I’ll take fourteen bodies to go, thank you, no, no need for a gift receipt
“We’re supposed to be getting a new security system installed,” said the medical examiner, a small, slight woman of indeterminate age. Her hands fluttered about as she spoke, delicate and precise in their movements. Sergeant Riggs suppressed a shudder as he imagined them being used to gracefully slice open dead bodies. The morgue had always given him the creeps, though at least this time he wasn’t there to watch an autopsy. Still, just being in the room made him regret the breakfast burrito he’d wolfed down on the way to the crime scene this morning. Funny how the mess of a crime scene could leave him unfazed, but the sterile brilliance of the morgue made his stomach lurch. He concentrated on the SOCOs, busy in their routines collecting evidence of the break-in.
“So what do you have for security now?” Detective Campbell asked. “And was there a specific reason for the change, anyone fired lately, did you suspect something was going to happen?”
“Not much, and that was really the only reason. Everyone’s security conscious these days, you know, and we were woefully behind the times. I suppose the county figured we could be put off for last, because, well, who wants a dead body? The days of body snatchers are really behind us, with the exception of… you know. There are still some people who want them for that, and I think that case out in Arkansas spurred on the hospital to actually get it done. I really wouldn’t want to have to explain to a grieving family that their loved one had been stolen for… you know.” She shuddered, and moved to a small table cluttered with files. “These are the bodies that are missing. I’ve looked through them for similarities, thinking at first that maybe there was a funeral home pickup and they just grabbed all the bodies, whether or not they were ready to go, but these cases seem to have absolutely nothing in common. Not the same doctors, not the same funeral homes, not the same causes of death… really, the only thing they do have in common is that none of them were really considered suspicious.”
“That could be significant,” Detective Campbell said.
“I suppose it could be, though not as much as it seems. We really have very few suspicious deaths, so statistically speaking, probably ninety percent of the time if you nabbed fourteen random bodies from our morgue, none of them would be suspicious deaths.” She handed him the files.
Detective Campbell stared at the large stack of papers in his hand, and pulled a face. She laughed. “Paperwork really isn’t your thing, is it?”
“Would you believe I’m illiterate?” he asked.
“No, but I would believe you’re trying to get out of doing work. No, I’m not just going to sum up the cases for you – I presume I’m going to have more than enough work to do when you bring me those bodies back, from what I’ve heard about their state.”
“Word travels fast,” Sergeant Riggs said.
“That it does, though I have to admit that in some ways I’m relieved. At least we found the bodies, that’s something. I hear Dr. Stafford is already out there, collecting and sorting. I presume we’ll be working together on this, since they’re my bodies found in his patch?”
“We would like that, yes, if it’s not going to be a problem,” Detective Campbell said.
“No problem at all. Drew and I go way back,” she said with a laugh. “I know a lot of people have a hard time working with him, but we get along just fine. And, no, it’s not like that, Sergeant Riggs, so get that speculative glint out of your eye.”
Sergeant Riggs had the grace to try to look abashed, but even the ambiance of the morgue wasn’t enough to hold his inner fourteen-year-old, complete with raging hormones, at bay. He had to admit Dr. Curtis was quite pretty, in a simply, elfin sort of way. He also realized how long it’d been since his last date. Maybe he did need to get out more.
“Thank you, Doctor, for you time and you assistance,” Detective Campbell said, trying to pull things back onto a more professional tract. “We appreciate it. I’ll get copies of these made and return them to you as soon as possible.”
“No need, those are copies. I had my staff make them as soon as I heard you’d found the bodies. We’re not all incompetent over here in Browser County, you know.” She gave him a smile, and he flushed. The woman must have eyes and ears everywhere, she seemed to know everything. The friction between him and the DA in Browser County wasn’t that well known, and he’d thought the department had kept a tight lid on it. Apparently, not tight enough.
“Thank you Dr. Curtis, we appreciate it,” he said.
“Please, call me Isabel. And it’s no problem. Let me know when you’re ready to begin the autopsies. I’m guessing you’re going to want to do it in your morgue, considering our lack of security and our track record with these particular bodies.” She said it lightly, but he heard the undercurrent of tension in her voice. The thefts had upset her, and rightly so, but she was trying to make the best of a bad situation.
“And don’t forget about how cranky Dr. Stafford gets when you try to upset his routine,” he said, trying to add a little levity to the suddenly heavy moment.
It worked, and she laughed. “Oh, the memories of messing with poor Drew. Sometimes I wonder if it was all of us being jerks in medical school that made him more particular than he really was to start off with. I mean, he was always a little picky, but now I hear he’ll rip his assistants a new one if they so much as flip over a scalpel.”
“Just about,” he admitted. “He calls it being neat and organized, and says he doesn’t understand people who can work in chaos. We call it…” He broke off, not sure if it would be considered inappropriate language in mixed company. Goodness knows he didn’t need another day-long stint in harassment training.
“Being anal?” she finished for him. “There, now you can fire harassment charges against me.”
“Ah, they make you go to those seminars, too?” Sergeant Riggs asked.
“You mean women?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“No, I meant people who work with the dead. I wouldn’t think it would be possible to harass a corpse.” Sergeant Riggs said hastily. He’d already been to the sensitivity training once, he didn’t want another stint. Though he wasn’t sure this line of reasoning was any more politically correct. He was about to try to backtrack further, but was spared the effort when she grinned at him.
“Seriously, don’t worry about it. If I feel harassed, you’ll know it. I am, after all, the one with the scalpels. This new administration has us all walking on eggshells. My last assistant refused to use the word ‘penis’, even though the guy we were autopsying had a massive infection in his, which resulted in his death. He was afraid it would be ‘harassing’ me to use that word, and tried to skirt around the issue. We work with bodies, we have to talk about them.” She sighed. “I know it’s a big deal, but I think all the training does is make normal, nice people overly paranoid. The real jackasses still don’t think it applies to them. That’s why they’re jackasses.”
“Massive infection in his penis? Resulting in his death?” Sergeant Riggs looked a little green. “Do I want to ask?”
“Probably not,” she said gently. “Let’s just say there are certain procedures that should not be attempted outside of a sterile operating room.”
He blanched, and even the stoic Detective Campbell looked a little uneasy for the first time.
“Back to the matter at hand,” Detective Campbell said, then flushed at the innuendo. Isabel laughed, and Sergeant Riggs suppressed a chuckle.
“Just let me know when you want me to show up at your morgue, I’ll be there,” Isabel said. “And, no, I still won’t just sum up the information in those files for you. I’m hoping you’ll see something in them that I didn’t, something to make sense of why the bodies were taken.”
Detective Campbell feigned a crestfallen look. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. I imagine it’s pretty boring reading.”
“Not really, there are a few medically interesting cases,” Isabel said. “Not suspicious, or relevant to a detective, I suppose, but interesting enough. And there’s the usually cautionary tales of how things like liquor and chainsaws don’t mix.”
“Really?” Sergeant Riggs perked up. “And that wasn’t a suspicious death?”
“Really, and no. His buddies caught it on film. He did, at least, get his fifteen minutes of fame on YouTube, though he died for his trouble.” She shook her head sadly.
“They published it after he died?” Detective Campbell and Sergeant Riggs said together.
“I believe they thought it was some sort of memorial or tribute. In honor of their fallen comrade, or some such. Interestingly enough, there’s already a lot of speculation on the web as to how the stunt was faked. People are so jaded, they don’t believe anything is real.”
“Ah, the immortality of youth. How I don’t long for those days when I did stupid shit under the idiotic belief that I couldn’t get hurt.” Detective Campbell grinned.
“You? I can’t believe you ever did anything wild and crazy,” Sergeant Riggs snorted.
“It was a lifetime ago,” Detective Campbell said softly. “Anyway, thank you for the files, Dr… Isabel. We will be in touch. It’ll probably take a few hours to gather up the main pieces, though the SOCOs will be there for days sifting through the bits. At least you and Dr. Stafford can get a start on assembling the bodies.”
She smiled and nodded, and they headed out the door and back to the office, to start reading through the files of the fourteen missing bodies.
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