“Yes, this is her,” he said.
“You’re sure?” the coroner said with a strong, commanding undertone.
“Yes, I’m certain of it.”
“Great, who is she?”
“You mean you don’t know?” Tyson asked.
“No, that’s why we brought you down here in the first place. What’s your relationship to the deceased?”
“None. She was a waitress, or at least pretended to be.”
“Pretended?”
“Yes. I’m fairly certain she was acting as a corporate spy.”
The coroner shrugged. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
“You don’t have any ID on her? Not facial recognition, DNA profile, fingerprints?”
“Ran them all. Nada. Do you at least have a name I can give her other than ‘Jane Doe’?”
“She said her name was Cassidy. But that was almost certainly an alias.”
The coroner smirked and scribbled on her pad. “Well, it’s her real name now. Any guess at a last name?” Tyson shook his head. “Okay, Cassidy Castalia it is. Mmm, that’s not bad. Almost sounds like a real name.”
“Why Castalia?”
“I give all my unclaimed stiffs the surname Castalia. Figure if they can’t find their way back to their families, they may as well join a new one.”
“How sentimental of you.”
“Don’t push it.”
“How many?” Tyson asked.
“Hmm?”
“How many people in this postmortem family of yours?”
“Seventeen.” The coroner retrieved the vape pen from her pocket and took a drag. Tyson didn’t object.
“Sorry. I’m sure the family reunions are … lively.”
“Har har.”
“What’s your name?” Tyson said. “Seriously?”
“You really think we want to know each other?”
Tyson touched his ear. “No, I suppose not. Is there anything you can tell me about her? Anything at all? It’s important.”
“Already done the standard autopsy. Deeper dive costs money.” She rubbed her thumb and forefingers together.
“Isn’t that part of your budget?”
“Was, until someone suffering from altitude sickness way up there in the top of Immortal Tower cut ‘unnecessary procedures’ from the budget. Been having to charge the families for, oh, four years now for anything beyond a cursory exam. Or the life insurance companies when they want to fight a payout.”
“So, you recognize me after all,” Tyson said. It wasn’t a question. The coroner just smirked. “Then you know money won’t be a problem.”
She pointed at the incomplete cadaver on the cool, stainless-steel table. “For her, no. But it’ll be a problem for the next unlucky soul that gets wheeled in here tonight, tomorrow morning, whenever.”
Tyson’s brow furrowed. “Are you holding me hostage, madam?”
She folded her arms. “Can you blame me?”
“A little, yes.” Tyson frowned. “Seems like everyone’s shaking me down lately. Show me what you’re worth, then we’ll talk. That’s my offer.”
The coroner took a bonus drag from her pen, but blew the smoke down and to the side. A courtesy? She moved with surprising speed to a cabinet at the far corner of the room, presumably by her desk, to retrieve a pair of implements that wouldn’t look at all out of place at an inquisitor’s table.
“You don’t want to watch this part,” she said. “I’m not questioning your manliness, or whatever. It’s just really not going to be pleasant.”
Tyson waved a hand over the gore on the table. “And this was?”
“Suit yourself, suit. Snap on a pair of gloves and give me a hand if you’re just going to stand around.”
Tyson pulled a pair of blue latex gloves from a box on the counter and slipped into them. The coroner hefted a pair of pliers.
“What are those for?” Tyson asked with a rapidly souring stomach.
“Oh, you’ll see. Hold her mouth open.”
Tyson obeyed before really thinking through the order. He pulled down on Cassidy’s lower jaw, gently at first, but rigor mortis had set in and fought back against the attempt. With some strain, he managed to leverage the mouth open a few centimeters.
“That’s good. Just hold it there while I…” The coroner stuck the pliers into Cassidy’s mouth and gripped one of her incisors. Then, she put a foot on the table and cranked back, aggressively wrenching at the tooth trying to loosen it in its socket.
With a final wet snapping sound, the root of the tooth gave way, sending the coroner tumbling back almost a meter before catching herself. Between the clammy feeling of dead flesh under his fingers and the sound of the extraction ringing in his ears, Tyson’s stomach finally rolled over. He just made it to the wastebasket before throwing up everything he’d eaten and drank in the last several hours.
“Well, that’s a pity,” he said between spitting bile from his mouth.
“What is?” the coroner asked.
“Wasting perfectly good sake like that.”
“Don’t think of it as a waste. Think of it as enjoying it twice. Thanks for hitting the basket.”
“You’re welcome.” Tyson picked up a paper towel to wipe the spittle from his mouth. “Are you going to tell me why you yanked out her tooth?”
“No, I’m going to show you.” She walked back to her desk and cleaned the tooth of coagulated blood and hanging tissue, then dropped it into a clear cylinder with a robust-looking black top that looked for all the world like a coffeemaker. She pressed power and the room was suddenly filled with a small, but discernable high-pitched whine right at the edge of Tyson’s hearing. A second later, the tooth simply vanished into a puff of fine powder.
“Acoustic pulverizer. Neat little gimmick, huh?”
“We’re a little beyond a stone and pestle, I see.”
“Quite.” She took up the glass cylinder with its tooth dust and fed it
