Page 62 of Unnatural Death

It hops behind the x-ray machine, and Marino finds a flyswatter.

“Don’t you dare,” I warn him.

“It’s just to herd him.” Marino squats down. “Come here, little fella.” He gently guides the cricket with the flyswatter. “Got him! Now we’re talking.” He sets the plastic container on a countertop, using a scalpel to stab air holes through the lid.

I find another PERK in the cabinet, and we put our respirators back on. I swab the male victim’s orifices and collect other evidence the same way I did with the female. Extracting the segments of hiking poles protruding front and back, I place them in a bag. We lift the body, setting it down on the autopsy table, and I conduct the external examination, taking x-rays.

Nothing lights up in his hip or elsewhere. I find no computer chips of any description. Extracting sections of the hiking poles perforating the liver, I place them in a large paper bag that I seal and label. It’s obvious by the absence of tissue response that he was stabbed after death. By the time Benton and his colleagues are back on camera, I’ve answered the most important questions.

“He has no evidence of blunt force trauma and would have died quickly from massive injuries to his neck and the back of his head,” I inform everyone. “I suspect these were caused by bullets that passed through and kept going. I can’t know if anything such as a chip might have been removed. But if there was one embedded in the right hand, for example, it’s not there now.”

“While we were on our break the DNA lab was in touch confirming the victims are Huck and Brittany Manson,” Bella says. “We won’t be needing anything else for now and will leave you to your work.” She and her colleagues have begun collecting paperwork. “Doctor Scarpetta, Investigator Marino, we’re very grateful for your time and trust. Of course, you’ll let us know if you discover anything else important.”

“If someone could contact Addams Family Mortuary,” I reply. “Henry can start heading this way.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Benton says, his eyes meeting mine, and our video session has ended. “Cameras and microphones are going off inside the REMOTE. We won’t be recording anything further, your privacy restored.” Just like that the screens black out, everybody gone as if never there.

CHAPTER 24

MARINO AND I FIND ourselves suddenly alone inside the trailer’s autopsy compartment, surrounded by gore and offline video screens. Now that we’re longer distracted by our formidable audience, the reality of what we’ve been told comes crashing home.

“I don’t know what we’re supposed to feel right now except pissed.” Marino breaks the silence while I make the Y-incision.

“I’m weirdly numb.” I reflect back tissue. “It’s like being hurt and not knowing it at first. Until there’s blood everywhere.” I pick up the rib cutters. “And the nerves along the edges of the wound start screaming. And suddenly you realize you’re about to pass out.”

“I got to ask you something, Doc, and you’ve got to swear to be honest. Did Benton or Lucy in any way indicate that Carrie might still be around?”

“Never. I’m as stunned as you are.” I cut through ribs, and the loud snaps sound sadistic. “I hope it’s as Benton said and they aren’t listening to us right now. I hope at least that much is true.”

“If they are, they’re about to get a damn earful. Talk about feeling screwed.” Marino grabs the empty plastic bucket out of the sink with pent-up fury. “How could they keep this from us, as dangerous as she is?” He bangs down the bucket under the table. “I’m not believing this shit!”

“I think we understand the reason.” I remove the breastplate and accompanying section of ribs.

“If nothing else? Where’s the fucking respect?”

“It’s not like Benton and Lucy had a choice.” I lift out the bloc of organs, placing it on the cutting block. “This is nothing new when dealing with classified information.”

“Well, it’s new to me, and it’s wrong.”

“It’s not personal, Marino.” Using a scalpel, I cut through connective tissue.

“Hell yeah it’s personal when I’ve got something hanging over my head for the rest of my life.”

“No gastric contents except a small amount of brownish fluid,” I report, and Marino jots it down on the clipboard.

“If I’d wanted to live like a spy, I would have gone to work for an intelligence agency,” he continues to vent. “But I didn’t. Because I damn well don’t want to live like that, worrying about what I say. Especially when I live with somebody who has to know everything.”

“You can’t tell Dorothy.” I place the liver in the hanging scale. “Seventeen hundred and fifty grams.” I begin sectioning it with a chef’s knife.

“I didn’t ask to be involved in top secret anything and don’t appreciate the exposure.”

“Beefy red and within normal limits except for the two perforations caused by the hiking poles,” I dictate.

“These past seven years I haven’t given Carrie Grethen a damn thought. Benton and Lucy should have found a way to let us know.”

“They couldn’t talk about it any more than you can.” I weigh the lungs one at a time. “Right is six-sixty-one grams, left is five-eighty.” I pick up the knife.

Moments later I’m sawing open what’s left of the skull. The brain weighs barely one thousand grams, a large chunk of the occipital lobe, the cerebellum missing. Huck’s spinal cord was severed by the wound to his neck, and he was alive when he received those catastrophic injuries. Afterward, he wasn’t moving or talking anymore. He would have died quickly.

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