“You think it’s him? Tom Harwell?” Rogowski said.
“Don’t see who else it would be,” O’Bannon said.
The fire chief entered the room. He was a barrel-shaped guy with a thick mustache. “Poor bastard. It’s Harwell, isn’t it?”
“It seems that way,” O’Bannon said.
“Suicide?” the chief said.
“We’ll have to dig a little, chief,” Rogowski said.
“Hell of a way to go,” the chief said. As he left, his rubber boots smooched on the soaked floor.
“Look around then we’ll bag him up,” O’Bannon said.
“Think anyone killed him?”
“Doubtful. Burning someone alive isn’t likely and I’m thinking if they wanted to cover tracks, they would’ve burned the whole place down. I just want to close this up. This town’s had enough death for a while.”
“Sad way to end,” Rogowski said.
“Ain’t it?” O’Bannon said.
Later that night, after the coroner’s van had hauled Thomas Harwell’s charred corpse away, O’Bannon was relaxing with a Budweiser and a pizza from Leonardi’s. The Reds and the Mets were playing and it was tied going into the seventh.
He was on his third slice of pizza when the phone rang. “Goddammit.”
He set his plate and beer on the television tray. Went and answered the call. “This better be good.”
“Frank,” Rogowski said. “Can you meet me at the county morgue?”
“That’s not the best place for a first date,” O’Bannon said.
“Quit fucking around. This is weird shit. Serious.”
“Let me guess, there’s a dead guy with a fourteen-inch dick and everyone’s going to take a peek.”
“Just meet me there, okay? The goddamned coroner himself called me. Sounded like he was having a stroke.”
“Fine,” O’Bannon said. “Give me a half hour. This better be good.”
The coroner was waiting for them outside the county morgue. He was a pale, thin man with a scraggly beard. Longish hair, enough to cover the ears. He wore a brown suit with an orange paisley tie. O’Bannon couldn’t place exactly how old he was. Could’ve been forty. Or sixty.
They approached him.
“Mader, right?” he whispered to Rogowski.
“Yeah. Brian Mader.”
“Thank God you two are here,” Mader said.
O’Bannon noticed the morgue was lit up. “Doing some late night cutting, doc?”
“I was working late, yes.”
Rogowski said, “What’s so important?”
“Yeah, I gave up pizza and the Mets for this,” O’Bannon said.
“Easier if I show you. Although I don’t want to go back in there.”
“Relax doc, we’re armed. And they’re all dead,” O’Bannon said.
The doctor gave a thin smile and opened the door.
The smell of antiseptic and cigarette smoke lingered in the hallway. O’Bannon knew the smoking lounge wasn’t far off the lobby. Dr. Mader led them down a corridor and they turned right, passing through a chilled room with bagged bodies waiting their turn. He took them into the autopsy room, where O’Bannon noticed a gurney with an unzipped body bag on it.
“Detective O’Bannon, please look at the tag on that body bag,” Mader said.
O’Bannon went to the bag, held the tag up. It read: Thomas Harwell. There was a long series of numbers written in ink after his name. The stink of burnt flesh and hair drifted from the bag. “So where is he? In one of the drawers?”
“Yeah,” Rogowski said, “did you call us here to play find the stiff?”
Mader cleared his throat. “I’m glad you think this is funny. I went through that door, which leads to my office. I wasn’t in there ten minutes when I heard a thump. When I came out to investigate, Harwell’s body was gone.”
“Who the hell would take it?” O’Bannon said.
“No one. You didn’t let me finish. Do you see them?”
“See what?” Rogowski said.
“The footprints. See?” he pointed at the floor.
O’Bannon looked down and saw bare footprints leading out of the room, to the corridor where they’d come from. They looked sooty to him. How hadn’t he noticed them? “You’re not saying what I think you are?”
“I came out here to see Thomas Harwell leaving the room. I followed because I didn’t believe what I was seeing.”
Rogowski said, “Did you ask him nice to get back in the bag?”
“I stepped into the hallway. His back was to me. He turned around and his eyes were like the whites on a fried egg.”
“So he’s not dead? He looked pretty deep fried to me,” O’Bannon said.
Rogowski said, “So obviously someone took his body. Maybe a morgue employee screwing with you?”
“No one else is here, and our staff is very professional. We treat the dead as if they were family.”
O’Bannon imagined the dour doctor on a television commercial. He’d be wearing a ten-gallon cowboy hat and a bad suit: Come on down to Mader’s Morgue. We treat ya like family! First twenty stiffs through the door get a free cavity search!
Frank stifled laughter.
“Something funny, detective?”
“It’s nothing. Someone’s messing with you. Or you’re fucking with us,” O’Bannon said. “I’m sure he’ll turn up.”
“What about the footprints?”
“You’ve got somewhat of a point, but if you expect us to believe Tom Harwell got up and walked away, the cheese has slipped of your cracker.”
“I know what I saw,” Mader said. Some color rose in his cheeks.
“We’ll do you a favor and sweep the grounds before we go, but we ain’t gonna find him,” O’Bannon said.
“You think I’m lying.”
“Get some rest doc,” Rogowski said.
They followed the footprints down the hallway, where the corridor came to a T. They continued to the left, to a door with a panic bar. Above the door was an exit sign.
The footprints ended at the door.
“Okay, so that’s a little creepy,” Rogowski said.
O’Bannon drew his service revolver,
