Neely Tucker - The Ways of the Dead

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of the District of Columbia sat in a gray concrete lump at the back end of Capitol Hill. It was adjacent to the jail, at the bottom of a small hill that backed down to the Anacostia. The grass lots were filled with knee-high weeds.

Sully parked in front of the morgue, Building 27, and sat astride the bike while he called into his office voice mail. Thirty-two new messages. John hadn’t been kidding. He clicked it off without listening to them. He didn’t need the hate that people called in to vent, and, actually, if anybody ever bothered to ask him, he would be happy to tell them he had never given a flying fuck what readers thought. He wasn’t running a goddamn wine bar. It was better when he was on one continent, sending stories back to his newspaper on a different one. That was swell.

A few steps took him to the front glass doors, their surfaces reflecting his image, wobbling in a funhouse effect. Once inside, the faint, cloying smell of formaldehyde and chemical compounds permeated his nose, his clothes, his skin, and his mind suddenly flashed a picture of Noel, the brain matter, the sticky sheet…

The receptionist looked up at him with a flat stare.

“Hey, now,” he said, reaching out to the counter to steady himself, the image fading now. “Is the man himself in?”

She said, “Haven’t seen you around here since you got rid of the last man himself.”

“I think it was the city council that did that.”

“After that thing you wrote. Jason’s back there, you want to talk to him. You still riding that motorcycle?”

Sully looked down. He had the helmet in his right hand. “Every day,” he said.

“Be seeing you in here soon enough,” she said. Then she spoke into the phone. “Dr. Reitman? Your reporter friend is down here.” There was a pause. “The one with the motorcycle.”

Jason appeared a few moments later, loose limbed, lanky, goofy grin, pushing open a steel door and holding it open for Sully to enter.

“Let me guess. Sarah Reese,” he said.

“Noel Pittman,” Sully said, limping down the hallway. Jason fell in step, his white lab coat over a dress shirt and tie, walking heel to toe, rising off the toe on each step.

“Pittman? You get demoted? Nobody’s talking about Pittman. Everybody is all over the Reese thing.”

“I’ll let them run with it. Let me guess, though: no signs of sexual trauma on young Miss Reese?”

Jason looked straight ahead, still walking, tapping his clipboard on his hip, that rolling gait. “The office has no comment on any pending case, particularly not any case currently the subject of an intense media circus. So I couldn’t possibly comment on your completely unfounded but totally correct assertion.”

“Didn’t think so. Nasty, though, the throat slitting.”

“In the mood for news on that?”

“Could be.”

“Like before? I trusted you before and you were straight up. I don’t know any of these other guys, and I’m not about to go sticking my neck out. But it’s weird, dude, really weird.”

“Not for attribution,” Sully said. “Possibly to a ‘law enforcement official with knowledge of the matter.’”

Jason considered. “There’ve been so many suits through here that will probably stand up. But I’d rather you get someone else to confirm it.”

“Alright already.”

They had reached Jason’s narrow office and turned in. Jason plunked in his chair, swiveling side to side.

“The throat slitting?” he said. “It was postmortem.”

Sully frowned. “Somebody slit her throat after they killed her? What was the cause of death?”

“Asphyxiation. Somebody suffocated her. Looks like they shoved something in her mouth-there are fiber matches to something like a tennis ball-and then put their hand or a pillow over her face. The hyoid was broken, too.”

“So they suffocated her and then cut her throat?”

Jason nodded. “Very little bleeding, at least for that kind of cut. Usually you’d have buckets, spray, splatter, the works.”

“Why would they do that?”

“You’re asking me? A thrill. They liked the sight. Wanted to send a message. She died too soon. Anything.”

“But she wasn’t raped?”

“Not for publication or attribution, no. No bruising, no tearing. Panties in place. She did appear to be experienced in this area, though. She wasn’t a virgin… but you didn’t come to hear about that.”

Sully paused. “Actually I didn’t. I came to see if you could not comment on Noel Pittman.”

“I could not comment very well on Miss Pittman, as I did the autopsy, such as it was, yesterday.”

“That quick?”

“I actually had some time. Old cases are more interesting, besides. Autopsies of twenty-three-year-old men with an extra hole in their heads are not, what do I want to say, professionally challenging.”

“So what can you not say?”

“Alas, Yorick, I did not know her well. Decomposition is an unpleasant fact of afterlife. Insects and rodents and bugs, you know, all God’s creatures have to eat. Some of the skin had-you’d call it mummified, but there was very little flesh left.”

“Could you get a cause of death?”

“Not from the cut. She didn’t have any broken bones. Nobody shot her in the head, I can tell you that.”

“OD’d?”

“Toxicology not possible.”

“Strangled? Throat cut?”

“What, you’re thinking she and Sarah went out the same way? Yeah, well, no-no way to tell. Flesh from that area was all gone. You really want to picture a skeleton in some rotted clothes.”

“What were the clothes?”

“Appeared to be jeans, a belt-there was a metal buckle-maybe some sort of jacket or coat.”

“Was she killed there? In that basement?”

“Ask MPD. Nothing I saw on her suggested anything one way or another. And back up just a second, while I’m not saying anything. Based on the material we have, you can’t say someone killed her.”

Sully blinked. “You’re saying being stuffed in a hole in a basement isn’t a sign of a violent and unnatural end?”

“It’s a sign of a violent and unnatural burial . But we’re about what happens to people before they die. For all you or I know, she overdosed and her coke buddies wanted to keep using the house, so they arranged for a private burial. That violates city code, I’m sure, and probably some sort of misdemeanor about death notification, but that would be about it.”

“This sounds like bullshit, Jason. You guys are always pulling this. Dead body turns up and an ‘undetermined’ cause of death. The torso found in the dumpster by the waterfront, what, last year? You guys called it ‘undetermined.’ A torso in a dumpster, and nobody says ‘homicide.’ It keeps the murder rate down. I’m not blaming you, I mean, I know the politics of-”

“Nope. That was the old administration. Peter pulled that stuff all the time, in addition to the embezzling you wrote about. He was a real piece of work. I’m happy to label it homicide if there’s evidence. On this one, you can say the autopsy was inconclusive as to a cause of death, but that we described it as suspicious.”

“You think that’s what happened?”

“What happened?”

“OD’d and a friend panicked.”

“Are you writing about this? Or we just girl-talking?”

“Wanting to write about it. Bosses are less than thrilled. You’re still off the record, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m just looking for direction.”

Jason made a face.

“You look constipated, Jason. Look. I’m interested in your irresponsible speculation. It’s better than mine.”