Whispers of the Dead (6 page)

Morgue assistants were employed by the Medical Examiner's
office, which meant that Hicks was technically Kyle's boss. I'd forgotten
that the pathologist was based here, and I didn't envy anyone
working for him. Not that it seemed to bother Kyle. He was tall, with
a heavy-boned build that was just on the right side of plump. His
pleasant moon face beamed from under an untidy mop of hair.
'Hi,' he said, raising a gloved hand.
'One of my students is going to be lending a hand, as well,' Tom
went on. 'It doesn't really need three of us, but I promised I'd let her
help out on my next examination.'
'If you don't need me here . . .'
'There's going to be plenty to do. It just means we'll finish sooner.'
Tom's smile said I wasn't getting away that easily. 'Scrubs and the rest
are in the locker room down the corridor.'
I had the changing room to myself. Putting my own clothes in a
locker, I pulled on surgical scrubs and a rubber apron. What we were
about to do was perhaps the grimmest part of our work, and
certainly one of the messiest. DNA tests could take up to eight weeks, and fingerprints only provided an identity match if the
victim's were already on record. But even with badly decomposed
bodies such as this, the victim's identity and sometimes also the cause
of death could be gleaned from the skeleton itself. Before that could
be done, though, every last trace of soft tissue had to be removed.
It wasn't a pleasant job.
When I went back to the autopsy suite I paused outside. I could hear
Tom humming along to the jazz over the sound of running water. What if you make another mistake? What if you can't do this any more?
But I couldn't afford to think like that. I opened the door and
went in. Kyle had finished hosing down the body. Dripping water,
the dead man's remains glistened as though they had been varnished.
Tom was at a trolley of surgical instruments. He picked up a pair
of tissue scissors and pulled the bright overhead light closer as I went
over.
'OK, let's make a start.'

The first dead body I saw was when I was a student. It was a young
woman, no more than twenty-five or six, who had been killed in a
house fire. She'd asphyxiated from the smoke, but her body was
untouched by the flames. She was lying on a cold table under the
mortuary's harsh, revealing light. Her eyes were partly open, slits of
dull white showing between the lids, and the tip of her tongue was
protruding ever so slightly from between bloodless lips. What struck
me was how still she looked. As frozen and motionless as a photograph.
Everything she'd done, everything she'd been and hoped to
be, had come to an end. For ever.
The realization hit me with physical force. I knew then that no
matter what I did, how much I learned, there would always be one
mystery I couldn't explain. But in the years that followed that only
increased my determination to solve the more tangible puzzles that
lay within my scope.
Then Kara and Alice, my wife and six-year-old daughter, were
killed in a car accident. And suddenly such things were no longer
academic.
For a time I'd retreated to my original profession of medical
doctor, believing that way might bring a measure of peace, if not
answers. But I'd only been fooling myself. As Jenny and I had found
out to our cost, I couldn't run away from my work. It was what I did,
what I was. Or so I'd thought until I'd had a knife thrust into my
stomach.
Now I wasn't sure of anything any more.
I tried to put the doubts aside as I worked on the victim's remains.
After collecting tissue and fluid samples to send for analysis, I used a
scalpel to carefully cut away the muscle, cartilage and internal organs,
literally stripping the last vestiges of humanity from the body.
Whoever it was, he'd been a big man. We'd need to take more
accurate measurements from the skeleton itself, but he was at least six
two, and heavily boned.
Not an easy man to overpower.
We worked in near silence, Tom humming absently along to a
Dina Washington CD as Kyle wound up the hose and busied himself
cleaning the tray where the insects and other detritus from the body
were caught after being washed off. I'd begun to lose myself in the
work when the double doors to the autopsy suite abruptly swung
open.
It was Hicks.
'Morning, Donald,' Tom greeted him pleasantly. 'To what do we
owe this pleasure?'
The pathologist didn't bother to reply. The dome of his hairless
head gleamed like marble under the bright lights as he glared at
Kyle.
'The hell are you doing in here, Webster? I've been looking for
you.'
Kyle flushed. 'I was just--'
'He's just finishing up,'Tom put in smoothly.'I asked him to help
out. Dan Gardner wants a report on this as soon as possible. Unless
you have any objection?'
Hicks could hardly admit to it if he had. He turned his ire on Kyle
again. 'I've got an autopsy this morning. Is the suite ready?'
'Uh, no, but I asked Jason to--'
'I told you to do it, not Jason. I'm sure Dr Lieberman and his assistant can manage by themselves while you do what you're paid
for.'
It took a second or two to realize he meant me. Tom gave him a
thin smile. 'I'm sure we can.'
Hicks gave a sniff, disappointed to be deprived of a confrontation.
'I want everything ready in half an hour, Webster. Make sure it is.'
'Yes, sir. I'm sorry . . .' Kyle said, but the pathologist had already
turned away. The heavy door swung shut behind him.
'Well, I'm sure we all feel better for that,' Tom said into the
silence. 'Sorry, Kyle. I didn't mean to get you into trouble.'
The younger man smiled, but his cheeks still flamed red. 'That's
OK. But Dr Hicks is right. I really ought to--'
The door burst open before he could finish. For a second I
thought Hicks might have come back, but it was a harried-looking
young woman who appeared rather than the pathologist.
I guessed she was the student Tom had mentioned would be helping
us. She was in her early twenties and wore a faded pink T-shirt
over well-worn cargo pants, both stretched by her ample build. The
bleached blond hair had been pulled into some sort of order by a red
and white polka dot Alice band, and her round glasses gave her an
amiably startled appearance. It should have clashed with the steel
balls and rings that studded her ears, nose and eyebrows, but
somehow didn't. Once you'd got over the initial surprise, the painful
looking array of metalwork seemed to suit her.
Her words were tumbling out in a rush before the door had even
swung shut.
'God, I can't believe I'm /ate! I left early so I could stop off at the
facility to check my project, but then I totally lost track of time! I'm
really sorry, Dr Lieberman.'
'Well, you're here now,' Tom said. 'Summer, I don't think you've
met David Hunter. He's British, but don't hold that against him. And
this is Kyle. He's been holding the fort till you got here.'
A dazed smile spread across Kyle's face. 'Pleased to meet you.'
'Hi.' Summer beamed, revealing an industrial-looking brace. She
glanced across at the body, with interest rather than revulsion. It
would have been a shocking sight for most people, but the facility
helped prepare students for such grim realities. 'I haven't missed anything,
have I?'
'No, he's still dead,' Tom reassured her. 'You know where everything
is, if you want to get changed.'
'Sure.' She turned to go out, catching a stainless steel trolley full of
instruments with her bag. 'Sorry,' she said, steadying it, before
disappearing through the doorway.
A stunned quiet settled over the autopsy suite once more. Tom
wore a half-smile. 'Summer's our resident whirlwind.'
'I noticed,' I said.
Kyle was still staring at the door with a shell-shocked expression.
Tom gave me an amused glance, then cleared his throat.
'The samples, Kyle?'
'What?' The technician looked startled, as though he'd forgotten
we were there.
'You were about to get them packed up for the lab.'
'Oh, right. Sure, no problem.'
With a last hopeful glance at the doors, Kyle gathered up the
samples and went out.
'I think it's safe to say our Summer's got an admirer,' Tom said
wryly. He turned back to the table and suddenly winced, rubbing his
breastbone as though he had trapped air.
'Are you OK?' I asked.
'It's nothing. Hicks is enough to give anyone heartburn,' he said.
But his colour wasn't good. He reached for the tray of instruments
and gave a gasp of pain.
'Tom--'

'I'm all right, dammit!' He raised his hand as if to ward me off,
then turned it into a gesture of apology.'I'm fine, really'
I didn't believe him. 'You've been on your feet since before I got
here. Why don't you take a break?'
'Because I don't have time,' he said irritably. 'I promised Dan a
preliminary report.'
'And he'll get one. Summer and I can finish off removing the soft
tissue.'
He gave a grudging nod. 'Maybe just a few minutes . . .'
I watched him go out, struck by how frail he looked. He'd never
been a physically imposing man, but the flesh seemed to have melted
from him. He's getting old. It was a fact of life. But that didn't make it
any easier to accept.
Tom's CD had long since ended, leaving the autopsy suite in
silence. From somewhere outside I heard a phone ring. It went unanswered,
and finally stopped.
I turned back to the victim's remains. The skeleton was almost
completely denuded of flesh by now, leaving only the residual soft
tissue to be removed by boiling it in detergent. Since it wasn't
practical to immerse the whole skeleton in a huge vat there was
another grisly process that needed to be undertaken first.
Disarticulation.
The skull, pelvis, legs and arms would have to be severed, a job
requiring both care and brute strength. Any damage to the bone
would have to be carefully noted, so it wasn't confused with
perimortem trauma. I'd started to remove the skull, painstakingly
cutting through the cartilage between the second and third cervical
vertebrae, when Summer returned.
In her scrubs and apron she looked less out of place in the morgue,
except for the ear and nose piercings. The bleached hair was concealed
under a surgical cap.
'Where's Dr Lieberman?' she asked.
'He had to go out.' I didn't enlarge. Tom wouldn't want any of his
students to know he was ill.
Summer accepted it. 'You want me to start with the detergent?'
I wasn't sure what Tom had in mind, but that seemed as good an
idea as any. We began filling large stainless steel vats with detergent
solution and set them heating on gas burners. Although the powerful
extractor hood over the burners sucked most of the steam and
fumes from the room, the combination of bleach and boiling soft
tissue gave off a smell disconcertingly reminiscent of both a laundry
and a bad restaurant.
'So you're British?' Summer asked as we worked.
'That's right.'
'How come you're over here?'
'Just a research trip.'
'Don't you have research facilities in the UK?'
'We do, but not like yours.'
'Yeah, the facility's pretty cool.' The big eyes regarded me through
I

the glasses. 'What's it like being a forensic anthropologist over there?'
'Cold and wet, usually.'
She laughed. 'Apart from that. Is it any different?'
I didn't really want to talk about it, but she was only being friendly.
'Well, the basics are the same, but there are a few differences. We
don't have as many law enforcement agencies as you do over here.'
To an outsider, the number of autonomous sheriff and police departments,
let alone state and federal agencies, that operated in the US
was bewildering. 'But the main difference is the climate. Unless it's a
freakish summer, we tend not to get bodies drying out like you do
here. The decomposition's more likely to be a wet one, with more
moulds and slime.'
She pulled a face. 'Gross. Ever thought of moving?'
Despite myself I gave a laugh. 'Work in the sun belt, you mean?
No, I can't say that I have.' I'd talked about myself as much as I
wanted to, though. 'So how about you? What are your plans?'
Summer launched into an animated description of her life so far,
her ambitions for the future and how she was working in a bar in
Knoxville to raise enough money to buy a car. I said little, content
to let her carry on her monologue. It didn't slow her work and the
torrent of words was relaxing, so that when Tom returned I was
surprised to see that nearly two hours had passed.
'You've made progress, I see,' he said approvingly, coming to the
table.
'It's been pretty straightforward.' I didn't ask how he was in front
of Summer, but I could see he was feeling better. He waited until she'd returned to the pans bubbling on the gas burners, then
beckoned me to one side.
'Sorry I took so long, I've been speaking to Dan Gardner. There's
been an interesting development. There aren't any fingerprints on file
for Terry Loomis, the guy whose wallet was at the cabin, so they still
need us to confirm if this is him.' He gestured towards the remains on
the table. 'But they got a result on the print from the film canister.
Belongs to a Willis Dexter, thirty-six-year-old mechanic from
Sevierville.'
Sevierville was a small town not far from Gatlinburg, perhaps
twenty miles from where the body had been found in the mountain
cabin. 'That's good, isn't it?'
'You'd think so,' he agreed. 'They found several other of Dexter's
fingerprints at the cabin, as well. One of them on a week-old credit
card receipt found in Loomis's wallet.'
All of which suggested that Terry Loomis was the victim and
Willis Dexter his killer. But there was something odd about Tom's
manner that told me it wasn't that simple. 'So is he in custody?'
Tom took off his glasses and wiped them on a tissue, a quizzical
smile playing round his mouth. 'Well, that's the thing. It appears
Willis Dexter was killed in a car crash six months ago.'
'That can't be right,' I said. Either the fingerprints couldn't be his
or the wrong name must have been put on the death certificate.
'Doesn't seem so, does it?' Tom put his glasses back on.'That's why
we're exhuming his grave first thing tomorrow.'

You're nine when you see your first dead body. You're dressed in your Sunday
clothes and ushered into a room where wooden chairs have been set outfacing
a shiny casket that stands at the front. It's balanced on trestles covered with
worn black velvet. A piece of blood-red braiding has come loose on one
corner. You're distracted by how it's curled up into an almost perfect figure
eight, so that you're almost up to the casket before you think to look
inside.
Your grandfather's lying in it. He looks . . . different. His face seems waxy,
somehow, and his cheeks have a sunken look, like they do when he forgets to
put in his teeth. His eyes are shut, but there's even something not quite right
about them, too.
You stop dead, feeling a familiar pressure in your chest. A hand presses into
your back, propelling you forward.
'Go on now, take a look.'
You recognize the voice of your aunt. But you didn't need any urging to
go nearer. You sniff, earning a swift cuff on the head.
'Handkerchief!' your aunt hisses. For once, though, you weren't clearing
your nose of its almost permanent drip. Only trying to discern what other
odours might be masked beneath the perfume and scented candles.
'Why're his eyes shut?' you ask.
'Because he's with the Lord,' your aunt says. 'Don't he look peaceful? Just
like he's asleep.'
But he doesn't look asleep to you. What's in the casket looks like it's never
been alive. You stare at it, trying to see exactly what's different, until you're
steered firmly away.
Over the next few years the memory of your grandfather's corpse never fails
to bring with it the same sense of puzzlement, the same tightness in your
chest. It's one of your seminal memories. But it isn't until you're seventeen
that you encounter the event which changes your life.
You're sitting on a bench, reading during your lunch break. The book is a
translation of St Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae you stole from the
library. It's heavy going and naive, of course, but there's some interesting stuff
in it. 'The existence of something and its essence are separate.' You like that,
almost as much as you liked Kierkegaard's assertion that 'death is the light
in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent'. All the
theologians or philosophers you've read contradict each other, and none of
them have any real answers. But they're closer to the mark than the
sophomore posturings of Camus and Sartre, who hide their ignorance behind
a mask of fiction. You've outgrown them already, just as you're already on
your way to outgrowing Aquinas and the rest. In fact you're beginning to
think you won't find the answer in any book. But what else is there?
There've been whisperings at home lately about where the money's coming
from to send you to college. It doesn't bother you. It'll come from somewhere.
You've known for years that you're special, that you're destined for greatness.
It's meant to be.
You chew and swallow the packed sandwiches mechanically as you read,
without enjoyment or taste. Food is fuel, that's all. The most recent operation
cured the nasal drip that blighted your childhood, but at a cost. By now your
sense of smell is all but burnt out, reducing everything but the spiciest of foods
to the blandness of cotton wool.
Finishing the tasteless sandwich, you put the book away. You've just gotten
up from the bench when a screech of brakes is followed by a meaty thud. You
look up to see a woman in the air. She seems to hang for a moment before
crashing down in a sprawl of limbs, almost at your feet. She lies twisted on
her back, face tilted to the sky. For a second her eyes meet yours, wide and
startled. There's no pain or fear in them, only surprise. Surprise and something
else.
Knowledge.
Then the eyes dull and you know instinctively that whatever force had
animated the woman has gone. What lies at your feet now is a sack of meat
and broken bone, nothing more.
Dazed, you stand there as other people crowd round the body, jostling you
aside until it's screened from view. It doesn't matter. You've already seen what
you were meant to.
All that night you lie awake, trying to recall every detail. You feel breathless
and shaken, on the verge of something immense. You know you've been
given a glimpse of something momentous, something both everyday and profound.
Except that for some reason the woman's face, the eyes that seemed to burn into yours, now maddeningly elude you. You want - no, you need to
see that moment again in order to understand what happened. But memory
isn't up to the task, any more than it was when you stared into your grandfather's
casket. It's too subjective; too unreliable. Something this important
demands a more clinical approach.
More permanent.
Next day, withdrawing every cent of your college savings, you buy your first
camera.
Dawn was just a pale band on the horizon when we set off for the
cemetery. The sky was still dark, but the stars were slowly disappearing
as they were overtaken by the new day. The landscape on either
side of the highway was starting to take form, emerging from the
darkness like a photograph in a developing tray. Beyond the stores
and fast food restaurants, the dark bulk of the mountains rose up as
though to emphasize the flimsiness of the man-made facade.
Tom drove in silence. For once he wasn't playing any of his jazz
CDs, though whether that was because of the early hour or a
reflection of his mood I wasn't sure. He'd picked me up from the
hotel, but after a wan smile he'd said little. No one looks their best at
that time of day, but there was a greyness to his face that seemed to
have nothing to do with lack of sleep.
You probably don't look so good yourself. I'd lain awake into the early hours the night before, apprehensive about what lay ahead.Yet it was
hardly my first exhumation, and certainly not the worst.Years before
I'd worked on a mass war grave in Bosnia where entire families had
been buried. This wouldn't be anything like that, and I knew Tom
was doing me a favour in asking me along. By rights I should have
jumped at the chance to take part in a US investigation.
So why wasn't I more enthusiastic?
Where I'd once felt confidence and certainty, now there were only
doubts. All my energy, the focus I used to take for granted, seemed
to have bled out of me on to the floor of my hallway the year before.
And if I felt like this now, what would it be like when I was back in
the UK, working on a murder inquiry by myself?
The truth was I didn't know.
The eastern horizon was streaked with gold as Tom turned off the
highway. We were heading for the suburbs on the eastern fringe of
Knoxville, an area I wasn't familiar with. The neighbourhood was a
poor one: streets of paint-peeling houses with overgrown and junk
filled front yards. The reflective eyes of a cat gleamed in our
headlights as it broke off from eating something in the gutter to glare
at us warily as we drove past.
'Not far now,' Tom said, breaking the silence.
After another mile or so the houses began to give way to
scrubland, and not long after that we came to the cemetery. It was
screened from the road by pine trees and a tall, pale brick wall. A
wrought-iron sign proclaimed Steeple Hill Cemetery and Funeral Home in an arch above the gates. Cresting it was a stylized angel, its head
piously bowed. Even in the half-light I could see that the metal was
rusted, its paint flaking.
We drove through the open gates. Gravestones marched along in
rows on either side, most of them overgrown and unkempt. They
were set against a backdrop of darkly oppressive pine woods, and up
ahead I could make out the outline of what must have been the
funeral home itself: a low, industrial-looking building topped with a
squat steeple.
Off to one side a cluster of parked vehicles announced our
destination. We parked by them and climbed out. I shoved my hands
in my pockets, shivering in the early morning chill. Mist hung over
the dew-silvered grass as we made our way towards the centre of
activity.
Screens had been erected in front of the grave, but at that time of
day there was no one to see it anyway. A small excavator chugged
and juddered as it lifted out another scoop of raw earth, clods dripping
from the shovel as it deposited the soil on a growing pile. The
air smelled of loam and diesel fumes, but the grave had been almost
dug out, a gaping black wound in the turf.
Gardner and Jacobsen stood among a handful of officials and
workmen who waited as the excavator cleared another load of earth.
Standing slightly apart from them was Hicks. The pathologist's bald
head protruded from an oversized mackintosh that made the
resemblance to a turtle more striking than ever. His presence was
little more than a formality, since the body would almost certainly be
handed over to Tom for examination.
It was obvious from his face that he wasn't happy about it.
Another man stood nearby. He was tall and smartly dressed, wearing
a camel hair coat over a sombre black suit and tie. He watched
the excavator's progress with an expression that could have been
either aloof or bored. When he noticed us he seemed to become
more alert, his gaze fixed on Tom as we approached.
'Tom,' Gardner said. The TBI agent's eyes were pouched and
bloodshot. By contrast Jacobsen looked as fresh as though she'd had
nine hours' undisturbed sleep, her belted mac crisp and immaculate.
Tom smiled but said nothing. Slight as the hill was, I could see that
he'd been winded by the short walk up from the car. Hicks gave him
a jaundiced look but didn't offer any greeting. Ignoring me
altogether, he took a grubby handkerchief from his pocket and
loudly blew his nose.
Gardner indicated the tall man in the camel hair coat. 'This is Eliot
York. He's the owner of Steeple Hill. He helped organize the
exhumation.'
'Always glad to assist.' York hurried forward to shake Tom's hand.
'Dr Lieberman, it's an honour, sir.'
The reek of his cologne cut through even the diesel fumes from
the excavator. I'd have put him in his late forties, but it was hard to
tell. He was a big, fleshy man, with the sort of unlined features that seem to grow heavier instead of ageing. But his dark hair had a matt
look that suggested it was dyed, and when he turned I saw it had
been carefully brushed to conceal a bald spot on his crown.
I noticed that Tom detached his hand as soon as possible before
introducing me. 'This is my colleague, Dr Hunter. He's visiting us
from the UK.'
York offered me a perfunctory greeting. Up close the cuffs of the
camel hair coat were worn and frayed, and from what I could see of
it underneath, his black suit needed cleaning. Judging by the
bloodied nicks and tufts of missed whiskers he'd shaved either
hurriedly or with a blunt razor. And even his eye-wateringly strong
cologne couldn't disguise the cigarette breath or the yellow nicotine
stains on his fingers.
He was already turning back to Tom before he'd even released my
hand. 'I've heard a lot about your work, Dr Lieberman. And your
facility, of course.'
'Thank you, but it isn't exactly "my" facility.'
'No, of course. A credit to Tennessee, though, all the same.' He
gave an unctuous smile. 'Not that I'd compare my, ah, vocation to
yours, but in my own small way, I like to think I'm also carrying out
a public service. Not always pleasant, but a necessary one, all the
same.'
Tom's smile never wavered.'Quite. So you carried out this burial?'
York inclined his head. 'We had that honour, sir, although I'm
afraid I can't recollect much in this particular instance. We carry out
so many, you understand. Steeple Hill provides a fully comprehensive
funeral service, including both cremation and interment in this
beautiful setting.' He gestured around the unkempt grounds as
though they were a stately park. 'My father founded the company in
1958, and we've been serving the bereaved ever since. Our motto is
"Dignity and comfort", and I like to think we uphold that.'
The sales pitch was met by an embarrassed silence. Tom looked
relieved when Gardner stepped in.
'Shouldn't take much longer. We're almost there,' he said. York's
smile faded with disappointment as Tom was deftly steered away.
As though to prove Gardner's point, the excavator deposited one
last scoop of dirt on the pile and backed away with a final cough of
exhaust. A tired-looking man I took to be a public health official
nodded to one of the workmen. Wearing protective overalls and
mask, he stepped forward and spread disinfectant into the open hole.
Disease doesn't always end with the host's death. As well as the
bacteria that flourish on decomposing flesh, hepatitis, HIV and TB
are just some of the pathogens that the dead can pass on to the living.
A workman in mask and overalls lowered a short ladder into the
grave and began to finish exposing the casket with a shovel. By
the time he'd attached straps so it could be lifted out, the sky had
lightened to a pale blue and the pine forest was casting long shadows
across the grass. When the workman climbed out, he and the others
stood on either side of the grave and began hauling the casket out in
a macabre reversal of a funeral.
The mud-smeared shape slowly emerged, shedding clods of earth.
The men set it down on the boards that had been laid beside the
grave and quickly backed away.
'Damn! That stinks!' one of them muttered.
He was right. Even where we stood, the stench of putrefaction was
fouling the morning air. Wrinkling his nose, Gardner went over and
bent to examine the casket.
'The lid's split,' he said, indicating a crack beneath the caking of
soil. 'Don't think it's been broken into, just looks like pretty thin
wood.'
'That's finest American pine! It's a perfectly good casket!'York
blustered. No one took any notice.
Tom leaned over the casket, sniffing. 'Did you say this was buried
six months ago?' he asked Gardner.
'That's right. Why?'
Tom didn't answer.'Odd. What do you think, David?'
I tried not to show my discomfort as all eyes moved to me. 'It
shouldn't smell like that,' I said reluctantly. 'Not after only six
months.'
'In case you hadn't noticed, that casket's not exactly airtight,' Hicks
said. 'Hole like that, what do you expect?'
I hoped Tom would respond, but he seemed intent on studying
the casket.'It's still had six feet of topsoil on top of it. That far underground
the decomposition's going to be much slower than it would
be on the surface.'
'I wasn't speaking to you, but thanks for pointing that out,' Hicks
said, dripping sarcasm. 'I'm sure being British, you know all about
Tennessee conditions.'
Tom straightened from the casket. 'Actually, David's right. Even
if the body wasn't embalmed the decomp shouldn't smell this bad,
broken lid or not.'
The pathologist glared at him. 'Then why don't we take a look?'
He motioned brusquely to the workmen. 'Open it up.'
'Here?'Tom said, surprised. Normally the casket would have been
transported to the morgue before it was opened.
Hicks seemed to be relishing the moment. 'The casket's already
breached. If the body's as far gone as you say, I'd rather find out now.
I've wasted enough time already'
I knew Tom well enough to see his disapproval from the slight
pursing of his lips, but he said nothing. Until the body had been