“Well, okay,” she reluctantly agreed. “Be careful. I love you.”
“I love you too. Stay warm. Bye.”
“Bye-bye.”
I left my hand resting on the handset after lowering it back into its cradle. The number twenty-two eighteen did in fact mean something. It was a warning. An ethereal signal meant to get my attention, and when it hadn’t worked, the harsher measure of physical pain had been employed through the wounding of my arm. Even with that, however, the note had returned. Placed back into prominence by one unseen in the physical world.
The number’s significance, at least on the surface, was something I had known all along but had no reason to remember until now. I made a conscious decision to keep this entire incident to myself for the time being-at least until I could figure out just who was telling me this and why.
“I should have seen it,” I finally muttered aloud to no one but myself. “Exodus twenty-two eighteen. Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live. ”
CHAPTER 6
“Here.” Doctor Sanders handed me a small glass jar and brushed at her upper lip with her index finger. “Put some of this under your nose. It will help a little with the smell.”
I took the offered container of Tiger Balm and did as she instructed. The sickening reek of scorched flesh had been intense at the crime scene, and that had been outdoors. Here in the enclosed autopsy suite, the odor was nearly intolerable.
The infinitely more pleasant menthol-clove perfume of the waxy salve competed with the airborne foulness as I dabbed it around my nostrils. While there was no one true victor in the battle, as long as I kept my breaths shallow, the atmosphere in the room became at least bearable. I then passed the container quickly on to Ben who already had his hand extended.
Doctor Sanders had just finished tucking her shoulder-length, salt and pepper hair beneath the elastic band of her cap and was now pulling on a second layer of latex gloves.
“I don’t know how you did it, Storm, but in all my years with this office, I’ve never seen a body from an open investigation transferred across jurisdictional boundaries,” she said. “This is definitely a first.”
“Guess it’s just my charming personality,” Ben replied.
“Sure it is,” she grumbled, her voice sarcastic. “Or maybe you just can’t stand to see me have any time off.”
“What can I say, Doc? I like working with the best of the best.”
“So you’ve told me numerous times before, Detective.” She sighed. “Anyway, surprisingly enough, your corpse wasn’t as frozen as one might have thought, so I decided that if I was going to be stuck here all night, I might as well get some work done.” Her back was still to us as she spoke from across the room. “I wasn’t really expecting to have an audience, however.”
The double gloving completed with a loud snap, she returned to the stainless steel table centered in the room and slipped a wide pair of clear safety shields over her prescription frames. “Am I correct in assuming this is the first time you’ve ever witnessed an autopsy, Mister Gant?”
“Yes, you are,” I responded.
“Well, I can’t say that this is the one I would have picked were I in the same position,” she expressed. “Storm, why don’t you make yourself useful for something other than creating more work for me and start the CD player.”
“Yeah, no prob, Doc.” Ben took the mock insult in stride and did as she asked before dragging a tall stool out from the tiled wall and perching his large frame upon it.
Blending into the background from unseen speakers, music began to play on low volume. It took only a moment for me to recognize the beginning notes of Black Cow.
“Steely Dan?” I mused aloud.
“Absolutely,” she replied, giving a tray of instruments a quick once over. “I saw the reunion tour out at the amphitheatre a few years back. There are other CD’s over there if you don’t like the selection.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m just surprised is all. I figured you more for the Bach or Brahms type.”
“Catch me in the morning, although it’s more likely to be Tchaikovsky or Copland.” She paused for a moment then adjusted the overhead light more to her liking. Satisfied, she carefully drew back the crisp white sheet.
Nothing in the way of obvious identifying characteristics appeared to have survived the conflagration. In fact, little more than charred bone remained below the waist of the blackened corpse. The only blatant attribute of the partially intact torso seemed to indicate the female gender-something I had already deemed as accurate by less corporeal methods. Her hair had been completely singed away, as well as most of her scalp. As it had been at the scene, her jaw was locked open in a tortured wail; so intensely silent, it overpowered all sound in the autopsy suite.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I could hear her screaming.
“Everyone left before the snow storm really got going,” Doctor Sanders explained as she began, keeping her eyes fixed on the remains and penning notes on an acrylic clipboard. “Everyone except Cecelia that is. Sometimes I think she’s too dedicated for her own good, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder what I’d do without her. Anyway, this will go a little slower than usual since I don’t have a P.A. here to help.”
After setting the paperwork aside, she adjusted a gooseneck microphone then engaged a recorder, “Case number oh-two-oh-three-oh-oh-dash-seven. Doe, Jane. Remains appear to be that of a Caucasian female, mid to late twenties. The body was subjected to intense heat and flames, effectively incinerating the soft tissues on the lower extremities and just below the pelvic region. Withering of the phalanges and metacarpus is evident.” Shooting a brief glance in Ben’s direction and making a claw-like gesture with her hand, she added, “The fact that her fingers curled into her palms protected the tips. I was able to obtain a decent set of fingerprints for both right and left.”
“What about dental records?” he asked. “I can run a check against missing persons… ’Course she might not have been reported yet.”
“I finished shooting those films just before you arrived. We’ll get them processed as soon as possible.”
I was keeping my distance from the autopsy table-visibly at least. My breathing was thready and thin. I stood transfixed by the process as each passing moment drew me further inward; every second that ticked by was bringing me that much closer to the horror the young woman had faced. The events of the day were exacting their toll. I was tired, both mentally and physically.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was becoming convinced I could hear her screaming.
“There was an odd residue in her mouth.” The M.E. had taken a scalpel from the tray, working as she spoke. “I took a sample for the lab. I’m not quite sure what it is but it appeared to be synthetic. Like plastic.”
A bright flash of the young woman’s torture stabbed into my grey matter like a blunt arrow. Ravenous tendrils of yellow-orange flame raked across her flesh, hungrily rending it from her bones. An anguished scream fought to tear free from her throat, only to be detained by the soggy mass that filled her mouth; denied exit by the tightly stretched fabric that had once been an article of her clothing. A pitiful nasal whine was all she could manage as tears rolled down her cheeks and vaporized steamily in the intensifying heat.
I blinked away the talon of agony that raked through my brain and cleared my throat. I could still feel the thick gag in my own mouth.
“It IS plastic,” I volunteered in a quiet, scratchy voice. “Nylon. He gagged her with her own pantyhose so she couldn’t scream. They probably melted in the heat.”
The sound of Ben scribbling in his notebook filled the silence that followed my comment.
Doctor Sanders held the scalpel in mid-air above the young woman’s chest and stared back at me, unblinking. “I’ll mention that to the lab,” she finally said.
This wasn’t the first time she had experienced one of my ethereal revelations, and she definitely wasn’t the skeptic she had once been. On the other hand, she certainly wasn’t as used to them as Ben, and I understood that at times the intimacy of my visions could be somewhat disturbing.
Turning back to the job at hand, almost painfully oblivious to our presence, she proceeded to make a Y-
