“Shut up, Peabody. Do a quick run on this Powell and Sibresky, get me pictures.”
“I gave you pictures,” Morris objected. “People around here don’t just fry up any loose body. There’s a very exacting system in place to . . . Yes, this is Morris,” he said when Receiving got on the line. “We delivered a John and a Jane Doe early this morning for disposal. Order numbers NYC-JD500251 and 252. Will you verify?”
“Of course, Dr. Morris. Just let me pull those up. I have those deliveries, and disposal was completed. Do you need the verification numbers?”
“No, thank you. That’s enough.”
“Do you need to verify the third delivery?”
Eve didn’t need to see his stomach to know it sank. It showed by the way he slowly lowered his body into his desk chair. “A third?”
“NYC-JD500253. All three were delivered and signed for by the Receiving supervisor, Clemment, at one-oh-six A.M.”
“Disposal is completed?”
“Oh yes, Doctor. Disposal was completed at . . . three-thirty-eight A.M. Is there something else I can help you with?”
“No. No. Thank you.” He broke transmission. “I don’t know how this could happen. It makes no sense. The order is here, right here.” He tapped his screen. “For two, not three. There’s no third disposal order, no third body cleared from Staging.”
“I need to talk to Powell and Sibresky.”
“I’m going with you. I need to follow this through, Dallas,” he said before she could object. “This is my house. The guests may be dead, but they’re still mine.”
“All right. Get Crime Scene in here, Peabody. And let’s get Feeney to pick us a hotshot from EDD to look at Morris’s unit. I want to know if any of the data’s been altered in the last twenty-four.”
They got a very irritated Sibresky out of bed. Though he mellowed a bit when he saw Morris, he still scratched his butt and bitched.
“What the hell? Me and the old lady work nights. You gotta sleep some time. You day people think everything runs on your clock.”
“Real sorry to disturb your sleep, Sibresky,” Eve began, “and I’m real sorry you didn’t use a mouthwash before this little conversation.”
“Hey.”
“But the fact is I’m conducting one of those pesky daytime investigations. You took a delivery to the crematorium early this morning.”
“Yeah, so what? That’s my fricking job, lady. Hey, Morris, what the fuck?”
“Sib, this is important. Did you—”
“Morris,” Eve interrupted, more gently than she might have with anyone else. “How many did you take in?”
“Just the one run from the city morgue. We do ’em in groups if it’s under five. Five or more, you gotta take it in two trips. More of that in the winter when the sleepers kick off from exposure and shit. Good weather like this, it’s pretty slow.”
“How many in the run?”
“Shit.” He poked out his bottom lip in an expression Eve gauged as concentration. “Three. Yeah, three. Two Johns, one Jane. Jesus, we went through the routine, the logs, the paperwork, the sign off, sign in, and shit. Not my fault if somebody decided to claim one of the bodies after the forty-eight.”
“Who authorized the transport for you and Powell?”
“Sal, I guess. You know, Morris, Sally Riser. She logs ’em out usually from Staging. It was already done when I clocked in, but it wasn’t Powell.”
“What wasn’t Powell?”
“Powell called in sick, so the new guy was working. Real hotdogger,” Sibresky said with a grimace. “Had all the paperwork done when I clocked on. Don’t matter a shit to me. I just drive ’em.”
“What was the new guy’s name?” Eve demanded.
“Shit, I gotta remember everything at ten in the fricking morning? Angelo, I think his name was. What the hell do I care, he was just filling in for Powell. Wanted to do all the paperwork himself, and that’s fine with me. Like I said, he was a real hotdogger.”