The Christopher Killer (7 page)

“You don’t mind if I leave you for a minute?” Patrick asked. “Do you, Cammie?”

Cameryn shook her head and told him it was fine; she wanted to look around before things started. Her father disappeared through one of the doors, and she found herself standing alone by the large metal sinks. Ben was by the body bag, taking notes, so she turned her attention to the instruments that had been placed on the counter. They were lined up so neatly they looked like the teeth of a comb. Surgical knives, autopsy saws, scissors, large syringes, and a row of needles had been precisely arranged next to a dozen small specimen containers that would hold bits of organs destined for the histology lab. These she remembered from her books. She remembered, too, the yellow buckets, receptacles where the organs would be placed after they were sectioned, and the large pruning shears that would be used to cut through both Rachel’s ribs and breastbone. A dual blue light, used to locate trace evidence, had been set next to an unopened rape kit. The possibility that Rachel had been sexually assaulted made Cameryn sick to her stomach, so to distract herself she once again examined the forensic tools.

Solid, inanimate objects—those were what she wanted her mind to focus on. Her fingertips skimmed the handles of the utensils, cold to the touch and glittering in the green light. What was she doing here? Her father thought she was a forensic genius because she found a baggie in a telephone book, believed she had nerves of steel because the second time around she didn’t puke at the sight of a decaying body. But she knew the truth. She was a high-school student who didn’t know anything except what she’d found in books. A spasm of anxiety shot through her, and her throat went dry. And yet, her father believed in her. He needed her. And so did Rachel.

Ben was still busy with his vials, so she went over to the body bag. Gently, she put her hand onto Rachel’s vinylencased shoulder and bent to where she imagined Rachel’s ear to be. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.” Only the overhead lights hummed in reply.

And suddenly, Cameryn did know why she was here. She who didn’t believe in psychics communing with the dead felt something—whether it was Rachel’s spirit or her own determination, she couldn’t tell, but in that instant Cameryn saw her purpose. If she could help find the killer, she would do it. She would do whatever she had to. And even though she didn’t believe Rachel’s soul was still bound in her body, Cameryn whispered that promise to Rachel, over and over again, until she felt Ben’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her up.

“Sorry to bother you, but the dragon master’s watching you. He won’t like you touching the corpse unless he’s in here.”

“Where…?”

“Observation window,” Ben told her. “To your left.”

She hadn’t noticed the window before. It was small, only three by four feet, with a curtain that had been pushed aside. A man’s face glowered at her through the glass. He was stocky, with heavy brows and a thick, bull-like neck; the corners of his mouth were pulled into a deep frown. What scared her were his eyes—he stared at her, unflinching, as if daring her to breathe, as if he hated her without even knowing her. They burned at her for a moment before the curtain snapped shut.

“Oh, man,” Ben groaned. “Here he comes. Hold on—this could get ugly.”

“WHERE ARE JACOBS AND CROWLEY?
Where’s Mahoney? And what is this child doing in my autopsy suite?” Moore barked as he stepped inside the room.

“Mahoney’s grabbing a cup of coffee and the other two are on their way,” Ben answered. “This here is Cammie. She’s Pat’s kid.”

Moore narrowed his eyes, seeming to stare through Cameryn instead of looking at her. “Is that so? How old are you—fifteen?”

“Almost eighteen.” Cameryn had hoped to sound strong, but her voice seemed to hush on the last syllable.

Dr. Moore gave a snort and jerked his lapels until they snapped. He turned his steely gaze back to Ben. “And you let her in here? A seventeen-year-old?”

Ben nodded but said nothing.

“Why?” Moore tapped a finger against his skull. “What are you, Ben,
thick
? This is a sensitive case—a homicide. I can’t afford some neophyte tainting the evidence!” He pointed at Cameryn, then hooked his thumb with a jerk. “You—out! Go play with your Barbies!”

“Hold on, Doctor.”

Relief flooded through Cameryn as her father stepped into the room. In an instant he was beside her, and she felt his hand rest on her shoulder. Its pressure told her not to worry, that he would handle this, and Cameryn, who usually preferred to fight her own fights, was only too happy to let him.

“This is my new assistant,” her father said evenly, although she knew him well enough to hear an edge. “She wants to be a forensic pathologist, so I hired her.”

“No way, Mahoney,” Moore said, shaking his head. “This is my game and we play by my rules. The kid goes.”

Dr. Moore reminded Cameryn of a bulldog: His heavy jaw protruded, and the thick fold of his jowls moved on their own when he talked. His head seemed to rest right on his chest, as though it had been absorbed by his generous torso. A white lab coat, oversized to clear his belly, hung past his knees, and she could see the faded scrubs beneath. “Out!” he said again.

Her father’s fingers tightened so much Cameryn winced. “Dad,” she whispered, “he doesn’t want me here.”

“Do you want to stay?”

She nodded firmly.

“Then you’ll stay.”

Cameryn wasn’t so sure. Moore squinted at her through pinprick eyes, weighing her value, judging her. It seemed as though she were back in grade school, waiting for Brittany Naylor to proclaim who was on her team and who was not. Cameryn was always picked second to last and she could remember the feelings: relieved that Claudia Wilcox was considered even less cool than she was, but horrified at being so close to out. Now Moore was doing it to her again. She’d been studied and found lacking. She wanted to pull away from her father, but his grip was iron.

“You’d better check your rule book, Dr. Moore,” her father said coolly. “You’ll find you work for
me
, which means I have the power to remove you from this autopsy. You bounce Cameryn, I’ll call in Dr. Canfield from Montrose. We’ll take her up there and he can do the honors. Your choice.”

“My
choice
?” Moore sputtered. “May I remind you that I have the medical degree.”

“And may I remind you the body belongs to me. Cameryn stays or we all go.”

“That’s preposterous!” Moore cried.

Her father was unfazed. “That’s the way it is.”

Moore turned abruptly and opened a cabinet door so hard it banged against the wall. He muttered something inaudible as Cameryn watched the bulge that was the back of his neck redden. She looked up at her father, and his eyes told her to wait; he knew what he was doing. Cameryn wasn’t so sure.

For a moment they stood, watching his back, until Ben, as if to break the stalemate, stepped forward.
Leave him to me,
he seemed to say, after which he gave her a discreet wink. Clearing his throat, he said, “Uh, Dr. Moore? I hear a psychic dude’s coming all the way up from Santa Fe, New Mexico, because he saw a murdered girl’s spirit in his hotel room. He says it’s
this
murdered girl.”

“Stupid people believe stupid things,” Moore said. He balled up his lab coat and thrust it in the cabinet and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. Whirling a glove between his hands made the glove inflate like a balloon; when he squeezed it, the fingers popped out. “I’m preparing to do this autopsy right now, Ben,
without
the assistance of an underage child. Mr. Mahoney seems to think otherwise. I expect you to back me up here.”

Ben said, “The psychic claims this is another one of those Christopher killings.”

Moore yanked the gloves onto his hands. He stepped into paper pants and knotted the drawstring under his belly. “Has a Christopher medal been found on this girl’s body, Mahoney?”

Patrick shook his head and said, “No, but of course we haven’t—”

“I didn’t think so,” Moore cut him off. “The fact that some psychic wants to capitalize on this tragedy is not my concern. How did the media find out about this case, anyway? I thought as coroner that you’d keep the matter quiet.”

“I’m guessing it was the women who found the body. They talked about the show when we interviewed them, so they could have called the
Shadow of Death
people. However it happened doesn’t matter now—the story’s out.”

Cameryn felt her father’s tension as Moore turned back to the cabinet and pulled out a blue paper tunic with elastic at the end of the three-quarter-long sleeves. He slouched into it. He removed a white plastic apron, which he jerked over his head, then tied the strings behind him with a knot. The doctor was acting as though her father’s threat to take the body meant nothing, but if Moore believed that, he didn’t know Patrick Mahoney. Her father would wheel Rachel right out from beneath Moore’s scalpel. She bit at her nail and watched the two of them, each apparently as stubborn as the other. How was this going to end?

Ben continued to speak to the doctor’s back. “The psychic—I think his name is Diamond or Jewel or something—he’s already been on CNN.”

Yanking on a pair of booties, Moore puffed out the words, “And I should care because…?”

“Because the guy says he’s coming
here
, which means he’ll be bringing all kinds of publicity with him. This case is going to go big.”

This was news. Dr. Jewel was coming to Silverton. Cameryn glanced at her father to see if it registered with him, but he gave her the slightest shake of the head.

Now Ben was all smiles. “I
know
you don’t want this misunderstanding between you and Pat to be part of the story. And I
know
you don’t want Mr. Mahoney and his girl taking the decedent all the way up to Canfield in Montrose. People need to see the work we do down here, in Durango. I bet the trial will be on Court TV and everything.”

Moore seemed to be thinking about this. “You really believe this case will go nationwide?” he asked.

Ben’s head bobbed. “Absolutely. Cammie—she’s all right. Let’s get to work instead of standing around here arguing. We got us a killer to catch.”

Carefully, Moore placed a blue paper cap on his head, tucking the gray strands of his hair underneath. “Well, you do have a point, Ben,” said Moore. “Catching the killer is the most important thing. Perhaps I lost focus of that for a moment.” He turned, and with a crisp nod, gave his tacit consent. “Well, Cameryn, I suppose if your father wants to expose you to the indignities of death, it’s not my place to stop him.”

“No,” Cameryn answered. “I mean, yes, it’s not.” She blushed at how stupid she sounded, but Moore didn’t seem to notice.

“Hope you’ve got the stomach for this. I’m not going to change the way I run my ship for you. Either you can handle it or you walk. Are we all agreed?”

“Agreed,” her father answered. “Cameryn, well, she sees things. I think she has a gift.”

“We’ll see,” Moore snapped. His next orders flew at her like bullets from a gun. “Get in your scrubs—you’ll find them in that first cabinet next to the sink. You need booties, gloves, plastic apron, and, depending on how tough you think you are, a mask for the smell. She hasn’t decomped yet, but bowel content is always dicey. I don’t want you throwing up on the decedent.”

“I appreciate your cooperation, Dr. Moore,” her father began, but Moore waved him off.

“Don’t misinterpret me, Mahoney. As coroner you’ve got the right to assign this case to any pathologist you want. True enough. But once the autopsy starts it’s my case and I’ll see it through. If your kid screws up, she’s gone.”

“She won’t screw up.”

Cameryn wasn’t so sure. With trembling hands she opened the stainless steel door. Inside she found the green scrubs neatly folded, clean, but obviously well used. Dr. Moore said, “You’ll notice our scrubs are secondhand, courtesy of the surgeons on high. You want to be a forensic pathologist, Ms. Mahoney? Then here’s your first lesson—get used to hand-me-downs. Everything gets sent to the basement, just like the dead.”

Cameryn slipped the green booties over her shoes, pulled on her paper gown, tied her apron, then put on the latex gloves. Silently, Ben handed her a surgical hat that looked more like a paper shower cap, and she quickly shoved her hair into it as her father donned his apron. Even under his surgical mask she could tell he was smiling at her, happy that his strategy worked and Moore had let her stay. Ben winked at her again; this time Cameryn winked back.

“Ben, I need music. Today I think I will listen to something fitting for the occasion. I want you to put in”—Dr. Moore’s eyes searched the ceiling—“
La Bohème.
”

Cameryn stood directly in front of the drawer Ben needed, so she scooted over to let him by.

“That man always has to play the music when he works,” Ben muttered, “but I say put on something to lift the spirit instead of drag you down.”

“What was that, Ben?” Dr. Moore asked.

“Nothing, I’m just looking for Puccini.” Ben shuffled though a stack of CDs before pulling one out and popping the disc into a boom box set against the wall. His voice drifted back to its former conspirator tone. “I hate this vibrato-y stuff. If it were me, I’d put on a little
Moulin Rouge
.”

He pushed a button, and the strains of Italian whirled through the air like florid smoke.

“‘This Sea of Red passage makes me shiver,’” Moore said over the body bag. “That’s Marcello singing. ‘I feel as if it were flowing right over me, droplet by droplet.’” He grabbed the tag and with an extravagant motion unzipped it. “How apropos.”

At that moment the door swung opened and Sheriff Jacobs and Deputy Crowley stepped in, their feet still clad in street shoes, which squeaked on the tile. “About time you two showed up,” Moore said.

“Sorry, Doc, I was talking to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.” Sheriff Jacobs wore the same placid expression he had whenever he worked. Like his deputy, Jacobs wore blue jeans and a regulation shirt and thick-soled shoes covered with a haze of dust. “Our little town’s not used to murder,” he went on, “so I’ll take all the help I can get.”

Sheriff Jacobs touched his fingers to the rim of his cap, which was emblazoned with a golden stitched-on sheriff’s star. “Afternoon, Cameryn, Pat. Been a long time since we’ve been at a homicide autopsy,” he said to her father. “I’m feeling rusty. How about you?”

“A bit,” her father agreed.

“All the way down the mountain my deputy here told me what’s what. Crowley’s been to quite a few of these things.”

Justin ducked his head. Then looking up, he smiled at her, and Cameryn looked away, making it a point to smooth her features so they would be as indecipherable as the Italian that welled overhead.

Resetting his attention to include the rest of the people in the room, Justin asked, “Did we miss anything?”

“You missed my getting strong-armed into letting Cameryn in here,” Dr. Moore grumbled. “Other than that, we’re just beginning. You two going to suit up?”

“Just the paper gowns today,” Jacobs replied. “Me and my new deputy’ll take our pictures and sign the evidence bags.”

Moore trained his small eyes onto the deputy. “So you’re new, eh? It seems we have a lot of firsts today. Justin, is it? Do you know Cameryn?”

Justin nodded at Cameryn. “We’ve met.”

“Ms. Mahoney’s a newbie as well. You two novices should stick together.”

Justin tilted his head as if considering. “That’s Puccini playing, isn’t it? Rodolfo’s about to sing one of my favorite lines right…now.” Closing his eyes, he recited, “‘Love is like a fireplace which wastes too much.’ That’s good stuff.”

Moore seemed pleased. “Ah, you know opera. Do you speak Italian?”

“Not really. My mother is Italian, though, and she kind of drilled this stuff into me. I can understand it okay, but I’m not fluent or anything.”

So he knew Italian. She hadn’t seen that one coming. While Cameryn pretended to straighten the seam on her paper scrubs, she stole a glance at him. Justin was shrugging on a paper smock. Then he and Jacobs stepped away from Rachel while Ben, her father, and Moore crowded around the body bag.

It was time, yet nobody moved. Dr. Moore waved his hand through the air. “Go ahead, Mahoney,” he said, “the gang’s all here. By all means, get started.”

Her father cleared his throat. To the others in the room he looked confident, but Cameryn knew him well enough to tell he was nervous. “All right, Cammie, the first thing we do is move the deceased from the bag to the autopsy table. The second thing—and this is important—is we check the bag. There’s probably nothing in it, but we search anyway, just to be sure.”

“If the body was wrapped properly at the scene, then the bag should be clean,” Moore interjected.

“The point is, no matter how careful you try to be, mistakes happen. Always check.” Patrick aimed his comments directly at her, as if they were the only two people in the room. On the count of three, Ben, Cameryn, and her father pulled Rachel, still wrapped in the sheet, onto the perforated table, after which they examined the bag, which was empty. Cameryn felt her stomach turn as they unwrapped the sheet from Rachel’s body. The skin on her nose, cheeks, and chin was rose-colored, like mottled sunburn, while the skin around her hairline remained ghostly white. Her nose had flattened. Bits of leaves were stuck in her hair, fragile as butterfly wings; a small twig was entangled in one of her locks. They pulled the rest of the sheet from under her and she lay prone on the table. With her hands beneath her back, the body rocked awkwardly, but her feet remained on pointe.