• • •
The secret door opened silently into a dark corridor. The left hand closed the door quietly but firmly, while the right hand carried the plastic bag.
The nose drew in the smell of familiar chemicals as the feet moved silently across the floor, down the dark passageway toward another door, this one with pale green light escaping from beneath it, illuminating the hallway just enough for the eyes to see.
The fingers of the hand not carrying the bag closed on a single key that jangled softly on a ring and placed it into the dead bolt on the door.
The bolt turned and the door opened.
The nose crinkled as the smell of chemicals grew stronger.
The smell was almost sickly sweet.
It smelled like success. It smelled like money.
It smelled like the future, a beautiful future.
The smell came from the tank, which was filled with a special mix of chemicals.
The chemicals formed a viscous gel that was lit gently from above by fluorescent light in the tank’s lid, which emanated a cold green glow that seemed to ooze from the tank as if the light itself were a living thing.
The fingers of the right hand released their grip on the plastic bag, letting it rest on a stainless steel counter as the fingers of the left hand found the wall switch and turned on the overhead light.
One hand gloved the other; the other then gloved the first. Then both hands, protected now by surgical rubber, lifted the lid from the tank.
From a stainless steel tray, the eyes selected a hemostat, which the right hand picked up and plunged into the greenish gel. The fingers manipulated the hemostat deftly, its jaws seizing a bit of flesh and lifting it out of the tank.
The eyes appraised the decomposition rate of the severed breast.
It was maintaining its integrity exactly as planned.
The fingers lowered the hemostat — and the breast — back into the tank, turning it gently, making certain no air bubbles remained to begin the degenerative processes. Then the procedure was repeated with the other breast, the vagina, and two small scraps of skin bearing short hair.
“You don’t look like much right now,” the voice whispered, speaking to the scrap of skin hanging from the hemostat. “You don’t look like an eyebrow, but you will. Soon, you will look exactly as you always did. Except that on the new face, you will be even more beautiful than you were before.”
Everything in the tank was in excellent condition.
The fingers of both hands worked at the plastic bag for a moment, opening it. Buried deep in ice crushed as fine as snow were two ears, complete with a narrow band of selvage.
“Can you hear?” the voice whispered into the first ear. “You will again — I promise. You’ll stay alive, and hear again, and serve a purpose. A great purpose.”
The gloved fingers of one hand lowered the ear into the green gel, then, with the tip of the forefinger of the other hand, it made certain that every crevice in the ear’s contours were perfectly filled. Only when the ear had been completely coated did the fingers carefully push it deeply into the tank to keep company with the other body parts.
Parts that were waiting.
Waiting.
The second ear followed, and the same careful check was made by both the fingers and the eyes to make certain no air pockets remained.
Satisfied, the plastic bag was emptied of its ice, the gloves were stripped first from one of the hands, then from the other, and sealed into the plastic bag, and the hands returned the tank lid to its place.
The eyes looked one last time at the tank thermometer, then the finger of the right hand switched the overhead lights off, the feet moved through the door, the hands closed the door, and the fingers carefully turned the dead bolt.
The feet echoed softly as they moved down the long hallway, and all that remained inside the laboratory was the tank.
The green glowing tank.
“GOOD MORNING, SUNSHINE,” MICHAEL SHAW SAID AS HIS TOUSLED daughter wandered into the kitchen, still in her bathrobe, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Morning,” she said. “What smells so good?”
“Scott’s famous French toast,” Michael replied, setting three glasses of orange juice on the table.
“Made to fatten up even the most beautiful maid of honor,” Scott said as he expertly flipped a thick slice of egg-soaked cinnamon bread on the skillet. “So what’s up for today? It’s way too nice to sit around in here.”
“Beach,” Alison said, but before Michael could agree, the doorbell rang.
Scott shot Michael a look. “Sunday morning,” he observed archly. “It’s got to be the lovely Tina Wong again.” He rolled his eyes at Alison. “I keep telling him that as a gay man he has got to understand that Sunday brunch is sacrosanct, but he just doesn’t get it. He keeps letting the lovely Miss Wong barge in anytime she feels like it, which mostly seems to be right about now.”
Michael ignored the jibe, particularly since he was certain Scott was right, given what she’d had to say in her report on that morning’s news, during which she was careful to wear the same dress she’d had on the night before, just to prove she’d been up all night. Girding himself for what he knew was about to come, he walked through the living room and opened the front door, and there she stood, indeed wearing exactly what he’d seen on TV three hours ago. Without waiting for an invitation, Tina walked into the house and past him to the dining room, where she pushed aside the brunch plates to make room for her briefcase. “You’ve got to see this.”
“Good morning, Tina,” Scott said, leaning against the kitchen door frame and eyeing her dress. “Must have been some party last night.”
“I’ve been at the station all night,” she said, ignoring his sarcasm. “Do I smell coffee?”
Scott rolled his eyes at Alison, who covered her grin. “How do you take it?” he asked. “With arsenic, or hemlock?”
Again the sarcasm seemed completely lost on her. “Black with one sugar. Real sugar.” She snapped open her briefcase, took out two files, and set them on the table in front of Michael, who was now seated in one of the chairs. “Did you see the morning news?”
He nodded, but knew he was about to hear it all again. Sure enough, Tina launched into the details.
“The dead girl’s name is Kimberly Elmont, and she was butchered exactly the same way Caroline Fisher was last year in Encino. And I use the word ‘butchered’ advisedly. Do you remember what happened in that coffee shop bathroom?”
“How could I forget?”
“Dead girls at breakfast?” Scott asked, setting a cup of coffee in front of Tina. “Delightful.”
Tina, as always, ignored him. “Look at these, Michael,” she said, opening the first folder and spreading a dozen eight-by-ten photos of Caroline Fisher’s bloody corpse across the table.
“Tina!” Michael barked, shooting her a warning look and tipping his head toward Alison, whose eyes were riveted on the photos, the sugar for Tina’s coffee forgotten in her hands.
“Now look at these.” Tina opened the other file and laid out the grainy photos she’d taken last night of
