'Send for him. Get photos of everything, starting with the mirror, and have them send up some coffee. I need something pleasant to smell in here. What about that secretion search, Captain Brightpath? Do you have the wherewithal, or do we call for help?''
'On it,' he responded, going for a phone.
'So, what're you waiting for, McEvetty?' she scolded.
'Yes, ma'am, ahhh… Doctor.' McEvetty's moist eyes, very like those of a doe or an ox, seemingly saying that he much admired her show of strength in the face of such horror.
She turned once more to J. T. and asked, 'Can you take care of getting the information around? The photos of the handwriting, the shoeprint cast, what we've got here, and route it all to-'
'Sure. I'll get on it; that is, unless…'
She studied the hesitation in his features, glad to have her confidant and familiar friend alongside her. 'Unless what?'
He whispered, so the others would not hear, ' 'Less you really want me to handle the body, Jess. Burn victims are tough, I know.'
Drowning victims in the water for long duration aside, burn victims in which the entire body, head to toe, was covered in the creosote of superheated human tissues and fat represented the most difficult cases for the forensic medical person, no matter how toughened or jaded. The corpse repulsed the physician. And this did not make for the best of working relationships or conditions. Usually Jessica felt a sense of bonding with the victim, a close-knit relationship in which she shared secrets with the deceased, down to the pallor of the skin, the size and shape of every organ, inside and out. But how was this possible here? Here such a bonding was virtually impossible when looking into so completely annihilated a face and human form, when having to look into the mask of a creature molded of fire. All this was true, despite a generalized and sometimes overwhelming sense of empathy with the victim's pain, felt even more strongly if you had prior knowledge that the victim was alive when put to the torch.
Jessica could not deny the powerful impact on both the doctor and the forensic process such a thoroughly repugnant, desecrated body meant. It was just shy of dealing with an exhumed body, a years' old cadaver from a grave, and in some regard worse, for the odor of burned flesh was worse than the odor of decay.
Jessica dropped her gaze from J. T., sheepishly whispering in reply, 'I'm fine here. Go on with Brightpath. Be sure we get all the equipment we need here.'
Jessica relocated her black valise, and next she located a scalpel, the one given to her by her father. She'd pulled down her mask earlier, and she placed it back over her nose and mouth, her white lab coat now having a patina of soot.
Jessica stepped closer to the mummylike corpse, inching closer until she stood abutting the blackened bed and the blackened east wall. She now meant to go to work gathering immediate samples for later lab work. She was all right, she told herself, but her thoughts over the ungainly thing at her fingertips continued.
The men in the room watched in a kind of rapt awe.
Most victims of complete burn such as this meant ample cause to rush through an autopsy. And in the rush, vital clues could be lost, and often were. Most certainly the coroner's usual care, precision, and thoroughness were impeded, if not breached completely. A good forensics man or woman knew this going in, so Jessica fought the overwhelming desire to be done with the body as quickly as possible, but Jessica also well understood the all-too- human response to the catastrophic annihilation of the body, its tissues and organs, to fire. She also understood J. T.'s chivalrous gesture was not without reservation, that he would prefer to make other vital arrangements and leave the autopsy to her. Despite his outward gallantry, she guessed that Thorpe was inwardly pleased that she hadn't jumped at the chance to trade places.
'Are you sure, Jess?' He was pushing his luck now.
'Damn it, J. T., I'm sure… I'm okay here. Now get going. You've got phone calls to make, people to wake up, and get that damned photographer out of the coffee shop and up here.'
'If you want me to take charge here, Jess… just say the word.'
She grit her teeth. 'Now you're getting on my nerves.'
'Whataya mean, Jess? I'm just trying to show a little sensitivity. You women always want a show of concern, but you also want to be treated like equals. Suppose I asked McEvetty or Kaminsky here about how their morning's going.' He shrugged and frowned, a bit tired of her show of bravado in the face of a death so without integrity as this. And for a moment the others saw and heard what amounted to a married couple arguing about nothing. They had worked many cases together, elbow to elbow, but usually J. T.'s help came in the safe confines of a well-lit lab back in Virginia. 'What?' he repeated, his voice giving way to anger.
'Go, get photos of this bastard's message. Get copies to Santiva and to the academics and the nuthouses, okay? I'll see to the body.'
J. T. nodded, folding her hands in his like they were an omelet. 'Whatever you want, Jess.'
She bit her lip and held back a curse, finally bursting with, 'What I want has very little to do with anything these days, John. This motherless… monster is using me, and I don't like it, not one fucking bit do I like it. Get that photographer in here and take care of that decoding angle for me, okay?'
'You didn't cause this, Jess,' he reassured her, studying her constricted features. 'And nobody can believe you did.'
Ignoring this, she turned to the bed and the body, which in the fire had become an unrecognizable lump of extraneous waste dumped here like one might find back of a plastics factory: Body in repose, hands and arms, feet and legs arched inward in what firemen called the 'fetal fire position,' the dead man frozen in a moment of excruciating pain, the gaping fissure of the mouth, the gaping holes where the eyes had been, all worked in tandem to create a mask of grimacing, tortured distress, the agony visible through the newly formed body armor of blackened tissue.
The mattress had created first a thick, black, choking smoke when the flame from the butane torch ignited it along with the body itself, the result discoloring the bedpost, walls, and ceiling, and then the mattress had exploded into flame due to the gases released. Again this meant the killer must also be using a mask or filter of some sort, if not a small oxygen tank. She made a mental note to follow up with an exhaustive list of professions that employed such materials and instruments.
Other units on either side of the fire room, and even those overhead, were also scorched, but only slightly, due to the fast action of the FBI having contacted local authorities, and the fire department's subsequent action to contain the fire. Still, Melvin Martin-his unopened, label-scorched bottle of wine standing upright and mocking him- now melded with the charred furniture, a part of the soaked and sopping material left in the aftermath of the fire, followed by the fire hoses. He and his mattress one object now, and not just an object of pity… He had literally been soldered to his mattress and box spring. Martin's remains could not fully be separated from the chemicals and sodden materials adhering to him. This could only be done in the morgue with great care and handling and swathing and bathing, to make him as presentable as possible for burial, for his family's sake.
She left the side of the body, grabbing hold of her valise for something solid to hold on to, and she again stepped from the room to retrieve some air from the hallway. It was the worst condition she'd ever seen a human body in, and working over such a fire-desiccated body was no simple task. It would take several takes.
Everyone watched her. She even saw some pity in McEvetty's stony eyes. 'Like a Pepsi, maybe?' he asked. 'Or maybe a boilermaker?' he joked.
This only sent her back into the room sooner. She now placed her valise on the soupy mattress of the bed and snatched open a second pocket to pull forth a pair of fresh rubber gloves, indicating that if anyone needed a fresh pair, she had plenty to spare. She then located a notepad from deep within her valise, and on the ruled and printed pages of her autopsy report pad she began the tedious work of checking boxes for cause of death, condition of the body and premises.
It's going to be a long and difficult autopsy, she thought, and somehow she couldn't help but feel partially responsible for Melvin Martin's death, despite consoling words to the contrary from J. T. or anyone else. That in some sick, twisted gyration of logic Chris Lorentian and Melvin Martin had to die because of her, because of who she was, because of some morbid and as yet undetermined connection between the Phantom and the M.E., because this killer, in fixating on her, had somehow made her his accomplice, his confederate. The cruel, sadistic bastard.
She at once wondered how many other law enforcement agents and agencies across the country would soon
