Page 41 of Half the Summer's Night
I drag her out of the refrigeration unit and pull back the plastic I covered her with, trying to hide the mess of her body. Then I wait for the panic and nausea to hit.
It doesn’t come.
I transfer her to the autopsy table and go about the ritual of setting up my supplies, moving by rote. I’m exhausted. After my shower last night, I sat on my bed, listening for some proof that my killer was downstairs, that he was still in the house at all. But it was unnervingly quiet, and I eventually went downstairs even though he told me not to.
The body was gone.
The foyer was clean.
The only evidence that anything had happened at all was the front door, with its shattered window and broken hinge. And even that, he had fixed into place rather than leaving everything open to the warm night.
After that, I took an overdose of melatonin that sent me to a dark, dreamless oblivion for exactly four hours. I shuddered awake this morning, my whole body vibrating, and found more texts from Chloe and Penelope on our group chat, most of themdumb memes. My two best friends both believed the lie I told them, a thought that makes guilt knot in my chest.
Now, I’m here. At work. Olivia Pearce is still dead, but so is the man who mutilated her body. Who raped her and killed her.
I feel nothing for him. No guilt for my involvement in his death. Only a sick, coiling uneasiness that said death will be traced back to me, and I’ll be punished for it.
And yet, when I start the recording on my laptop and begin my visual report, I don’t get overwhelmed. I describe the wounds, as awful as they are, with a calm, clinical detachment. My voice doesn’t shake when I give the probable cause of death, and when I pick up my scalpel to begin the internal evaluation, I’m able to make the cuts as easily as if this were the body of a stranger.
I tell myself I don’t know what changed, but of course that’s a lie. I can do this because I saw the face of her killer, and I know he got what he deserved. Honestly, he got better than he deserved.
It takes me two hours to complete Olivia’s autopsy, to take her body apart like a doll and examine the inside of her. I feel numb to the whole process, the way I do when I’m examining someone I don’t know. And while I do a thorough job, I don’t have the weight of expectation on me to find that key piece of evidence that will lead to the killer’s identity.
Because he already confessed to me.
And now he’s dead.
I don’t find anything anyway. No semen, no loose hairs, no clothing fibers. And as I sew her back together, I realize I’m grateful for what happened last night.
Grateful that my killer was here to save my life, and avenge hers.
When I’m finished, I clean up and head into my office to prepare my report. The light on my office phone is blinking, though. A message.
For the first time since I woke up, anxiety tightens through me.
I play the message over the speaker phone, my eyes fixed on the map behind my desk. Seven red pins marked with letters.
“Hey Abi, this is Lorraine from the Sheriff’s Department. We’re sending a body your way. John Doe. Looks like someone slipped and fell while they were drinking over on Pier Fourteen.”
Relief flushes through me. A run-of-the-mill death, then. We usually get a couple of these a year.
Lorraine gives me the rest of the details, telling me the body should arrive around 11 A.M. When I check my clock, I see that’s in fifteen minutes.
I start typing up my findings about Olivia Pearce, my emotions numb the whole time. I’m only about halfway through when the bell chimes, letting me know someone’s at the back entrance.
I move to close up the report but get stalled, staring at it until the words blur together on the screen. I wish there were some way I could tell Olivia’s husband that her killer paid for what he did. I’d like to tell Ms. Staunton, too. Because I know, for the rest of their lives, Olivia’s unsolved death will be a wound that never gets to heal.
That’s my biggest regret about last night, I realize.
The bell chimes again, jarring me out of my thoughts. I push away from my desk and make my way to the back entrance, where I slam my palm against the button to make the door roll up. It creaks on its chains, letting in the sweltering, humid sunlight and revealing Hector piece by piece. He’s leaning up against the refrigerated truck, squinting at me.
“Wasn’t sure you were here,” he says.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was just finishing up that—“ My voice wavers, and I swallow it down. “That murder from yesterday morning.”
“Jesus.” Hector shakes his head. “Bad fucking business. You find anything?”
I smile thinly at him. “You know I can’t answer that.”
