Damaged (9 page)

Damn! He hated people snooping around his property, leaving trash. It cost money to empty that frickin’ Dumpster.

He was shaking his head, still cursing under his breath, when he went inside. He immediately reset the alarm.

Scott understood that there were specific reasons why he had become a mortician. He didn’t really like working with people. Sure, he had to advise and guide the bereaved, but it was easier to work with people when they were at their most vulnerable. They automatically looked to him as the expert. There was a built-in respect that came with the job title.

He actually didn’t mind working with dead people. Trish insisted that much of what he did was creepy and gross: the makeup, hairstyling, and clothes. Sometimes he had to paint the skin or sew up leaking orifices. And there were the plastic lenses he inserted beneath the eyelids to keep the eyes from popping open in the middle of a memorial.

Even the blood didn’t bother him. You drained it out and replaced it with embalming fluid. Oh sure, you couldn’t avoid blood leaking out sometimes, but it never sprayed or splattered like it did from a live, pumping heart. And yet, despite all the awkward and messy jobs Scott had done, nothing had prepared him for what he saw.

He backed up and stayed in the doorway, his hand pressed against the wall, needing it to steady himself.

Pink liquid pooled on the white linoleum floor and filled the troughs alongside the stainless-steel tables. A cardboard box blocked his entry, the type Scott used for bodies transported to the crematory,
only this one held wadded-up bundles of clothes. On one of the tables lay a torso—the head, arms, and legs gone. On the other lay a corpse. It looked peaceful until Scott realized its knees and feet were cut and in between its legs.

Joe Black stood at the counter. When he turned around, Scott saw the front of his lab gown, his latex gloves, and his shoe covers, all soaked with blood.

“Oh hey, Scott, you’re just in time. I could use some help.”

CHAPTER 15

Maggie stared at the helicopter and the orange flight suit being handed to her. Obviously she hadn’t given it enough thought when she asked to see the crime scene. It was the Coast Guard, for God’s sake. Didn’t they use boats?

A helicopter. She felt her knees go a bit weak. She could barely handle being trapped on a commercial airliner. How the hell was she supposed to do a helicopter?

“Wouldn’t it be easier to take a look from a boat?” she asked, still not accepting the flight suit that the young woman offered.

She hoped the question didn’t sound ridiculous. Already she felt a bit sick to her stomach just from the thought of climbing into the helicopter. She pushed her sunglasses up and crossed her arms, pretending it was no big deal how they proceeded. She didn’t want the aircrew to interpret her hesitancy as fear. The slip, the tell would not be a great start to the investigation, and it would certainly hamper her credibility, let alone her authority.
A refusal or even hesitancy would be a mistake, especially with this macho group. All of them were young (with the exception of Pete Kesnick), lean, and muscular, even the woman, the rescue swimmer named Elizabeth Bailey.

Earlier Maggie had watched Bailey don her wet suit instead of a
flight suit, slipping the formfitting one-piece over the plain white shorts and white CG tank top that showed off her tanned, long legs and broad shoulders but failed to hide her femininity—full breasts and small waist. She wore her sun-bleached hair short, easy to slip under the wet suit’s hood which she kept at the back of her neck, ready instead for the flight helmet she held under her arm.

“We’re the crew that found the cooler,” the pilot, Lieutenant Commander Wilson, told Maggie. “We’re an aircrew.” He was saying it slowly as though explaining it to a child and Maggie realized she had no choice. “Is there a problem?”

During their introductions she had detected an air of annoyance from Wilson. Forever the profiler she had already decided it wasn’t due to the inconvenience but rather that he believed what Maggie was asking was somehow beneath his pay grade. At first she thought his reaction might be a knee-jerk prejudice against Wurth as a black authority figure or herself as a woman. Wurth had left after the introductions to begin his own pre-hurricane duties. And since Wilson’s attitude hadn’t left with Wurth, Maggie realized she might be the one Wilson had a problem with. It was silly to give his prejudices any credence.

“No problem,” Maggie answered. “Just hate to take you away from more important things.”

Wilson nodded, satisfied. The other two men, Kesnick and Ellis, simply returned to their preparations. But Bailey caught Maggie’s eyes as she offered the flight suit again. And in that brief exchange, Maggie realized that Bailey had recognized her fear. Would the woman give her away? Put Maggie in her place?

Bailey handed Maggie the suit, holding on to it a count longer than necessary. With her back turned to the men she let Maggie see that she was slipping something into the flight suit’s pocket.

“It’s gonna be choppy out there today,” Bailey told her. “Be sure to buckle in tight.”

Then she left to pack the rest of her own gear, including a small bag with basic medical supplies. That’s when Maggie remembered that rescue swimmers were also certified EMTs.

Maggie slipped off her shoes and started putting on the flight suit. The aircrew no longer took any interest in her as they completed their preparations. She fingered the plastic inside the pocket, cupping it in the palm of her hand before bringing out two pink-and-white capsules.

Dramamine? Benadryl? Neither worked for her.

It wasn’t about motion sickness. It was about losing control. It was a thoughtful and gracious gesture, and on closer inspection Maggie noticed the capsules were not over-the-counter medication. Instead, the small print on the plastic package read: “Zingiber officinale.”

She looked up at Bailey but the young woman was climbing into the helicopter. Maggie’s nausea started to churn as she watched the others putting on their helmets and gloves. Soon her heart would start to race, followed by the cold sweats.

What the hell, she thought. Maybe the capsules were something new they gave to rescued survivors. Or maybe it was some prank to make the FBI lady sicker than a dog. At this point, Maggie realized that she was willing to take her chances.

She tugged open the plastic, popped the capsules into her mouth, and dry-swallowed them. Then she pulled on her helmet and headed for the helicopter, trying to ignore the wobble in her knees.

CHAPTER 16

Scott worried that he might throw up. He’d never seen body pieces. Not like this, carved and lined up, set out to rinse and wrap. His face must have registered his discomfort.

“How did you think it was done, buddy?” Joe Black asked, pushing his goggles up onto his tousled hair. “Unfortunately, there’s nothing dignified about disarticulating a body. It’s a messy job.”

“I guess I just … it’s not what I expected.”

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop his eyes from darting around the room. He didn’t want to step over the cardboard coffin stretched out in front of him. He didn’t want to step foot into the room at all.

“You’ll get used to it,” Joe assured him.

Joe picked up what looked like an ordinary carving knife. He glanced at Scott, caught him wincing, and put the knife back down.

“It’s a bit weird at first.” There was no condescending tone, more instructive like a teacher to a student. “You learn a lot by simply doing it. A bit of trial and error. Actually it’s not that different from carving a Thanksgiving turkey.” He smiled at Scott.

Joe turned back to the counter, picked up one of the pieces.
Scott couldn’t tell what it was. He didn’t want to look and yet he found himself mesmerized by Joe’s hands pulling plastic wrap and folding it over and over with a slow, almost reverent touch.

“I try not to be wasteful,” Joe continued, keeping his back to Scott as he started wrapping the next piece in line. “It’s the least we can do when people are generous enough to donate their bodies. Right? Every week surgeons are learning some new, innovative technique. And they’d never be able to do that without me providing working models.”

Scott appreciated that Joe didn’t draw attention to his reaction. Instead, Joe remained calm while Scott was acting like a total jerk. He knew exactly what he had signed up for and had read plenty about the subject. He had no illusions about what were in the previous packages that Joe Black had sent to him to store. Although he had to admit that it was certainly easier when he could accept the UPS or FedEx deliveries and cart the packages into his walk-in refrigerator or put them in one of his freezers.

All along he knew the packages contained body parts that were used for educational conferences and for research. Early on Joe had bragged about the surgical conferences that were his specialty. On paper and in his mind, Scott Larsen had justified the extra income as a noble service. So he needed to get over his squeamishness.

Like embalming and cremation, this, too, was just business.

“You really have a nice facility here,” Joe told him, glancing around as he started to work on the torso that was left on the other table. “And don’t worry. I’ll clean everything up. Get it sparkling the way you had it.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that.”

Scott hated to think Joe might believe he had a problem with any of this. In an attempt to restore their camaraderie Scott tried to take interest in what Joe was doing. “So I guess you have orders for all these different … parts?”

“More orders than I can supply.” He took out a jar of Vicks VapoRub, dipped a gob, and started smearing it on the torso. “It’s hard to keep up.”

“What’s that you’re doing?”

“A little trick of the trade. The torsos are popular with medical-device companies to showcase their new equipment, to teach a new technique. Sometimes the surgeons’ll work on them for several hours and well, I don’t have to tell you. A couple of hours and you know how bad it’ll start smelling.”

“Oh sure.”

“I rub Vicks VapoRub into the skin before I freeze it. Then when it defrosts it smells like menthol. Which is much better than what it ordinarily smells like.”

“Wow. That’s really … smart.”

“You morticians have plenty of your own tricks, right? You guys are like magicians when it comes to making corpses look good. Sometimes even better than what they looked like when they were alive.”

“Families have high expectations.”

Before Scott realized it, Joe had him talking about his own techniques. He even told Joe how he cheated sometimes and left off the socks and shoes because he hated dealing with feet. He couldn’t even remember when he stepped over the cardboard coffin and came into the room. Soon he was gowned up, rinsing and wrapping and telling more stories. Even made Joe laugh a couple of times.
They cleaned up the room together and planned to meet for drinks later in the evening on the beach.

Scott had gotten so carried away, actually having a good time, that it wasn’t until after Joe had left that he realized he’d never asked where he parked. Nor had he dared to ask him about the second body.

CHAPTER 17