pulmonary artery — where the blood leaves the heart — and check it out.”
“For what?”
“Thromboembolus. Ever hear of it?”
“No.”
“It’s a blood clot that’s broken off somewhere else in the body. It travels into the heart, gets lodged there — usually by the pulmonary artery, and causes sudden death.” He glanced up. “I know you’ve got some theory of how this happened, but I’d like to be able to rule out any possibles.”
“I’d rather it was something like that what you just described,” said Curran.
Kwon grimaced and prodded for another few seconds. “So much for that.”
“Nothing?”
“Nada. We’ll cut the abdominal walls next so we can get to the organs inside.” Kwon made some more cuts with the scalpel and Curran saw the sides of the stomach fall apart.
Kwon leaned back. “Okay, pal. Here’s where we play hand-off. I’ll remove the organs and you place them down there in those trays for dissection later on, okay?”
Curran winced. “Great.”
“It’s in one big block. Be cool.” He pointed at the counter. “Hand me that string would you?”
“What’s this for?”
Kwon felt around the neck. “Cut me off two lengths about six inches long. I’ve got to cut the subclavian and carotid arteries. I’ll tie ‘em off and that way the mortician will see the string and know where to inject the embalming fluids.”
“Nice of you to make it convenient for them.”
Kwon leaned back. “Okay. Now I’ll make some cuts, give you the organ block and then we’ll move on to the brain.”
Curran watched Kwon make a few quick slashes with his scalpel. He heard the squishy and springy sounds of tendons and ligaments snapping after being cut. He saw the precision with which Kwon operated.
And still he didn’t feel comfortable.
Kwon looked at him. “You ready?”
“Yeah.”
Kwon scooped out the organ block, which ran from just under the neck to down into the intestines and slid the gooey mass into Curran’s cradled arms.
Curran saw his arms instantly slick over with bright red. His fingers closed around the organs and he hurriedly dumped the block into the stainless steel tray over the corpse’s feet.
Kwon yanked the body block out and positioned it under the corpse’s head. To Curran, it looked like the corpse was reaching up for a kiss. Kwon’s scalpel bit into the corpse’s head behind his right ear. Kwon cut all the way up and over the top of the head, down to behind the other ear. He took the scalpel out and smiled at Curran.
“Ever scalped someone before?”
“Excuse me?”
“There are now two sections of the head. The front flap and the rear flap. We need them both pulled back to expose the skull. Which end do you want?”
Curran wanted a cigarette. Badly. “Front, I guess.”
“Don’t be afraid to use a little strength. That can be tough sometimes.” He motioned for Curran to position his hands. “Okay, give it a good yank.”
Curran felt his fingertips slide under the lip of skin on either side. He pulled and it suddenly came loose in his hands. The skin came down just over the forehead. It looked like the corpse had a mask halfway off his face.
Kwon repeated the procedure for the rear flap. Curran saw the skull exposed and tried to keep from remembering what the image looked like.
“Hand me that Stryker saw, would you?”
Curran picked it up and handed it to Kwon. Another high-pitch whine filled the air. Kwon bent low and began cutting around the equator of the skull. Curran stood back.
Kwon finished cutting and looked up. “You okay, Steve?”
Curran opened his eyes. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Are we almost done?”
“I’m ready to remove the calvarium — what we call the top of the skull. Don’t get freaked out by the sound.”
“Is it bad?”
Kwon grinned and grasped the top of the skull. Curran heard a wet sucking sound and then the top came off in Kwon’s hands.
“Jesus H. Christ.”
Curran exhaled.
Kwon leaned back against the counter, skullcap still in his hand. He pointed at the exposed brain. “Is
Curran nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“You’ve seen this crap before?”
“Yeah.”
“That brain is green, Steve.”
Curran sighed. “Yeah. It is.”
“That’s not normal. Not one goddamn bit.”
Curran shut his eyes, but the images already filled his mind. After all this time. After the peace. The quiet.
Shattered.
God help me, thought Curran. God help us all.
Chapter Two
Curran drove the long way back to his three-bedroom Colonial in West Roxbury after the autopsy. They’d finished around two-thirty. Curran was due at work by nine, which meant he’d have about six hours worth of sleep.
He figured he needed about a million times that amount to help make him forget the realization that the horror he thought he’d left behind all those years ago — the horror that had infected his life — seemed to have once again returned to his world.
Cold drizzle still coated Boston’s streets and gave them a black tarry look. Curran could almost imagine his tires getting stuck in the wet ooze, like some kind of evil force was reaching up for his car.
And him.
His right hand withdrew the crumpled pack of Marlboros and flipped it until one of the butts inside tumbled onto the seat next to him. He jabbed the cigarette lighter in his car and waited for it to pop moments later.
I ought to quit these damned things, he thought. Gotta be a cheaper method of suicide out there. The lighter popped and he almost grinned.
Later.
He touched the hot metal coil to the end of the tobacco stick and inhaled, nursing the cinder. It caught and he took a lungful of smoky death into his body.
He savored the nicotine.
His pulse steadied.
Could it be something else that had killed the guy tonight? Some other cause for the death that he hadn’t
