CHAPTER SEVEN
Laura got out of the car in front of the sheriff’s station and county morgue, a squat little one-two of buildings that seemed to have been dumped down in the same parking lot together without much more thought than that. They were an ugly shade of gray, which they had in common with a large majority of the law enforcement buildings Laura had visited around the country. It wasn’t as though she expected to feel cheerful when going to look at a body, but something about those buildings always made her feel even worse.
“Bodies first,” Laura said, nodding in the direction of the morgue as she pulled up beside the Sheriff—she had enough experience in the field to identify which building was which without having to ask. “Then we’ll see about talking to victims’ families.”
“Oh,” Agent Moore said. “Do we have to go look at the bodies? We’ve already seen the pictures.”
Laura blinked at the rookie. “You think the pictures are enough?”
Agent Moore winced. “Aren’t they?” she asked.
Her tone was innocent enough that Laura couldn’t tell whether she was being serious, or just trying to get out of having to see dead people.
Either way, it didn’t matter. The rookie wanted to learn—and she was going to learn. There was no better way to understand the actions of a murderer than to see their direct result—blood, guts, and all. Reading about a killer in a classroom was one thing. Coming up against one was entirely another.
“We need to see for ourselves,” Laura said, keeping the explanation short. In her experience, when you went into the details, you just gave people more points to argue against. Besides, it wasn’t a debate. This was the job.
She crossed the short walk to the entrance of the morgue, giving the Sheriff a light wave as he headed toward the other building, letting him know via her hands that she was going to look at the body first and would join him again later. He nodded curtly, which sat just fine with her. She wasn’t expected to become best friends with him. So long as he complied with what they needed, he could be as grumpy as he liked.
Agent Moore trailed after her like a kid who had been ordered home from school for punishment. She was all but kicking the loose rocks along the edges of the sidewalk. Laura tightened her mouth but said nothing. She wasn’t about to get into an argument with a rookie over her attitude. They needed to get in, solve this case, and leave. The less time Laura had to spend with Agent Moore, the better.
She was still hoping, in some small part of herself, that her next case would see her back with her real partner. With Nate. No more rookies.
No point in getting attached.
Laura touched a buzzer on the outside of the door and held up her badge in front of a camera facing downward, and there was a distinct clunking noise as the lock disengaged. The cool interior of the morgue hit her almost as soon as they walked in, even colder than the temperature outside. So did the smell: antibacterial cleaning products, for the most part, but even they could never truly, fully mask the scent of death.
An older man who still seemed quite sprightly in spite of his white hair half-jogged out of a nearby doorway, intercepting them as they hesitated in the main entranceway. There was a reception desk, but it was empty. Laura could hear nothing in the space except for the hum of equipment and, presumably, the air conditioning system. It was eerie, to say the least.
“Ah, welcome!” the medical examiner—so the badge affixed to the front of his white coat identified him—said. “Sheriff Ramsgate did warn me to expect you. I think you’re here to look at our two murder victims?”
“That’s right.” Laura nodded. “Special Agents Frost and Moore. You’ve got both of them here, correct?”
“That I do,” the medical examiner said, turning to lead them back down the hall he’d come from. If Laura wasn’t mistaken, he was almost skipping with glee. “Two very unique cases around here. We don’t get to see this kind of thing often at all.”
“That must be exciting for you,” Laura said dryly.
“Oh, absolutely!” the medical examiner exclaimed. “I mean, of course, it’s terribly tragic, you understand—but I’m thrilled to be able to use some of those rusty skills I haven’t been able to really get into since I was last in a city. It’s been—goodness, now I think about it, probably thirty years.”
“It’s been thirty years since you worked on a dead body?” Agent Moore piped up, clearly absolutely astonished. Laura shot her a look. The rookie’s auburn hair was practically bouncing along behind her in that ponytail.
The medical examiner laughed heartily. “No, no, we get our share of death here. As does anyone else,” he said. “No, it’s usually just heart attacks and the like. It’s been thirty years since I worked on a brutal, bloody murder like this. Even the last time we did have a murder, that was poison.”
“You find this exciting?” Moore asked, again with wide eyes, but this time also a note of horror in her voice.
The medical examiner glanced back with a slightly guilty look and cleared his throat. “Well, I mean, you know. Terrible for the families. Absolute tragedy, of course.”
“Don’t worry,” Laura said, with a grim smile. “I know what you mean. The ‘death’ part of it kind of loses its impact after a while, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” the medical examiner replied, with a relieved tone, as he led them to a table which Laura could have probably drawn with her eyes closed. It was the same as all the others. Metal slab on wheels, white sheet, clearly a body underneath it. “Apart from the kids. The kids are the worst.”
“Agreed,” Laura said. “Right, let’s have a look at Mr. Bluton, shall we?”
“Certainly,” the medical examiner said, and whipped up the edge of the white sheet, unveiling the naked corpse of a man. He was slashed not just across the throat, but also multiple times over his torso. To Laura’s amateur eye, it looked like most of them would easily have been enough to kill him, even if the neck hadn’t been cut.
There was a retching noise, and Laura and the medical examiner both swung around as one to see Agent Moore bending over a trash can beside a desk.
“Are you alright?” Laura asked. She was trying to be charitable—rookies did often find themselves unwell when they first saw a body. And this one was particularly gruesome. It was also true that Agent Moore had only made a fool of herself in front of the medical examiner, not the Sheriff.
But still. If you wanted everyone on the case to know you were a rookie, this was one surefire way to do it.
“I’m okay,” Agent Moore said, turning around with an unconvincing smile. She put the trash can back down on the ground. “I held it in. Mostly.” She still looked green. Laura took a practiced step away from her just in case, then turned her attention back to the body.
“This was vicious,” Laura said, thinking out loud. “Personal, it looks like. You don’t harm someone this badly unless you really want them to suffer—and you want to make absolutely sure they’re dead. The number of wounds even goes beyond that. The cuts were made by a blade of some kind?”
“Mm,” the medical examiner said, tilting his head to one side. “Of some kind. I’d definitely say a blade, but this isn’t an ordinary knife. It’s hard to tell if there is any mark on the blade, or to get an idea of the shape of it, because the cuts are done in such a way—it’s a real slash from one side to the other, quick as you like, no hesitation. What I can tell you is that it’s very, very sharp—the skin seems to part like butter. As for the size, I would say it’s very long.”
“Nothing else of forensic interest on the body?” Laura asked. She reached for the white sheet as if she was being helpful. The truth was, she wanted a chance to touch the skin of the corpse, to see if it would trigger something for her.
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” the medical examiner said. Laura pulled the sheet over, just lightly brushing her little finger against the arm, tensing when a new headache hit her—
She was looking out over a field. Maybe the one she’d been to earlier, maybe not. It was impossible to tell. No markers on the skyline, no visible landmarks—just corn, swaying around her in the breeze under a bright sky.
There were several men standing around, talking, hands shoved in their pockets. They were standing on a dirt road; if this was the Brown farm, then Laura was confused, because the track was much thinner and less defined than she remembered.
The men were having some kind of conversation—Laura couldn’t follow it. Something about the corn. They talked lazily, hands shoved in the pockets of worn and patched coveralls. One of them was wearing an old-fashioned kind of hat and smoking on a pipe. He looked like a transplant from a different century.
No—they all did. Laura looked at the other two men, taking them in as much as she could. Their clothes seemed like they weren’t what she would expect—even from a rural community. It was hard to put a finger on why, exactly—something about with the style, even though they were perfectly workable garments, just felt off. And there were other hints… a pocket watch in one pocket, nothing on their wrists. No sign of a cell phone, even though it might have been in a pocket; Laura just couldn’t see any of these men knowing what to do with one. Their shoes were old-fashioned, too, clunky and battered. Not like the shoes Ike Brown had been wearing—modern waterproof boots.
This was all wrong.
All three of them turned suddenly to look at something behind Laura, as if they had heard a sound—
And Laura was back in the morgue, looking down at a body neatly covered with a sheet.
What in the hell had she just seen?
“This is poor Miss Michaels,” the medical examiner was saying, turning Laura’s and Agent Moore’s attention to the next trolley. She shot a glance at the rookie, her head only throbbing a little as she did so. The other agent looked even more pale at the idea of seeing another body.
Only a mild headache, and it was fading already. That was odd. Usually, Laura knew that the intensity of the headache was linked to the urgency of the vision. The more pain she was left with, the more imminent the scene. But this time, it was almost as if the vision she’d had was of something that would happen in twenty years.
Or a hundred years ago.
Was that what she had seen? The past?