16 The Morgue

Andrea turned the police report back in to the new officer who had replaced the Desk Sergeant she had talked to previously. She knew she would be getting sent a digital copy shortly; while she knew she was going to end up reading through those reports over and over, she felt she had learned everything she could for now.

"By the way," she asked. "Is the coroner available? Do I need to make an appointment to speak with him?"

"Let me see if he's free," the officer replied, picking up the desk phone and hitting a couple of buttons to connect to the morgue. There was a long pause before the officer left a message asking the coroner to call back when he was free.

"He probably has his hands full with something," the officer said. "I'll come find you when he calls back."

Andrea thanked him before stepping away to find a chair to sit and wait.

While she was waiting, she decided that she had another quick piece of business to take care of. Pulling her phone from her jacket pocket, she pulled up Jacquelyn in her contacts.

Andrea paused. Her anger from the interview room had reduced to a low simmer, but thinking about Jacquelyn's involvement in the manipulations Andrea has been subject to fanned the flames of her fury. She was absolutely going to give Jacquelyn a piece of her mind… but not now. Not over the phone. That was a conversation that needed to happen face to face.

But there were two things she wanted to find out. Firstly, to confirm that Kyle really was the 'big case' Jacquelyn had talked about, as right now she only had Kyle's word for it.

Secondly, Andrea wanted to confirm if Jacquelyn had deceived her on purpose. The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Jackie herself could have been fooled somehow. She was too shrewd, too experienced. Whoever Kyle had got to run his errands would have been a fool to try and trick Jackie, and she would have seen through it if they did.

Andrea still didn't WANT to believe it though. She also had no idea how she might confirm her suspicion. If Jacquelyn played dumb and denied knowing anything about the scheme, what could Andrea do to prove differently?

She hit dial and held the phone to her ear, still not sure what she was going to say. 'I guess it depends on what Jacquelyn says,' she thought.

For a moment she thought she was going to have her call screened; the phone rang several times before Jacquelyn answered.

"Did you take the case?" Jacquelyn said immediately.

'So much for playing dumb,' Andrea thought. Jacquelyn was never one for pleasantries on the phone. Caller ID would tell her who you were, so why waste time with introductions? And she was certainly getting straight to business today.

Andrea took a breath and kept her tone professional. "I'm still at the precinct right now. I have some more business to take care of, so I probably won't be back to the office until later in the day."

"I figured as much," said Jacquelyn. "But what I want to know, is are you going to tak–"

CLICK

Andrea hung up the phone.

She was probably going to get some grief from Jacquelyn for that later, but for the time being it had felt so… damn… satisfying!

Her only regret was that she had been using a cell phone instead of an old fashioned desk phone like the office had used. It would have been even better if she could have slammed down the receiver rather than just pressing the 'End Call' button.

She didn't think that Jacquelyn was likely to try calling her back, but just in case, she set her phone on 'Do Not Disturb' mode.

Just as she was wondering what she should do to kill some time, the officer waved her over and told her that the coroner would see her now.

The precinct elevator was old and slow, and as it made its way down towards the sub-basement, Andrea felt like the lights dimmed as they went below ground. The doors banged and rattled as they opened. It felt like stepping out into another world.

The police precinct wasn't an inviting place to be generally. The hallways were bright white and bare, the lighting was too harsh and the floors always seemed to feel a little sticky. But here below ground, things were even worse.

Instead of cheap paint, there were bare concrete breezeblocks. Instead of the bright omnidirectional corporate lighting from recessed LED panels, there were flickering lines of aging fluorescents, their ever present hum setting Andrea's teeth on edge.

It wasn't dark or dirty; on the contrary, it had the chemical cleanliness of somewhere that has been regularly sterilized. It just had a harsh utilitarianism of somewhere that very few living people went. It wasn't a crypt, but it was unmistakably a place that had been created not for the living, but for the dead.

Andrea stepped out of the elevator and followed the signs for the morgue.

She was aware that while the floor wasn't sticky, it did have the look of tiles that had recently been mopped. She tried not to think about the kinds of mess this floor might have recently seen.

The morgue itself was secured with a card reader. There was a doorbell next to the door that she pressed with her elbow. Andrea didn't want to touch anything in this place with her bare hands if she could avoid it.

There was a harsh buzz followed by a click as the electronic locks released and an automatic mechanism creakingly swung the doors open. Inside stood a short man in a surgical gown, just lowering his elbow from where he had activated the door release. The clear protective face screen he wore was pushed back, almost concealing his mostly bald head.

"Hi there!" he called over, his voice high pitched but pleasant and friendly. "You must be the lawyer. Come on in, they told me you were coming." He stepped back over to the gurney in the center of the room, where a sheet concealed the shape of what was clearly a body.

Andrea walked inside, unsure if the goosebumps she was feeling were from the drop in temperature or the creepy surroundings.

"I'm Doctor Robert Alcantara, but you can call me Bob," the coroner said. He made no attempt to shake Andrea's hand, for which she was grateful. She didn't know what the stains on his latex gloves might be, but none of the possibilities were appealing.

"What was your name again?" he asked.

"Andrea Mason. Thank you, Sir, for taking the time to–"

"Hey now, Andrea, none of this 'Sir' business, I like to keep things informal down here." He gave a warm smile. "Is this your first time in the morgue?"

"I've been in morgues before, but it is my first time visiting THIS morgue," she said. It would be more accurate to say she had been in a morgue exactly once before, as part of a college class taught by a professor who believed in field experience. She hadn't enjoyed it, and she didn't expect this to be any different.

"Well we only have a couple of rules here. First of all, don't touch anything without asking. We don't want you contaminating evidence. And second, if you have to vomit, there is a sink over there. But the most important thing is that you don't vomit on me, on my equipment, and most of all, whatever you do, don't throw up on one of the corpses. We REALLY don't want you contaminating evidence."

Andrea felt a little bile rising in her throat just at the thought of it. She said, "Did someone really…?"

"All of the above unfortunately, at various occasions over the years. If you think you're going to have trouble, I do have some paper bags in the back…"

Andrea steeled herself. "That won't be necessary. Thank you, Bob." She gestured to the body on the gurney. "Is this Beatrix Davenport?"

"Oh no, this is an unrelated case. Gunshot victim, single shot to the back of the head. It's going to be quite the job figuring out who he was. There's hardly anything left of the face to ID, even with dental records. We're crossing our fingers, no pun intended, that we can get a match on his prints."

Andrea tried not to think too hard about what he must look like under the sheet. She was afraid that Bob was going to pull it back, but it turned out that he only pulled it far enough to reveal a complicated owl tattoo on the victim's arm.

"This would be fairly distinctive. I suppose they'll ask around tattoo shops in the city, but if he got it elsewhere… but never mind that, this gentleman has nothing to do with your case."

Bob replaced the sheet and stepped away from the table, carefully removing his gloves with a practiced motion to dispose of them, pulling out a fresh pair from the dispenser.

"Miss Davenport is back in the refrigerated storage, I completed her autopsy a couple of hours ago, though I've not had the opportunity to submit my report. You'll actually be the first to hear my results." He said this brightly, as though appreciating the opportunity to talk about his work.

"Will that be a problem?" Andrea asked as she followed him across to the rear of the room. "Do I need to wait until the report has been officially submitted?" It seemed to her that the police investigating the case should probably have this information first.

Bob laughed. "I'm sure the detective would probably say so, but what the heck, you're going to get all the information in the end. What does it really matter who gets it first? The facts are the facts." Bob winked at her. "Like I said, I try to keep things informal."

Andrea wasn't sure if knowing that she was still deliberating whether to even take the case would change his mind, but decided to keep that to herself.

"Are you wanting a close look at the body?" Bob asked. "If so, you probably want to grab a gown, mask and gloves. There's no reason to expect any flying bodily fluids, but it's the ones you don't expect that always seem to get you! I'd hate for you to ruin your outfit."

Andrea faltered. She hadn't thought about the possibility of anything from the body… getting on her… "Do I really need to get that close?"

Bob kept smiling, but looked as though Andrea had failed a test. "If you would prefer to stay far enough back to be safe, then I might as well leave the body in the refrigerator. You won't be able to see anything, and you might as well have not come down here in the first place."

Andrea didn't want to feel like she was wasting her time here, and as unlikely as it was that she might spot something that would be important that the coroner didn't include in his report, she wouldn't want to risk missing key evidence.

Trying not to show her feeling of revulsion, Andrea grabbed a spare surgical gown and started pulling it on over her suit. 'It's fine,' she told herself, 'It's clean, it's probably even sterile. It's been in a morgue, but it's to protect me from… everything gross.'

Bob's smile broadened, grinning like a proud parent as she awkwardly donned the mask and gloves, struggling to adjust them to fit herself correctly. Once she was ready, he unlocked the refrigerator door and slid out the drawer holding the body of the recently deceased Beatrix Davenport.

"Alright Andrea, are you ready?" He asked, grasping the sheet and preparing to reveal the body. "Remember, sink's over there, on the floor if you have to, okay?"

Andrea would have prefered if he would stop reminding her of the lingering feeling of nausea she was still holding down. She was determined not to embarrass herself by losing her lunch. Or worse, doing like the one girl from her class had the last time she'd visited a morgue and passed out. That had ended up cutting the trip short before the group had really seen anything.

This wouldn't be the first time Andrea had seen a dead body, she had been to viewings at funerals, but those bodies have been preserved and prepared until they almost looked alive.

But it would be the first time she had seen the body of a murder victim.

Not quite trusting herself to open her mouth to speak, she nodded.

Bob pulled back the sheet.