Peter Clement - The Inquisitor

At the exit Earl peeled off his protective gear, dumped it in the disposal bin, and stepped outside, where a cool summer breeze carried the fresh scent of open water from Lake Erie. The usual release of having shed pounds of sweaty clothing flooded through him. It felt as if he'd burst free of a dead skin.

He wheeled his car out of the lot and saw Janet's green Mazda convertible, a vintage 1990 model that she drove during the summer, still resting in its spot. A surge of disappointment destroyed his brief euphoria. Not for the first time he raged against the tyranny of obstetrics, but, long resigned to it and determined that Brendan would have at least one parent to tuck him in tonight, he sped toward home.

The cold woke her.

She forced herself to blink, but the absolute darkness remained.

She fought to crawl out of the sleep that still had a hold on her.

No change. Everything remained as black as if her eyelids were clamped shut.

Except they felt open. She also became aware that her head ached, and an acrid burning at the back of her throat made her want to gag.

The chloroform!

Plus something else.

Smells flooded through her head, and she remembered.

She leapt to her feet, swayed heavily, and immediately regretted the sudden move. Reaching into the darkness, hoping to find a place to lean on, her left hand landed on the wooden contours of an open mouth, nose, and cheeks, easily recognizable to the touch under the crinkling plastic of a body bag.

"Shit!" she yelled, but held on to the face to stop from tumbling into something worse.

The spiraling in her head settled, and she turned toward the corpse, intending to feel her way along the shelf it rested on until she reached the door.

How long had she been in here? And why did the stench of chloroform remain so strong? It seemed to be making her woozy afresh, yet the morgue door should have kept much of it out-

The fall!

She'd soaked her protective clothing in the stuff. The cooler temperature in here must have slowed the evaporation enough that there weren't the fumes to keep her unconscious, but she'd have to strip and shower, wash the volatile fluid off her entirely, or the baby might-

The urgency of getting out overwhelmed her.

Bodies be damned. She palpated herself past the top of what felt like a skull with its crown cut open, crossed over a gap, found a pair of feet, and worked up the legs. The torso, neck, and head led her to another pair of feet.

She stopped.

It couldn't be this far to the door. She must have headed deeper into the locker. Muttering more curses and trying to take shallow breaths, she reversed course and worked her way back over the dubious landmarks.

In seconds she reached a wall.

A step left and she felt the door frame. A second later she found the handle and pressed down.

It didn't budge.

Shit!

She tried again.

Nothing.

How could it be locked?

She threw all her weight behind it.

Same result.

This can't be happening, she told herself, trying to remain calm, growing colder by the second, and the contents of her skull once more looping through sickening swirls of an anesthetic haze. Any meat locker she'd ever been in had a round metal disc that released the door, to prevent anyone from being trapped inside. Surely it couldn't be different here. But feeling around, she found no metal disc or any other escape mechanism.

She stood back and forced herself to settle down, trying to think clearly. Hard to do with a mind still half sodden in chloroform. First she had to get rid of the fumes. And find a light.

More waves of nausea swept up to the base of her tongue.

Take care of the fumes first.

She shed her outer gown, blouse, and skirt, throwing them toward the inner recesses of the long, narrow room, figuring the farther away the better. Finding her underclothing to be dry, she quickly pulled her slip over her shoulders and balled it up over her mask, instantly cutting the noxious scent in half.

Now for light.

With her free hand she rapidly patted down the walls where the switch ought to be, but found nothing.

Must be just missing it, she thought, and, dropping her slip, used two hands, methodically sliding them over the surface, checking a square foot at a time.

But immediately the fumes in that closed space began to work on her nose, eyes, and head again.

Time to get rid of that chloroform wick once and for all. Bunching up her slip as before, she went down on her hands and knees and felt her way along the floor toward the rear of the chamber until she came to her discarded clothing. She then stood up, reached sideways to where she figured the nearest body lay, and inched toward it, her hand outstretched.

Her fingers brushed against the plastic cover and made a rustling sound. She pressed down and felt the telltale struts of a rib cage against her palm. She palpated her way toward the head, past the jagged ends of bones where the sternum had been sawed out, and found the tab of the zipper for the body bag. Pulling it open, she released a swell of the sickeningly sweet decay that, until now, had been but a lingering background odor. The legacy of all the sugar in a body's juices, she thought, trying to objectify the odor by breaking down the science of it, a mind game she sometimes used in the case room to lessen the impact of any foul stench. She also swallowed a lot, her usual technique to keep from throwing up, and stuffed the soaked clothing inside. "Sorry," she said to her unwitting host before yanking the tab closed. It sounded like shutting the front flap on Brendan's play tent.

By the time she worked her way back to the door, she could breathe without using her slip as a filter, and she resumed her search for the switch.

She'd almost given up hope when her hand slid over a flat, slightly raised rectangle. But it had no protruding toggle, which is why she must have passed over it initially. "Please work," she muttered, and pressed it with her fingers. It pivoted slightly, and light flooded the room.

The racks of glistening gray forms in semiopaque body bags, their features partly visible, almost made her prefer the darkness.

No time to be squeamish, she told herself, and returned to the door, searching for some kind of release mechanism.

She saw it in an instant. Not the disc she'd been looking for. Another electronic lock with a slot for her card.

The card she'd left in the outside slot.

The first real flickers of panic began to stir in the pit of her stomach.

If a card is forgotten in a lock at St. Paul's, the security system deactivates the magnetic strip after a few minutes and seals the mechanism to ensure that no unauthorized person who happens on the scene can get in or acquire a functioning key.

The frigid air grew clammy, and a pressure built inside the center of her chest, expanding outward until she thought it would burst.

She couldn't end up stuck here. Not her. Not Dr. Janet Graceton, thirty-five weeks pregnant. No way she'd end up freezing to death in the goddamn morgue of her own hospital.

Yet unless she came up with something soon, that's exactly where things were headed.

She started to shiver.

A phone! Check for a phone. She'd left her cellular in her car, as always, but maybe they had a wall unit somewhere behind one of these racks, for people stupid enough to get locked in.

A quick search found none.

But at the back of the room she spotted what looked like a thermostat. If she jacked up the temperature, would an alarm sound somewhere? On closer inspection, the device seemed only to monitor the degrees, and she could see no way to reset it. Still, somewhere, there might be an alert should the room get too warm.

Whipping off her mask, she used it along with her slip to create an insulated nest around the device. Then, cupping her hands to her mouth, she blew into it. The digital readout jumped ten degrees.