“That’s twenty-four hours from now.” He scowled.
Bell had continued her external exam during our back-and-forth. Without looking up she said, “I did hear that quote in medical school, as I mentioned. Although I didn’t know it was from the Bible. Blood was considered all powerful by the early physicians. If you were sick or in an ill humor, it was because your blood was out of whack.”
“Then maybe a medical student?” I ventured. “Or a doctor?”
“Or a coroner.” Bell’s flat voice betrayed nothing.
Bandoni said, “Tell me he did this after our John Doe was dead.”
“I could, but I’d be lying.” She had moved on to John Doe’s feet. “It’s definitely antemortem. I’d estimate a day or two, based on the amount of scabbing. Around the same time the tattoo was done.”
“So maybe the killer did both?”
“The cuts look similar. He was likely either drugged or strapped down. There’s gray, sticky residue on his wrists and ankles.”
“Duct tape,” Miller said.
“That would be my guess.”
“Fuck me,” Bandoni murmured again, almost like a prayer.
“And there’s more,” Bell said. “There was violent anal penetration.”
I forced myself to stand steady. To give away nothing. But inside, microscopic fissures fanned out through my heart like ice fracturing.
Bandoni, though, actually looked happy. “We’ll get DNA maybe.”
“I’ll take swabs. But from the injuries, I’d guess he was penetrated with something inorganic. The internal examination will show exactly how violent the assault was.”
“It couldn’t have been self-inflicted?” Bandoni asked.
Her gaze was level. “No.”
“It’s not uncommon for gay-bashers to sodomize gay men,” I said. “Or trans individuals.”
Bandoni nodded. “Some warped idea of making the punishment fit the crime.”
“An eye for an eye.” I glanced at the words on our victim’s back. “Like in the Bible.”
“Boy who did this had some serious hate going on.”
We waited while Bell and the assistant tipped the body left and then right as they slid the bag away. The tech examined the corners of the bag for any additional evidence while Bell washed the body. They took more photos, then placed blocks under the neck and between the shoulder blades to raise the upper torso and head.
When Bell began a coronal mastoid incision across John Doe’s skull, my gaze returned to the ruin of his face. It was impossible to guess what he’d looked like before his killer found him. We had no photo yet with which to fill in the blanks. All I knew was that he was roughly my age. That he was pale and a little pudgy and had black hair.
Without even knowing what he’d looked like, my mind began to build an image of who he had been before his death. I imagined him standing tall, ducking through rain, laughing at something he’d heard. His dark hair lifted in a breeze, his hands folded around a cup of coffee or a dog’s leash or a book.
He was a man who should have had a long life in front of him. A life in which to struggle and make mistakes. And also a life with which to succeed in ways that mattered to him. To love someone and be with them. To have children, if that was his wish. To take his dog to the park or play video games or hike fourteeners. To have a beer with a friend, a glass of wine with his lover.
I dug my fingernails into my palms to stop myself.
“I’m just going to use the ladies’,” I said to Bandoni.
I did not need another ghost.
I shoved through the morgue’s two sets of doors almost at a run, blasting into daylight. I grabbed the railing as the world tipped, and for a horrible moment I thought I would vomit.
I closed my eyes. I was no stranger to violent death. No brand-new rookie showing up for her first autopsy. I knew all too well the myriad ways men hurt each other, the countless variations on pain. Death is a song with a million melodies that always ends on the same discordant note.
So why this?
I pushed my mask down around my neck and gulped in one breath, then another. There came a shimmer of air, and I closed my eyes, unwilling to see.
Breathe, Parnell, I told myself. Our ghosts are merely our guilt.
After a moment, I said, “It’s been a while.”
He said, “You haven’t needed me.”
I opened my eyes and looked at the dead man standing next to me at the railing.
The Sir. My murdered commanding officer. He’d been my mentor while he lived, my restless conscience ever since.
“What makes you think I need you now?” I asked.
“Love.”
“Love?”
He nodded his ghost-gray head. “That’s right.”
“Pardon the fuck out of me, Sir. But I don’t get it.”
“You’re living for something bigger now. And that’s good.”
I was thinking of Cohen. Of Clyde. But I didn’t think that was what the Sir meant. “Are you talking about our John Doe?”
“Love your fellow man. Sixties tripe.” He tapped his hand on the railing, a mimicry of Bandoni’s earlier action. “Except it’s true. More now than ever.”
“You’re telling me I should love a dead man. And that will fix . . . what, exactly?”
“Your heart,” the Sir said. “You’re doing good so far, Corporal. Don’t screw it up.”
“A dead man is telling me not to screw up,” I said. “That’s rich.”
But he was gone.
Behind me, the door opened and closed. I looked over my shoulder. Bandoni. Probably come to tell me to grow a pair.
Angrily, I patted my pockets for a cigarette. Then remembered I’d quit.
“Here,” Bandoni said, passing me his half-empty pack.
“Thanks.” I shook one out. Bandoni passed over his plastic lighter.
We both lit up and smoked in silence for a few minutes.
“You here to give me shit?” I asked.
“Nope.”
I glanced sidelong at him. He was watching the heavens again.
The nicotine hit my blood, and tension oozed out of my pores like sweat. “How many times have you quit?”
“God knows.” He tapped ash onto the concrete. “I don’t have a fucking clue.”
“I thought I’d forever quit.”
He laughed, then sobered. “If
