sour.
‘Don’t bother. Dan doesn’t want us to touch the body for the time being. Apparently Alex Irving wants to look at it in situ.’
‘What for?’ I could understand why the profiler had wanted to view the first victim’s body in the cabin, but this one was laid out in a coffin. I couldn’t see what he hoped to learn from it that he couldn’t get from photographs.
‘Who knows?’ Frustrated, Tom blew out a breath. ‘Hicks and Irving in one morning. Lord, this is shaping up to be one hell of a day. And you didn’t hear me say that, Kyle.’
The morgue assistant smiled. ‘No, sir. Anything else I can do?’
‘Not right now. I’ll give you a call when Irving gets here. I’m assured he won’t be long.’
But we should have known that Irving wasn’t the type to worry over keeping anyone waiting. Half an hour, then an hour, went by, and still he hadn’t graced us with his presence. Tom and I occupied ourselves in rinsing and drying the remains from the cabin that had been left in detergent overnight. It was nearly two hours before the profiler sauntered into the autopsy suite without knocking. He was wearing an expensive suede jacket over a plain black shirt, his beard little more than a dark shading on the well-fleshed cheeks and softening jaw line.
A girl was with him, pretty and no older than nineteen or twenty. She hung close behind him, as though for protection.
He bestowed an insincere smile upon us. ‘Dr Lieberman, Dr…’ He made do with a vague nod in my direction. ‘I expect Dan Gardner told you I was coming.’
Tom didn’t return the smile. ‘Yes, he did. He also said you’d be here soon.’
Irving raised his hands in mock surrender, giving what I imagine he thought was a disarming grin. ‘Mea culpa. I was about to prerecord a TV interview when Gardner phoned, and it ran late. You know how these things are.’
Tom’s face said he knew very well. He looked pointedly at the girl. ‘And this is…?’
Irving put a proprietorial hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘This is, ah, Stacie. One of my students. She’s writing a dissertation on my work.’
‘That must be fascinating,’ Tom said. ‘But I’m afraid she’ll have to wait outside.’
The profiler waved a hand, airily dismissing the notion. ‘That’s OK. I’ve warned her what to expect.’
‘Even so, I’ll have to insist.’
The smile became set as Irving locked gazes with Tom. ‘I told her she could come with me.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have. This is a morgue, not a lecture theatre. I’m sorry,’ Tom added more gently to the girl.
Irving stared at him for a moment, then gave the girl a regretful smile. ‘Looks like I’ve been overruled, Stacie. You’ll have to wait back at the car.’
She hurried out, head bowed with embarrassment. I felt sorry for her, but Irving should have known better than to bring her without first asking Tom. The profiler’s smile vanished as soon as the door had closed behind her.
‘She’s one of my best students. If I’d thought she might embarrass me I wouldn’t have brought her along.’
‘I’m sure you wouldn’t, but that wasn’t your decision to make.’ Tom’s tone ended the discussion. ‘David, would you mind bringing Kyle to the radiology suite, please? I’ll show Dr Irving where the changing room is.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’ve no intention of touching anything.’ The profiler’s manner had ice on it now.
‘Maybe not, but we’re pernickety about things like that. Besides, I’d hate you to get your jacket stained.’
Irving glanced down at his expensive suede jacket. ‘Oh. Well, perhaps you’re right.’
Tom gave me a quick smile as I went out. By the time I’d found Kyle he and Irving were already in the radiography room, standing in silence on opposite sides of the aluminium box containing the casket.
Irving had put on a lab coat over his clothes. He wore a pained expression, massaging either side of his nose with a gloved thumb and forefinger as Kyle and I began to lift the container’s lid.
‘I hope this won’t take long. I have rhinitis and the air conditioning makes my sinuses—God!’
He hastily stepped back, cupping his hand over his nose as the lid came off and released the stench from inside. But to his credit he recovered quickly, lowering his hand and moving forward again as we opened the actual casket.
‘Is, ah, is this normal?’
‘The condition of the body, you mean?’ Tom shrugged. ‘Depends what you mean by normal. The decomp is in keeping with an interred corpse. Just not one that’s only been buried six months.’
‘I presume you have an explanation?’
‘Not yet.’
Irving contrived to look surprised. ‘So we’ve got two bodies, both mysteriously more decomposed than they should be. A pattern of sorts there, I think. And I understand this isn’t the grave’s rightful owner?’
‘That’s how it looks. This is a black male. Willis Dexter was white.’
‘Someone at the funeral home taking colour blindness to new heights, perhaps,’ Irving murmured. He motioned at the filthy cotton sheet that covered everything except the corpse’s head. ‘Can you…?’
‘Just a moment. David, would you mind getting a few shots?’
Using Tom’s camera, I took photographs of the body, then Tom nodded for Kyle to remove the sheet. The morgue assistant carefully took hold of the makeshift shroud. The fluids released by decomposition had made it adhere to the body, so that it came free only reluctantly. When he saw what was underneath he stopped, looking uncertainly at Tom.
The corpse was naked.
‘Oh, definitely a pattern here,’ Irving said, sounding amused.
Tom nodded to Kyle. ‘Carry on.’
The assistant pulled aside the rest of the sheet. Irving stroked his beard as he considered the body. It seemed a deliberate affectation to me, but perhaps I was biased.
‘Well, leaving aside the, ah, unclothed aspect for the moment, a few things are immediately obvious,’ he asserted. ‘The body’s been carefully arranged. Hands folded on the chest in the conventional manner, legs straightened as though this was an ordinary burial. Which it patently wasn’t. But the body has been treated with evident respect, which is a clear departure from the first victim. Still, all goes to make life more interesting, doesn’t it?’
Not theirs. I could see that Irving’s attitude irked Tom as well. ‘The body we found in the cabin wasn’t the first victim,’ he said. I’m sorry.
‘Assuming that this individual was murdered, which we can’t say for sure until we know the cause of death, then he’s been dead a lot longer than the man we found yesterday,’ Tom said. ‘Whoever this was, he died first.’
‘I stand corrected,’ Irving said, his smile glassy. ‘But that only supports my theory. There’s a definite progression. And if this Dexter character faked his own death six months ago, as looks likely, then that’s hugely symbolic. I thought at first that the killer might be in denial about his sexuality, sublimating his suppressed sexual urges into violence. But this puts a different slant on things. The first victim was covered in a shroud and buried— hidden away in shame, almost. Now, six months later, the body in the cabin is left on display for the world to see. It’s shouting, “Look at me! Look what I’ve done!” Having “buried” his old self the killer’s now coming out of the closet, if you like. And given such a huge shift in the way he treated these two victims, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some interim ones we don’t know about.’
He sounded quite excited at the prospect.
‘So you still think these are gay killings,’ Tom said.
‘Almost certainly. This all but confirms it.’
‘You seem very confident.’ I hadn’t meant to get involved, but Irving’s manner set my teeth on edge.
‘We’ve got two naked corpses, both male. That does seem to point that way, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Bodies are sometimes transported nude from the morgue. If there was no family to provide clothes then that’s how they’d be buried.’
‘So this second naked male body is just coincidence? Interesting theory.’ He favoured me with a patronizing
