Page 47 of Killer Clone

Murray saw his discomfort. “Don’t worry. I won’t turn it on right now. Wouldn’t want to hurt your shoes.”

Hagen would definitely not be okay with any bodily fluid hitting his Italian loafers. He shifted the conversation a bit. “Do you think this could be Otto’s work?”

When he held his phone out again, Murray politely did not touch the screen with his gloved hands, especially after his demonstration. Who knew what the man had touched today.

“Could be. Honestly. It looks like the kind of cut any skilled mortician would make. Otto would’ve been able to do this comfortably.” He stopped and looked closer, suddenly realizing what Hagen was suggesting. “Look, I can’t say for sure.”

Hagen put the phone back into his pocket. “If you were to perform these cuts on a living person, what would happen?”

The mortician looked taken aback. “Well, that person would die, and quickly too. Within two to five minutes. All the blood would be pumped out of them. They’d be completely exsanguinated, as we say.”

Hagen and Ander shared a look. It seemed like Otto had used his knowledge, but certainly not in the way it was intended.

Ander tapped a fingernail over the counter’s steel top. The sound echoed through the room. Murray’s basement was as clean and cutoff as a forensics lab.

“Do you know if Otto had any friends? Or anyone he mentioned in particular he was close to?”

“Friends? I don’t know. I assume he did. Otto didn’t talk about his personal life. Honestly, he didn’t talk much at all. That’s why I thought he might have a future as an embalmer. This isn’t a job for extroverts.”

“Nothing at all?”

“I knew he had an uncle he was close to. And like I said, I know he and Father Ted had a good relationship. But he never mentioned anyone his own age. I once tried to ask him if he had a partner, and he literally laughed. I remember what he said, since it struck me as sad. ‘Who’d want to go out with me?’ I was surprised by that, since he was a good-looking fellow. But, no, my sense was that he didn’t have much of a social life.”

Ander tried to smile but couldn’t seem to get any feeling behind it. “He didn’t mention anyone visiting from out of town? A friend he hadn’t seen for a while, maybe? Or someone he met online?”

Shaking his head, Murray pushed a button on the pump. The hum returned. The pipe shook. A smell of preserving fluid filled the room and burned the back of Hagen’s throat.

Murray held the tube in place, jammed into the dead man’s artery. “No, nothing like that.”

Hagen cut in. “How about in the days up until he died? Did you notice any change in his demeanor?”

Murray cocked his head. “Actually, now that you mention it, he did seem sort of jumpy Monday morning.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I didn’t think it was anything at the time. But I came down here mid-morning. I’d forgotten my pen. And, I don’t know, I must’ve spooked him or something, as he upset a tray full of tools. They scattered all over the floor. Then he snapped at me, saying I shouldn’t sneak up on him like that.”

“And that was unusual?”

Murray nodded. “Very much so. I mean, I guess he might have been spooked because he thought I was upstairs, since there was a service going on. For the most part, he was a very cool customer. I can’t remember a time when he snapped at me like that before. Maybe a little bit when he first started working. And then, of course, he went home early on Wednesday. He’d never done that before. But I’m sorry, I do need to get back to it now.”

Hagen pulled out a card.

Murray looked up, his fingers still guiding the embalming fluid. “It’s terrible what happened to Otto. I still haven’t told the rest of the staff. I don’t know how to break it to them. I’ll tell them at the end of the day, I think.”

Hagen was surprised. “They’re not used to being around loss?”

“Not their own.”

He drew his lips into a thin line. Hagen didn’t envy him breaking the news.

They made their way out. The door of the chapel was closed. From the other side of the wall came a man’s deep voice and the sound of quiet sobbing.

Otto Walker had killed Patrick Marrion. Hagen was confident of that. The mark on Marrion’s neck was an embalming cut. He’d used his knowledge to bleed out his victim.

Now the question was—who killed Otto Walker?

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