Thomas Amo: An Apple for Zoë: Book One ~ The Forsaken

James laughed. "Damn Mike, why do you always have to be right?"

"It's a gift. What can I say?"

"I say you buy me lunch."

"You name the place and as long as it's not over a buck, I've got you covered."

The two men enjoyed a moment of levity only to be broken by the ringing of Inspector James' phone. James answered the call as Kirkland attempted to grasp the conversation based on James' expressions. Quickly James stood up and thanked the caller. He then replaced the phone and gave Kirkland a look of satisfaction.

"That was Captain Shelton, they found a wallet in the alley behind the funeral home. They think it belongs to the dead guy in the closet."

"Finally a step in the right direction I hope," said Kirkland.

"Cap wants us to meet CSI at the morgue. Dr. Roberts is doing the autopsy on the old man at one-thirty this afternoon. Can you join me?" asked James.

"Lawrence Roberts? The Burlingame Butcher? I swear when he's not carving up corpses he's working the dinner shift at Benihana's. I think you better buy me lunch."

"Sure, chopped liver okay with you?"

"You're a sick man, Thomas James."

"Point taken. Okay you get the car and I'll confirm our appointment with the coroner's office. And when I speak to Lawrence I'll be sure to not pass along your moniker."

Both men laughed and then James shook his head and repeated the title with a critical tone.

"The Burlingame Butcher."

The stale smell of blood mixed with running water always hung in the air inside the morgue. No matter how many times the 75-year-old tile floor was mopped, it still showed signs of bloodstains, urine and feces. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of dead bodies. James hated coming here. He called it the death factory. The chief pathologist, Lawrence Roberts, was a tall intense bespectacled man growing close to retirement age. Yet his skill with a scalpel was notorious among the chosen few who had been allowed to witness one of his autopsies. He was a brilliant man, who seemed to understand death as if it had its own language. James remembered his first encounter with Roberts. The case was a 10-year-old girl.

James would never get used to seeing dead children. He knew the doctor had seen so many by this point in his career, the girl might as well been a log of wood. To Roberts there was no difference. He expressed no remorse for cutting the body, no emotion, he was direct and to the point. Roberts was, at the end of the day, always a professional.

Let me tell you a secret, Thomas James, the answer to every murder is right here in the body. Everything you need to catch your killer is right here it's just how you interpret the results. James heard those words in his head over and over, as if they were on a loop whenever he witnessed an autopsy. He would never forget them.

James grew to like Roberts over the years. At first he didn't know what to make of the man whose mood could change in an instant. Like Dr. Jekyll, he was quick, efficient and could discern the cause of death within in a matter of minutes. This same man could also turn into Mr. Hyde with no warning, and you could find yourself being lambasted by a tyrant with a scalpel. Smoke and mirrors to those who knew him well.

As James looked around the room for his crime victims, he noticed the small metal table displaying Roberts, instruments of death. The stainless steel surgical tools were used so often they no longer glistened in the light of the room. A make shift tea towel lay underneath them to absorb the residual water left from the hasty cleaning of the previous operation. There were three scalpels and two sets of toothed forceps. One large, the other one was not much smaller which seemed redundant. However James thought they must serve some distinct purpose. An "S" shaped needle with six strands of precut waxed string knotted at one end was also there. An everyday household butchers knife, hammer and bone chisel were also present. These were all the things one would need it seems, to operate on the deceased. It was macabre to think the very instruments that lay before him could have just as easily been a murder kit. Finally the piece de resistance was the vibrating bone saw. An odd- shaped device that gave James chills just thinking about it cutting through chest bones and skullcaps. He couldn't decide which bothered him more, the sound of the saw cutting into bone or the smell of burnt skull mixed with smoke as the blade cut its way into the unfortunate victims cranium.

Wayne Stevens, the morgue attendant, entered through the double swinging doors pushing a stainless steel table, which carried the body of the old man from mortuary's closet. His body was still dressed, face gray, eyes puffed shut. The tip of a swollen blackened tongue emerged between his lips and was held in place by tightly clenched teeth frozen in a final bite. The barbed wire still wrapped around his wrists binding them together behind his back, with the knotted cord buried deep inside his neck flesh.

Stevens pushed the steel table alongside the autopsy slab, where water was already running through a small rubber hose in order to continuously take the blood away as the autopsy progressed.

"Sure glad I skipped lunch on this one," said Stevens.

"Wish I could say the same," said James.

In all the years James had been a detective, Stevens had always been the morgue attendant. He was a man who just seemed suited for the job. There wasn't anything wrong or weird about him; he just looked like he belonged here with his jet-black hair combed straight back and held in place due to an abundance of hair oil.

"Still using that Vitalis, Wayne?"

"You kidding? Nothing compares, of course you can't really find the old stuff anymore. Now all they want to sell you is mousse or gel. Who wants that crap?" said Stevens as he began to put on his autopsy gown. It was a garment that had most certainly seen more than its fair share of use. As James watched Stevens go through his ritual of dressing and gloving up, he mused to himself the only thing Stevens was missing was a hump on his back as he eagerly awaited Dr. Frankenstein's arrival. It was a terrible thought and he tried to push it from his mind as quickly as it had entered by changing the subject.

"Oh Wayne, I heard CSI found a wallet in the alleyway behind the funeral home for this victim. Do you have it?"

Stevens responded immediately, "Oh yeah, hang on they should have put it the evidence bag, it'll be in my office."

James felt a glimmer of hope as he watched Stevens leave the room. James was now alone with one of the victims. It was an odd, creepy feeling to be the only one in the room with a dead body. A feeling he had experienced more times than he cared to remember. Walking over to the old man, James looked at him closely for the first time. The details were so much clearer in the light of the morgue then in the small tiny closet of a mortuary. A heavy sadness came over him as he looked at the barbed wire wrapped around the frail wrists.

"Who the hell does something like this to a defenseless old man? Someone's grandfather is laying here the victim of senseless hate. There is no God!" said James angrily.

But then remembered what Kirkland said and thought to himself. Could this be the man in the window that famous night forty two years earlier? James examined the face. He tried to imagine a crew cut and horned-rimmed glasses. It just didn't seem to fit. In his gut, he felt this was not the guy he ran into that night. But how is he connected to Amanda Carlyle , James wondered? His attention was diverted from the thought as Stevens returned with a manila envelope marked evidence John Doe #5623/10/23/10. As James took the envelope he glanced at the numbers and shook his head. Can this city really have already had that many coroner's cases?