Edward Lee: Dahmer's Not Dead

Helen was appalled. Morgue humor was not something she was cut out for. But more questions itched at her. “One thing I don’t get. Why was he even brought here? How come the state’s doing the autopsy? Dahmer died in Columbus County, so shouldn’t the Columbus County M.E. be doing it?”

“More regs, hon.” Tom flicked on the overhead spots. “Our revered Wisconsin State Annotated Code cites, and I quote, ‘Any decedent currently in the correctional custody off any county of the Commonwealth of Wisconsin who may be deemed a public figure, notorious, or whose identity may be offensive to the public sensibility, shall become the immediate custody of the Office of the Wisconsin State Medical Examiner.’“

It didn’t make sense to Helen. “Why?”

“To avoid a botched post-mortem,” Beck answered.

Helen frowned. I was asking him, not you.

“The state doesn’t trust its own counties,” Tom elaborated, “and with fairly good reason. There’s less security at the county facilities, and there’s no expertise. Columbus is a perfect example. It’s the boondocks, and Portage is a boondocks town that just happens to have a county prison sitting in the middle of it. The Columbus County Coroner is also the county clerk, the recorder of deeds, the justice of the peace, assistant to the county executive, and he owns a used car dealership to boot. His name might as well be Uncle Jed, and the state doesn’t want Uncle Jed doing the post work on a ‘notorious figure.’ Christ, those hayseeds’d be selling Dahmer’s shoes, his hair and his clothes. They’d be snapping pictures of the corpse and selling them to the tabloids… By the way, where’s my camera?”

More levity, more jokes. It was getting on Helen’s nerves. Now that the examination lights were on, the morgue platform offered every detail of its occupant. Helen averted her eyes. “Who pronounced him dead, by the way?”

“About half the people in the U.S. Midwest. I was last, as a matter of fact, felt like I was standing in line with a ticket at Baskin-Robbins. First person to pronounce this sucker was the prison duty physician. Then the transport captain who took him to South Columbus General. Then the ER chief pronounced him dead as well as the hospital director. Then they transport the body here, and the whole thing happens again. Everybody wants to be able to say that they pronounced Jeffrey Dahmer dead, like they’re gonna get some prize or something. Me? All I get to do is cut the sucker up.”

“I heard MIT wants his brain,” Beck said, “for some cross-referenced histological study of sociopaths.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tom repeated his well-honed chuckle and then, at the pinnacle of bad taste, actually placed his hand on Dahmer’s forehead. “I guarantee you, there isn’t much of a brain left in this noggin. After a blunt trauma job like that?” Tom winked at Helen, cut a sly grin. “When I open this can, honey, there ain’t gonna be nothin’ inside except cranberry sauce.”

That was it for Helen. “Pardon me, folks, but I have to go throw up now. See you later.”

Tom was hooting it up. “Jan, go see if the turkey’s done, will you please? I love turkey with cranberry sauce.”

At once, all the blood in Helen’s face seemed to drain as she stumbled toward the exit.

“Don’t leave yet, honey! You’ll miss the fun. Wait!”

Helen, against all better judgment, turned to take a final glance over her shoulder.

Tom was holding a Stryker orbital saw in one hand, patting Dahmer’s head with the other. He revved the saw several times, begetting a sound like a monstrous dentist’s drill. “Headcheese for dinner tonight?”

Helen stumbled out, nearly fainting.

— | — | —

CHAPTER THREE

“This is EMT 1-5-4, transit orders logged and copied. We are 10-6 to posted call.”

“Roger, 1-5-4.”

Goodwin hung up the mike, readdressed the wheel. Cooper rode in the passenger seat, fingering the county map. “Shit, man,” he said. “We’re headed into No-Man’s Land. This whole call smells like a jacking.”

Goodwin tried to allay his partner, as the ambulance’s red-and-whites popped down the street ahead of them. “You heard the watch commander’s spiel. ‘Be wary of 911 calls with little or no detail or substance.’ I listened to the tape myself, Coop, right after we left the lounge. It was some male cauc. claiming his father suffered from WPW Syndrome, and he ran out of Quinidex Extentabs, 300 mgs. The guy knew what he was talking about. You think some ghetto dope jacker is gonna have the know-how to make up a call with that much clinical detail? Christ, something like only one person out of every half a million have WPW Syndrome.”

Cooper rubbed an eye; he was tired. “Can’t argue with ya there. Guess you called this one right. Yeah, sure, I can see it. Some ambulance jacker studying the PDR to research phony distress calls about fuckin’ WPW Syndrome.”

Pipe down, Goodwin thought. He turned left onto Utah Street. Sure, this was Precinct Five, a tough block, and God knew enough EMT trucks had been ambushed for pharmaceutical dope on phony 911 calls. Christ, you’d think these guys would wise up after so long, Goodwin thought. Ambulance jacking was getting to be old hat these days. All CDS was kept in safes; some of the crews were even packing guns without a license. “You could go to jail for that,” Goodwin had suggested to some guy in P6 who liked to keep a Colt .32 in his pocket. “Yeah,” the guy’d said back. “But I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.” Goodwin figured the guy had a point.

“1500-Block, right?” Cooper repeated the call data.

“Yeah.”

“Well…we’re here.”

Goodwin idled the Ford F-150 Custom down the block, the GT Qualifier Dunlop radials crunching over broken glass. The red and whites continued to pop silently against old brick and dark windows. Boarded up rowhouses stared at them; Goodwin felt watched.

“I don’t see any—”

“That row there,” Cooper pointed. “The only one with the lights on.”

“Yeah. Come on.”

Goodwin took the keys with him; even though this looked perfectly legit, he wasn’t stupid. He’d been stupid once, in Falks County, and look what happened. I almost did time, he remembered. They got out, trotted up to the row, and knocked.

They knocked again.

“This has to be it,” Cooper commented. “Every other unit on the street is boarded up.”

Goodwin peered in the window, paused. “Jesus Christ, so is this one. Look.”

Pried off planks lay at the window footing. Inside, a single lit lamp sat on the floor—a battery-powered lamp. The rest of the interior lay in shambles.

“Somebody put that lamp in there to draw us off,” Cooper said.

But Goodwin already smelled the rat. “We been set up. Get ready to run.”

They edged back to the truck, their eyes peeled for anything, a shadow, a face, the tracest movement. But—

Nothing.

“Looks like we’re all right.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They got back in, slammed the doors shut and locked them. But just before Goodwin would restart County Unit EMT 154, Cooper jerked back, shot a glance behind him.

“Hey, you mother—”

That was all Cooper got out of him mouth before—

pop!

It was the oddest sound, not even as loud as someone popping a plastic baggie. Nevertheless, Coop fell back into the footwell, his feet flying upward as a thin stream of blood sailed across Goodwin’s shocked face. A gurgling followed—Goodwin had heard it many times—a sucking chest wound, Coop’s lungs bubbling foamy blood through the hole. Then, again—