Robin Cook - Crisis

No sooner had Jack posed the question than Enrique and Cesar climbed down into the vault and passed wide cloth straps under the coffin and then through the four side handles. With the diesel back up to power, Percy swung the scoop back over the pit and lowered it so the straps could be attached. Harold opened the back of the hearse.

Twenty minutes later, the coffin was safely inside the hearse, and Harold closed the door.

"Will I be seeing you back at the home straight away?" Harold asked Jack.

"Absolutely. I want to do the autopsy immediately. Also, there's going to be another medical examiner involved. Her name is Dr. Latasha Wylie."

"Very well," Harold said. He got into the hearse's driver's seat, backed out into the roadway, and accelerated down the hill.

Jack settled up with Percy, giving him the bulk of his wad of twenty-dollar bills. He also gave a couple to Enrique and Cesar before getting into his car and beginning to head down the hill. As he drove, he couldn't help but feel pleased. After all the lead-up problems, he was surprised that the exhumation itself had gone so easily. In particular, no Fasano and no Antonio, and certainly no Franco, had shown up to spoil the party. Now all he had to do was the autopsy.

To Jack's gratification, things continued to go smoothly. He drove from the Park Meadow to the Langley-Peerson Home without incident, as did Harold with the coffin. When Jack had arrived, Latasha was already there waiting. She had arrived only five minutes earlier, so the timing was nearly perfect.

Immediately on his arrival, Harold had had two of his beefy employees slide the Perpetual Repose coffin out of the hearse and onto a dolly. The dolly had been rolled into the embalming room, where it now stood.

"Here's the plan," Harold said. He was standing next to the coffin with a bony hand resting on its gleaming metallic surface. Thanks to the bright blue-white fluorescent light in the embalming room, any lifelike color he had was washed out, and he looked as if he should have been inside one of the Perpetual Reposes himself.

Jack and Latasha were standing a few feet away near the embalming table, which was going to substitute as the autopsy table. Both had pulled on Tyvek protective jumpsuits that Latasha had thoughtfully brought from the medical examiner's office along with gloves, plastic face screens, and a collection of autopsy tools. Also in the room were Bill Barton, a kindly senior gentleman whom Harold had described as his most trusted employee, and Tyrone Vich, a robust African-American man twice Bill Barton's size. Both had kindly volunteered to stay late and would assist Jack and Latasha in any way needed.

"We'll now open the casket," Harold continued. "I will certify that it indeed contains the remains of the late Patience Stanhope. Bill and Tyrone will remove the clothing and put the body on the embalming table for the autopsy. Once you have finished, Bill and Tyrone will take over to redress the body and return it to the coffin so that it can be re-interred in the morning."

"Will you remain on the premises?" Jack asked.

"I don't think that is necessary," Harold said. "But I live nearby, and Bill or Tyrone can call me if there are any questions."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Jack said, enthusiastically rubbing his gloved hands together. "Let's get the show on the road!"

Taking a crank from Bill, Harold inserted its business end into a flush housing at one end of the metal coffin, seated it, and tried to turn it. The effort brought a fleeting bit of color to his face but failed to turn the locking mechanism. Harold gestured toward Tyrone, who changed places with the director. Tyrone's muscles bulged beneath his cotton scrub shirt, and with an abrupt, torturous screech, the lid began to open. A moment later, there was a short hiss.

Jack looked at Harold. "Is that hissing sound good or bad?" Jack asked. He hoped it was not indicative of gaseous decomposition.

"Neither good nor bad," Harold said. "It speaks to the Perpetual Repose's superb seal, which is not surprising, since it's a top-of-the-line, high-engineered product." Harold directed Tyrone to the opposite end of the casket, where he repeated the process with the crank.

"That should be it," Harold said when Tyrone was finished. He put his fingers under the edge of the coffin and had Tyrone do the same at the other end. Then, in a coordinated fashion, they lifted the lid and allowed light to wash in over Patience Stanhope.

The interior of the casket was lined in white satin, and Patience was clothed in a simple white taffeta dress. In keeping with the decor, her exposed face, forearms, and hands were covered with a white, cottony fluff of fungus. Beneath the mold, her skin was marmoreal gray.

"Without a shred of doubt, this is Patience Stanhope," Harold said piously.

"She looks terrific," Jack said, "all decked out and ready for the prom."

Harold cast a disapproving glance in Jack's direction but kept his thin lips pressed together.

"Okay! Bill and Tyrone," Jack said enthusiastically, "slip her out of her party duds, and we'll get to work."

"I will leave you now," Harold said with a hint of reprimand as if talking to a naughty child. "I hope you find this exercise worthwhile."

"What about your fee?" Jack questioned. He suddenly realized he'd not made any arrangement.

"I have your business card, doctor. We will bill you."

"Perfect," Jack said. "Thanks for your help."

"Our pleasure," Harold said, tongue in cheek. His funeral-director sensibilities had been offended by Jack's disrespectful language.

Jack pulled over a stainless-steel table on casters and put out paper and a pen. He had no recording device, and he wanted to write down his findings as he went along. Then he helped Latasha arrange specimen bottles and the instruments. Although Harold had laid out some of the embalming tools, Latasha had brought the more typical pathology knife, scalpels, scissors, and bone clippers along with the bone saw.

"Your thoughtfulness in bringing all this equipment is going to make this a thousand times easier," Jack said as he attached a new scalpel blade to a scalpel handle. "I was planning on making do with whatever they had here, which in hindsight was not a good idea."

"It was no trouble," Latasha said, glancing around the room. "I didn't know what to expect. I've never seen an embalming room. Frankly, I'm impressed."

The facility was about the same size as her autopsy room at the medical examiner's office but had only a single, central, stainless steel table, giving the impression of wide-open space. The floor and walls were light green ceramic. There were no windows. Instead, there were areas of glass block that let in outside light.

Jack's eyes followed Latasha's around the room. "This is palatial," he said. "When I first conceived of doing this autopsy, I imagined myself using someone's kitchen table."

"Yuck!" Latasha responded. She glanced over at Bill and Tyrone, who were busily disrobing the corpse. "You told me the story about Patience Stanhope and your internist friend on Tuesday when you stopped by. Unfortunately, I've forgotten the details. Could you give me a quick synopsis?"

Jack did better than that. He told the whole story, which included his relationship to Craig as well as the threats he'd received and Craig's children had received about the autopsy issue. He even told her about the incident that morning on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Latasha was shocked, and her expression reflected it. "I suppose I should have told you this sooner," Jack said. "Maybe you wouldn't have agreed so readily to get involved. But my feeling is that if there was to be trouble at this point, it would have happened before Patience Stanhope came out of the ground."