Death Notice (12 page)

“Just something that hydrates the tissue.”

“You don’t use formaldehyde?”

“It’s in there,” Bob said. “That’s what the arterial fluid is—lots of formaldehyde.”

“Is it easy to buy?” Kat asked.

Bob scoffed, as if her lack of knowledge insulted him. “Not the amount you’d need to embalm someone. It’s toxic, not to mention highly flammable.”

That bit of information surprised Kat. Her experience with formaldehyde ended at seventh-grade science class, when she had been forced to dissect a frog soaked in it.

“Flammable?”

“Yep,” Bob said. “If this place caught fire, you’d have a mighty big explosion on your hands.”

“If it’s so dangerous,” Nick said, “how do
you
get it?”

“Through a licensed supplier, who checks to make sure we’re a legitimate funeral home. Dad’s been buying it from the same place for decades.”

Nick continued his questioning. “Is there a black market for it?”

“I suppose,” Bob said. “There’s a black market for everything, when you come right down to it. Sex. Body parts. Sex
with
body parts.”

Although Bob’s surgical mask covered his mouth, Kat could tell he was grinning. He thought he was being shocking. She thought he was just being a prick.

“So if I wanted to buy some of this stuff,” she said, “I should check the Internet?”

“Either that or rob a funeral home.”

This prospect seemed to intrigue Nick, who asked, “Could someone rob you?”

Bob jerked his head toward the cabinets along the wall. “Those are locked. And this room is locked. And then the entire house is locked and guarded by a security system. I doubt it’s possible.”

“That’s good to hear,” Nick said dryly. “Glad to know your formaldehyde is safe.”

Bob finished filling the basin, replaced its lid, then capped the bottles. Kat removed her hands from over her mouth but kept the mask on. Even with the bottles closed, the air was rife with the scent of chemicals.

“How do you know how much fluid to use?”

“The rule of thumb is a gallon for every fifty pounds of body weight,” Bob said. “Since Barbara here looks to be about a hundred and fifty, three gallons should do it.”

“Now are you going to put the liquid in the body?”

“I am.”

Settling onto a stool next to Mrs. Hanover’s right side, Bob grabbed a scalpel and carefully cut a small slit down her neck.

“The killer used the right side, too,” Nick told him.

“Then he sure knows something about how this is done.”

Kat pushed away from the wall, taking cautious steps toward the body to get a closer view. The gash in Barbara’s neck didn’t bleed. Instead, it was blue-tinted and slightly puckered.

“Why the right side?” she asked.

“Because that’s where a mortician’s two best friends are hiding. The carotid and the jugular. Side by side.”

Nick had told Kat the carotid was where the killer cut George Winnick open, causing him to bleed to death.

“What’s the jugular used for?” she asked.

“Drainage. The blood flows out of the jugular; the fluid flows into the carotid.”

“The killer used the carotid to do both,” Nick said.

Bob looked away from the corpse long enough to yank down his surgical mask and flash them a yellow-toothed smile. “That’s why I’m better at this than he is.”

“How did you get so good?”

“Dear old Dad,” Bob said, replacing the mask. “Taught me everything I know, whether I wanted to learn it or not.”

He picked up a plastic tool that tapered into a thin hook. Slipping the hook into the cut on the neck, he probed inside Barbara Hanover’s body.

“What are you using?” Kat asked.

“Aneurysm hook.”

The hook emerged from the gash, pulling a pinkish tube out of the body and into the light. When Kat realized it was an artery, the sight made her feel faint.

“Which artery is that?”

“Carotid.”

Bob dipped the hook back into the cut, pulling out seconds later with another, slightly thicker vein.

“And now the jugular.”

With both blood vessels exposed outside the skin, he made small incisions in each of them, careful not to slice all the way through. Quickly, he added stitches to the edges of both cuts in both vessels.

“You have to stitch the cuts so the tubes don’t slip,” he said.

Kat was ready to ask about the tubes, but Bob beat her to it. Holding up something that resembled a miniature faucet, he said, “This is the arterial tube.”

Attached to one end was a length of thin rubber hose that led to the embalming machine. Bob carefully slipped the tube’s opposite end directly into the carotid artery.

Next, he displayed a longer tube that reminded Kat of the flute she had played in junior high band. It was of similar length and width as the arterial tube but with a valve in its center and a rounded knob at its end.

“This is the jugular tube,” Bob told her.

As he slid the jugular tube into its corresponding vein, Kat noticed the valve was also attached to a rubber hose. Instead of being hooked up to the embalming machine, the hose slithered to a drain in the floor.

“Where’s that one going to go?” Nick asked.

“It stays where it is.”

“What comes out of it?”

“Blood.”

“Where does the drain go?”

“Right to the sewer.”

Bob didn’t explain further, which was good, because Kat didn’t want him to. She simply vowed never to descend into Perry Hollow’s sewage system as Bob switched on the embalming machine. It rumbled to life, surprisingly loud, as the liquid inside the basin began to move. While Bob toyed with the knobs on the machine, embalming fluid rushed through the rubber hose into the body. Occasionally, he would pull the knob to open the valve on the jugular tube, sending a jet of blood spiraling down to the drain near his feet.

“Could someone do this by hand?” Nick asked, raising his voice over the whir of the embalming machine. In addition to the machine itself, a gurgling noise came from the tubes, sounding to Kat like a clogged coffeemaker.

“The results wouldn’t be very good,” Bob said, voice also raised. “But I guess it could be done with a funnel and some rubber tubing.”

“That would be messy, right?”

“Definitely. You’d need a big place. Somewhere with good
ventilation or you’d asphyxiate on the formaldehyde. And drainage. Lots of drainage.”

“So someone’s basement is out of the question.”

“That depends on the size. Whoever killed George probably had lots of room to work with.”

He opened the valve on the jugular tube again, letting out another squirt of blood. After a few more releases, the blood was replaced by excess embalming fluid, which had pumped its way through the body.

“We’re done,” Bob announced, shutting off the embalming machine.

Kat couldn’t keep a hopeful tone from creeping into her voice as she asked, “Completely done?”

“With the first phase.”

Bob removed the tubes from both blood vessels and stitched them shut before tucking them back into the neck. After that, he sewed the cut in the neck closed.

“The second phase,” he said, “is cavity treatment.”

From the tray, he lifted a third metal tube. This one had a knifelike blade at its end, which glistened in the white glow of the overhead lamp. Kat thought the object looked like something more appropriate for torture than embalming.

“This is a trocar,” Bob said. “Do you want to know what I do with it?”

Kat didn’t. Nor was she going to stick around to find out. She had seen plenty for one day, and she had an uneasy feeling she’d be seeing it again in her nightmares for weeks to come.

After quickly thanking Bob McNeil for his time and expertise, she grabbed Nick by his scrubs and pulled him out of the embalming room. They got as far as the changing area under the stairs before Bob called for their return.

“Hey, Kat,” he said when she poked her head back inside the embalming room. “From what you’ve told me, the guy
who killed George sounds like he knows a lot about embalming.”

“He does,” Kat said. “Too much.”

“But that’s the thing. He doesn’t know enough. If I were you, I’d look for someone who knows how this stuff works but not how to actually do it properly.”

“Any ideas where we should start?”

“That’s easy,” Bob said. “Mortuary schools.”

Sitting on the funeral home’s front steps, Nick Donnelly shoved his cell phone deep into his coat pocket. He had called Rudy to check on his progress in the Winnick barn. He had told Cassie she’d need to have a profile by the morning. And he had ordered Tony to request enrollment records for every mortuary school in the state. Now he just wanted a moment away from autopsies and embalming and his state-sanctioned BlackBerry.

Turning to Chief Campbell, he asked, “Where can a guy get a good cup of coffee in this town?”

“I know just the place,” Kat said. “You up for a stroll?”

Nick pulled his weary body off the steps and followed the chief. The night was clear, with no clouds blocking the stars and the waning moon. It was also as cold as a witch’s tit. When Chief Campbell spoke, a cloud of vapor billowed from her mouth, making it look like she was exhaling cigar smoke.

“Big Joe’s is this way,” she said, pointing to a side road just off the funeral home’s parking lot. She moved fast, pumping her short legs so rapidly Nick had to work overtime to keep up
with her. Apparently, when Kat Campbell said stroll, she meant power walk.

“Did they find anything worthwhile in the barn?” she asked.

“Nothing but the cat. They’re doing an autopsy to see when it was killed and how. A cat autopsy. Fucking unbelievable.”

“What about the faxed death notice?”

“They’re trying to get a trace on the number it was sent from. Also, Rudy checked it out and saw right away that the font is Times New Roman.”

“Which is part of every word processing program in America.”

“It is,” Nick said. “And because it’s a fax, there’s no way to trace the things we normally look for. The ink, for example, or the type of printer used. Because the killer never touched the page in our possession, we can’t look for fingerprints or transfer evidence or even what kind of paper it is. The fax machine was like a pair of gloves. It wiped everything clean.”

They had reached the town’s main thoroughfare, where most of the businesses were shuttered for the night. Only one remained open—a square of light and noise on an otherwise dark and quiet street. Kat propelled them toward it.

A hush fell over the coffee shop when they entered, and all eyes followed them to the counter. As Kat ordered two large coffees, Nick studied the room, trying to gauge its mood. He came up with: Surprised. Curious. And scared shitless.

“Hi, everyone,” Nick told the room.

No one responded.

Carrying their two coffees, Kat brushed past him on her way out the door. Nick had no choice but to follow.

“I apologize on behalf of Perry Hollow,” she said, once they were back on the street. “People are usually friendlier than that.”

“Then what’s their problem?”

“They’re scared. By this point, the word is out. They know who you are and why you’re here.”

“But I’m trying to help.”

“They know that,” Kat said. “It still doesn’t make them any less frightened.”

They came to a stop in a tidy town square decorated with ornate lampposts and a few wooden benches inside a small gazebo painted as white as a picket fence. Nick plopped down on a bench. Chief Campbell continued to move. Walking the circumference of the gazebo, she had the jittery air of someone who knew she was in way over her head. It could have been the caffeine, but Nick doubted it.

“No clues,” she said. “No motive. No suspect. I’ve never investigated a homicide before, but shouldn’t we have something to work with by now?”

She was right. In most homicides, it became clear early on who did it. There’s either an obvious clue—a shoe print, a hair follicle, a bloody glove—or an obvious suspect—an abusive boyfriend, a bitter ex-wife, an old enemy holding a grudge. But so far the Winnick murder contained neither, and it frustrated the hell out of him.