“Sir, I’m trying to establish something important here,” Paige said.
“And what is that?” Dr. Benjamin asked. “What exactly is it that you think you’ll find?”
“A suspect mentioned that Sienna Niven had a black mark on her face. If I recall from the crime scene photographs, Clarissa Bale also had a beauty mark. If that’s true for all three women…”
“That’s what you want to drag me back in there to check? Some conjecture that at best points to a vague physical similarity between the three victims?” Dr. Benjamin didn’t look happy. “No, Agent King. I simply don’t have the time right now.”
“I’m in the middle of a murder investigation,” Paige pointed out.
“Agent King, do you know what it’s like, working as the coroner here?” Dr. Benjamin asked.
Paige got the feeling that he was going to tell her.
“I get bodies coming in at all hours of the day and night. My team and I work hard on them, trying to get answers, using all the expertise that I’ve built up through a medical degree and years of experience.”
That seemed to be his way of reminding Paige that he’d been doing his job much longer than she’d been doing hers.
“And all the time, I have police, and now federal agents, making calls, or showing up, insisting that their case is more important than all the others, that they need special attention. If I gave in to all of that, I would be here until midnight every night.”
“This will take five minutes, and it potentially allows us to catch a serial killer,” Paige pointed out. She couldn’t believe that the coroner wasn’t prepared to do even that much for her.
“Potentially, possibly, probably,” Dr. Benjamin said. “That all sounds like you’re just guessing, young lady. Now, I’m on my way to dinner with a state representative, in which I’ll be trying to argue for more funding for the coroner’s department. That is a much better use of my time than indulging some hunch of yours.”
He turned from Paige and walked from the morgue, leaving Paige to stare at his back in frustration. She couldn’t believe that the coroner would be so unhelpful when there was an active murder investigation, whatever his supposed justifications.
Paige was still standing there when the young man who had shown her in, Michael, came out. He was wearing scrubs now, and nodded to Paige.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asked.
“No,” Paige said in frustration. “Your coroner decided that it was more important to go to dinner than to help me out with the case.”
“Ah,” Michael said. “Dr. Benjamin can be like that sometimes. If you come back in the morning-”
“Someone else might be dead by then,” Paige said. “This killer has killed twice in two days now. If he’s on a spree, there’s every chance that he might kill again tonight.”
She could see how uncomfortable Michael looked at that. It was nothing compared to the frustration Paige felt, and the helplessness of potentially not being able to catch a serial killer.
“Look,” Michael said. “What is it exactly that you need? I’m not really in a position to conduct a full examination without the coroner present.”
“Just to see the bodies, specifically their faces,” Paige said, feeling a hint of hope.
“I… might be able to help with that,” Michael said. He gestured to the doors he’d come through. “Come on. This way.”
He led the way through into a large examination room. There were rows of storage for the dead around the walls, behind numbered doors.
“You want Sienna Niven, Clarissa Bale, and Mylene Jacques, right?” he said.
Paige nodded. “That’s right.”
He went around to the shelves, opening the doors in turn. The cold was palpable now, and Paige wanted to believe that was the reason why she was suddenly shivering. She forced herself to look down at Sienna Niven’s face as Michael uncovered it.
In that moment, she could have been back in the forest again, looking down at her father. Paige had to remind herself that she was there to do a job, that she had a killer to catch.
That brought things back into focus enough for her to stare at the lines of Sienna’s features, taking in the large dark mole just below her cheekbone, like an accent offsetting the beauty of the rest.
She walked over to Clarissa Bale next. Sure enough, she had a beauty mark too, this one smaller, but definitely visible. Paige took a breath and headed over to Mylene Jacques.
She still had her makeup in place, which was a little surprising. Hadn’t the coroner bothered to remove it during his examination?
“Can you remove her makeup?” Paige asked Michael.
“I don’t know if-”
“Please, I need to see if she has a beauty mark like the others.”
The coroner’s assistant hesitated for a second or two, but then nodded, returning with a set of wipes that he used to delicately remove the makeup from Mylene Jacques’s features.
There, on her left cheek, Paige saw a beauty mark. Just like the others.