He opened his eyes, rose, and walked over to the window. The ocean view was inspiring: vast, sprawling, infinite, smooth, yet somehow chaotic, clunky, unpredictable to him. After he’d lost his wife and child, Decker had only wanted to be left alone. Part of him still felt that way. Yet part of him was terrified of having no one left, either. Sometimes it was just him…and his mind.
My ever-changing mind. Just like the rest of my life. Always fluid, never stable. And according to the good folks at the Cognitive Institute, the ride is going to get a lot bumpier.
Later, his phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the number and it wasn’t in his contacts because no name came up.
“Decker,” he said.
“Agent Decker, this is Helen Jacobs. I’m the medical examiner?”
“I remember you, Ms. Jacobs. So, Draymont’s gun?”
“Had not been fired. But there’s something else.”
“What?”
“Hewaskilled by two gunshot wounds to the heart, I confirmed that.”
“But?” prompted Decker.
“But I also found what looks to be a wad of cash crammed down his throat.”
Chapter15
DECKER ROUSED WHITE FROM HERroom and they drove over to the medical examiner’s office, a one-story, low-slung concrete building that was so ugly it seemed unjust to bring someone’s remains here to be legally cut up.
Helen Jacobs met them at the front door. She had on a long white lab coat, and her hair was done up in a bun and covered with a blue surgical cap.
White said, “Did you contact Agent Andrews as well?”
“Yes. But he didn’t answer, so I left a message.”
“Let’s go,” said Decker impatiently.
Jacobs led them down a long corridor with scuffed white walls, cheap laminate flooring, and feeble fluorescent light. She unlocked one door with her security card and ushered them in.
This room was outfitted with stainless steel tables, sinks, and lots of drains, Stryker saws, scalpels and other medical instruments, a tool that looked like a crowbar, organ scales, iPads resting on rolling tables, and mikes dangling from the ceiling so the medical examiners could record in real time their thoughts and findings.
Against one wall were the rollout beds behind closed cabinet doors: the wall of death, as Decker always saw it.
The electric blue had hit him as soon as Jacobs had unlocked the door. He noticed White noticing him, but the look he gave the woman caused her to glance sharply away.
On one dissecting table was Alan Draymont. He’d already been cut up, though the incision that had sliced a Y-shape across the front of his torso had not yet been sewn back up. Exposed were the man’s innards. Decker saw that his organs had already been removed and then repacked inside the body cavity in viscera bags.
His scalp had been cut away and draped over his face; the skull had been cut open, and the brain removed.
Jacobs used a gloved hand to pull the skin back, reconstituting the man’s face.
She used forceps to open the mouth wide and then directed a light inside the opening.
“You can see it now. I didn’t want to remove it until you got here.”
The two agents, White on tiptoes, bent over for a look.
“You sure it was done postmortem?” he said.
“Pretty sure, yes.”
He glanced at her. “Pretty sure?”