint to your footsteps as you trailed her down the deserted streets.
When you saw the glow of a bar sign up ahead you knew the time had come. You’d caught up to her, fallen in step at her side. You’d planned to say something, but your tongue was thick and useless. Even then she’d made it easy for you, peering around in bleary surprise before the too-red mouth cracked open with a cigarette chuckle.
Hey, lover. Wanna buy a girl a drink?
You had a van parked a few blocks away, but you couldn’t wait. When you drew level with the black maw of an alleyway, you’d shoved her into it, trembling as you pulled out the knife.
After that, it had been all fumble and confusion, the quick penetration followed by a rush of fluid. It was over too soon, finished before it had really begun. You’d stood over her, panting, the excitement already starting to turn to something grey and flat. Was that it? Was that all there was to it?
You’d run from the alleyway, chased by disgust and disappointment. It was only later, when your head had started to clear, that you’d begun to analyse where you’d gone wrong. You’d been too eager, in too much of a hurry. These things needed to be done slowly; to be savoured. How else could you hope to learn anything? In all the rush you hadn’t even had a chance to bring the camera from beneath your coat. And as for the knife, you thought, remembering the suddenness of it all…
No, the knife was definitely wrong.
You’ve come a long way since then. You’ve refined your technique, honed your craft into an art form. You know now exactly what it is you want, and what you have to do to get it. Still, you look back on that clumsy attempt in the alleyway with something like affection. It had been your first time, and first times were always a disaster.
Practice makes perfect.
CHAPTER 8
‘THIRTEEN?’
Gardner picked up a sample jar from the collection on the stainless steel trolley and held it up to see its contents. Like all the rest it contained a single hypodermic needle taken from the exhumed body, a slender steel sliver encrusted with dark matter.
‘We found another twelve,’ Tom said. He looked and sounded exhausted, the strain of the day’s events clearly visible. ‘Most of them were embedded in the soft tissue of the arms, legs and shoulders, where anyone who tried to move the remains would be most likely to take hold.’
Gardner set down the jar again, his world-weary features folded into lines of disgust. He’d come alone, and I’d tried to ignore my disappointment when I saw that Jacobsen wasn’t with him. The three of us were in an unused autopsy suite, where Tom and I had taken the remains after we’d finished X-raying them. The hypodermic needles had shown up as stark white lines against the greys and blacks. He’d insisted on removing them all himself, declining my offer of help. If he could have lifted the body from the casket by himself as well he would. As it was, he’d checked it thoroughly with a handheld metal detector before allowing either of us to touch it.
After what had happened to Kyle, he wasn’t taking any chances.
The assistant had been sent home after spending all afternoon at Emergency. He’d been pumped full of broad spectrum antibiotics, but neither they nor anything else would be effective against some pathogens the needle might have introduced into his bloodstream. He’d have the results of some tests in a few days, but others would take much longer. It would be months before he’d know for sure if he’d been infected or not.
‘The needles had been planted with the points facing outwards, so that whoever handled the body was almost certain to impale themselves,’ Tom went on, his face drawn with self-reproach. ‘This is my fault. I should never have let anyone else handle the remains.’
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ I said. ‘There was no way you could have known what was going to happen.’
Gardner gave me a look that said he still wasn’t happy about my presence, but kept his thoughts to himself. Tom had already made it clear that he considered I’d as much right to be there as he had, pointing out that it could just as easily have been me who’d been injured.
If Tom hadn’t felt sorry for Kyle it might well have been.
‘There’s only one person to be blamed, and that’s whoever did this,’ Gardner said. ‘It’s lucky no one else was hurt.’
‘Try telling that to Kyle.’ Tom stared at the specimen jars, his eyes ringed with fatigue. ‘Have you got any idea yet whose corpse was in the casket?’
Gardner’s eyes flicked to the body lying on the aluminium table. We’d hosed it down thoroughly, washing off the worst of the decompositional fluids before Tom had removed the needles. The smell was nothing like so intense as when the casket had first been opened, but it was there, all the same.
‘We’re working on it.’
‘Someone at the funeral home has to know something!’ Tom protested. ‘What does York have to say about it?’
‘We’re still questioning him.’
‘Questioning him? Christ almighty, Dan, never mind that there was the wrong body in the grave, someone stuck thirteen hypodermic needles in it while it was at Steeple Hill! How the hell could that have happened without York knowing about it?’
The TBI agent’s face had set. ‘I don’t know, Tom. That’s why we’re questioning him.’
Tom took a deep breath. ‘I apologize. It’s been a long day.’
‘Forget it.’ Gardner seemed to regret his earlier reticence. Some of the tension in the autopsy suite seemed to lift as he leaned against the workbench behind him, rubbing the back of his neck. The bright overhead light bleached what little colour there was from his face. ‘York claims to have hired someone called Dwight Chambers about eight months ago. According to him this guy was a godsend; worked hard, eager to learn, didn’t mind putting in the hours. Then one day he didn’t show up and York says he never saw him again. He insists it was Chambers who oversaw Willis Dexter’s funeral, who prepared the body and sealed the casket.’
‘And you believe him?’
Gardner gave a thin smile. ‘I don’t believe anyone, you know that. York’s a worried man, but I don’t think it’s because of the murders. Steeple Hill’s a mess. That’s why he was so keen to help us, hoping if he was nice we’d go away. By the look of things he’s been struggling to keep it afloat for years. Cutting corners, hiring casual workers to keep costs down. No taxes, no medical insurance, no questions asked. The bad news is there aren’t any records of who’s worked there, either.’
‘So is there any proof this Dwight Chambers actually existed?’ It wasn’t until I’d spoken that I remembered I was only there on sufferance. Gardner looked as though he might refuse to answer, but Tom was having none of it.
‘It’s a legitimate question, Dan.’
Gardner sighed. ‘The funeral home’s employees come and go so often that Chambers would only have been one of many. It wasn’t easy finding anyone who’d worked there long enough to remember him, but we found two who thought they could. The description they gave was pretty vague but matched the one we got from York. White, dark hair, somewhere between twenty-five and forty.’
‘Does that fit Willis Dexter?’ I asked.
‘It fits half the men in Tennessee.’ He absently straightened a box of microscope slides so it was aligned with the edge of the workbench. Catching himself, he stopped and folded his arms. ‘But we’re looking into the possibility that Dexter and Chambers might be the same person, and that Dexter was cute enough to preside over his own funeral as well as fake his own death. According to the autopsy report he died from massive head trauma when his car hit a tree. No other vehicle was involved, and there was enough alcohol in his system to kill a horse. It was assumed he just lost control.’