the trick.”
Trying not to tear the desiccated skin, I pry a little harder.
The lips part.
The first thing I see is two lengths of silver wire twisted tightly together and folded back under the lips. This is what keeps the teeth together during the viewing of the body. Small screws are fired into the bones of the upper and lower gums by a spring-loaded injector. Each screw has a four-inch length of wire attached. Using forceps, a technician twists the two lengths together, tightening them until the corpse’s teeth come together. Then the technician snips the leftover wire and tucks the twist out of sight.
“Wire cutters?” I ask.
McDonough goes to a drawer and rummages noisily through it. “Here you go.”
Careful not to damage my father’s teeth, I fit the blades around the twisted wires and snip them in half. The mandible sags immediately, mocking the mindless gape of sleep.
“You looking for something in his mouth?” asks the funeral director.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure.”
I tilt my father’s head back a little, then open his mouth wide and insert Lena’s head into it.
“What the hell?” mutters the funeral director.
“Turn off the lights, please.”
He obeys.
A few moments after the lights go out, my pupils dilate sufficiently to see the glow produced by the orthotolidine reacting with the blood on Lena’s fur. As I suspected, the glowing arch on her snout perfectly matches my father’s maxillary arch.
“Lights please,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
I can’t begin to name the feelings swirling through me. It’s a nauseating combination of excitement and dread. I’ve been hunting killers for a long time, but it strikes me in this moment that I’ve been hunting only one killer all my life.
The knock on the prep room door makes me jump. When McDonough opens the door, an elderly man stands there, looking inside with obvious curiosity.
“I’m from the medical examiner’s office,” he says.
McDonough looks at me. “You finished?”
“I need three minutes.”
He closes the door. “Don’t pay that fellow any mind. The ME’s office pays retirees to drive for them. They pay by the mile. Drivers don’t know crap about the business.”
“Flashlight?”
McDonough passes me a yellow penlight from the drawer.
With my heart racing, I systematically probe my father’s mouth with a finger. What am I hoping for? A tuft of fur? Some trace evidence of another person? As my finger slides between the upper gum and cheek, I feel something small and hard, like a kernel of corn. I remove it with my thumb and forefinger.
It’s not corn. It’s a plastic pellet-a gray one-exactly like the ones that were pouring out of my father’s chest in my dream.
“What is it?” asks McDonough.
“A plastic pellet. It’s from inside this stuffed animal. Originally they were stuffed with rice to make them soft, but after a while the company started using plastic.”
“Is it important?”
“It’s evidence of murder. Do you have a Ziploc bag?”
McDonough gets one, and I place the pellet inside. More probing reveals three more pellets: one behind the cheek, two in the throat.
“You saw me locate these,” I say. “I’m replacing them exactly as I found them. Did you witness that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you’ll testify to that in court?”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that. But I’ll say what I saw.”
As I pull off the gloves with a snap, a worrisome thought occurs to me. I should have searched my father’s mouth before inserting Lena’s head into it. The stress is getting to me. I pass Mr. McDonough the stuffed animal. “Please examine this and see if you can find any holes in her coat.”
Surprisingly, he dons a pair of gloves and obliges me. “I don’t see any.”
I’d really like a few moments alone with my father, but if I’m alone with the body, that might cause legal problems later. In full view of the funeral director, I kneel beside the casket, lay my hand over my father’s, and kiss him softly on the lips. A little mold isn’t going to kill me.
“I love you, Daddy,” I whisper. “I know you tried to save me.”
My father says nothing.
“I’m going to save myself now. Mama, too, if I can.”
For a moment I think Daddy is crying. Then I realize it’s my own tears running down his face. The iron veneer of professionalism I’ve managed to maintain up to this point is cracking. It’s no anonymous corpse lying in this box. It’s my daddy. And I don’t want to lose him again. I don’t want him back in the ground. I want him to sit up and hold me and tell me that he loves me.
“Miss Ferry?” says McDonough. “You all right?”
“No, I’m not all right.” I get to my feet and wipe my eyes. “But I’m going to be. For the first time in my life I’m going to be all right. But somebody else isn’t going to be. Somebody else is going to
McDonough looks embarrassed. “Is it okay to close the casket now?”
“Yes. Thank you for everything. I’ll take you back to your car now.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got people who can do that.”
“Thank you.”
My knees are barely steady enough to carry me out of the prep room, but they do. As I enter the coffin-lined corridor, however, a thought strikes me. I turn around.
“Mr. McDonough?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Have you spoken to my grandfather today?”
The funeral director looks quickly at the floor. And that is my answer.
“Mr. McDonough?”
“He called and asked me to let him know what you did at the cemetery.”
I feel the grasp of my grandfather from miles away. “Sir, my grandfather is a powerful man. I know you know that. But you’ve just become involved in an FBI serial murder investigation. My grandfather is also part of that investigation, and not in a positive connection, if you get my meaning. If you interfere by communicating information on these matters to him, the FBI will be crawling up your ass with a two-foot-long halogen flashlight. They will have OSHA down here doing inspections on a daily basis. Do I make myself clear?”
Mr. McDonough looks as if he wishes he’d never set eyes on me. “Ain’t none of this my business,” he says. “I won’t be talking to nobody about it.”
“Good.”
When I step into the sun outside the garage, I find myself facing several men wearing their Sunday best. They all have roses pinned to their lapels. They’re pallbearers, I realize, and they’ve just carried the deceased to the waiting hearse. Soon the family will emerge from the side exit behind me.
I walk quickly down the side of the building, but I can’t escape. A woman about my age rounds the corner with an infant in her arms. As I move aside, her mouth drops open.
“Cat?” she says. “Cat Ferry?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Donna. Donna Reynolds.”
I blink in confusion.
