The Unspoken

Page 20

To her relief, she hadn’t seen McFarland since she’d come back. Dr. Randall was attending with her, and assistants came and went. Other corpses were due for autopsy as well, despite the late hour.
So far Austin Miller had been disrobed, bathed and photographed. The call had gone to all the proper authorities, allowing her and Will to take over the investigation. No one seemed disturbed by that—but then no one was convinced that any crimes had been committed.
“To see for oneself,” Dr. Randall murmured.
“Autopsy? The word’s from the Greek autopsia and means ‘the act of seeing with one’s own eyes,’” she said. “Is that what you’re referring to?” She was never sure if it was because she was a woman, or because she was small and blonde and fair that people always seemed to doubt her credentials.
“I wasn’t testing you,” Randall said. “I was just wondering what we might see for ourselves, what truth lies below the surface.”
They’d just finished the external examination of the body. She paused before going any further. “There’s a bruise rising on his right arm.”
“So there is,” Randall agreed. He picked up the camera again, taking several shots of the area. “Almost like a defensive wound, as if he lifted that arm to ward someone off.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“But there are no other external marks on the body. Poor fellow, his feet weren’t in great shape, but he wasn’t overweight.”
Kat had his medical records on her chart so she knew he hadn’t suffered from diabetes. Other than his heart medications, not surprising for a man his age, he’d been in excellent health.
“He was fit—until he was dead,” Dr. Randall said drily.
“Shall we open him up now?” Kat asked.
“Be my guest.”
She took her own scalpel and began the classic Y incision, beginning at the upper left chest and bringing the angle down to the tip of the sternum, then repeating the action from the right, intersecting at the xiphoid process. Her incision extended downward to the symphysis pubis, just above the genital region, curving around the navel. She was always careful; a cut that went too deep could compromise the organs. Just as carefully, she lifted the flaps of skin and subcutaneous fat.
“Beautiful incisions,” Randall said.
Soon, the musculoskeletal structure was visible.
“No past fractures apparent in any of the ribs,” she noted.
She went on to make notations regarding the organs. Randall came forward with the rib cutters and freed the sternum and ribs and removed them.
It was usual procedure for the heart to be the first organ examined, which answered their questions immediately. Kat inspected and cut the pericardium. The damage there was acute.
“Heart failure,” Randall said.
She looked across at him and nodded.
The removal of the heart showed further sudden and massive damage, but not the kind of fluid accumulation that would indicate he’d been shoved in the chest or struck with a blunt object. Kat hadn’t expected anything else, nor did she expect to find injury—other than the wear and tear of age—to any of the other organs. The stomach interested her the most. She and Randall studied the contents together. “Looks like fish and greens, probably consumed about five hours prior to death,” he said.
“According to his good friend Dirk Manning, he was punctual with his evening meal. He ate at precisely seven every evening, so that puts his death right around midnight,” Kat told him.
“I agree with you, Dr. Sokolov.” Randall turned to her. “We found what you were expecting. I can finish up for you if you wish, and I promise I’ll be thorough and take every possible sample for analysis.” He smiled. “You look as if you’re going to drop.”
“That bad?”
“Ah, my dear, youth is beautiful—you could never look bad. But you do look exhausted.”
She was exhausted. And she liked Randall’s comfort with his profession, his unassuming competence, his ease with those around him.
“I’ll take you up on that offer,” she said, adding, “My colleagues may want to see him tomorrow.”
“No problem.”
Kat left him, shedding her scrubs and washing up. She’d accompanied the body, and Will Chan had stayed at the house. Some of her own Krewe might have arrived by now, but when she went to Randall’s office to get her purse, she hesitated only a minute before dialing Will Chan’s number.
“Hey. You done already? I thought an autopsy took longer,” he said.
“Randall is finishing up. I pretty much found what I was looking for. There were no evident poisons in the stomach, but it’ll take a while to get the labs back. I believe he was frightened to death.”
“Someone was definitely here,” Will told her.
“How do you know?”
“I’ll show you. You ready for a ride?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Fifteen minutes later, he drove by the morgue. “You look like hell,” he said as she slid into the front seat.
Did people have to keep telling her this?
“That’s not a pickup line of yours, is it? If so, it’s not a good one.”
He laughed. “Sorry. Exhausted, is that better?”
“I am tired. But what did you find?”
He motioned to the glove compartment. She opened it and drew out a plastic bag, then looked at him with a gasp. “It’s more of the…mummy stuff!”
“Yep.”
“Where did you—”
“On the outside of the stone wall. I believe someone dressed up as a mummy and went after Austin Miller. It had to be someone who knew his habits—where to go and what time. And that he didn’t put on the alarm until he went to bed.”
“It should actually be easy to figure out who this person is. Someone who dives, knows all about Egyptology, knew Austin Miller and has a boat, or an accomplice with a boat.” She paused. “Of course, we’re still going on our assumptions.”
He turned the corner to reach their hotel before speaking again. “Educated assumptions. Or theories or guesses, whatever. We need to spend more time in the house. I think we may find clues among Austin Miller’s papers. Thankfully he wasn’t as up-to-date on technology as his good friend Dirk Manning. He didn’t even have a computer that I could see. He did have dozens of ledgers, and pages and pages of notes. Also, one of those bookcases was filled with journals written by his father and grandfather.”
Something touched Kat’s shoulder. Something furry. She let out a startled scream.
“Oh! Sorry,” Will said.
“What the—” As she spoke, the furry thing leaped into her lap. It was Bastet, Austin Miller’s cat.
She stared at Will.
He shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? The place is locked up tight and I’ve had them cordon off the whole house, all around the wall, because I don’t want visitors—like whoever did the old fellow in.”
The cat purred and sat calmly on her lap.
“What are we going to do with a cat?” she asked.
“Hey, I brought the litter box.”
“She’s your responsibility. I’m a dog person. I mean, if I had a pet, it would be a dog,” Kat told him.
“That’s an Egyptian Mau—an expensive cat, I’ll have you know.”
The animal was still happily purring.
“I keep feeling she wants to tell us something,” Will said. He gazed straight ahead. “Did you feel that…Austin Miller might be of any help?”
“Not tonight.” She hesitated, stroking the cat’s sleek head. “I’ve rarely had anyone speak in the middle of an autopsy. Maybe the soul gets stronger—and stays away from that agony.”
“I want to get back in that house,” he said. “And I want to go to a meeting of the Egyptian Sand Diggers.”
“Did Austin Miller remain there?” she asked. “In his house?”
“I don’t know. There were too many people. Riley is a really good guy. He kept everyone away from the death scene—except, of course, the pathology team that was with you when the body was removed. But there were officers inspecting the alarm system and generally milling around. We can find out tomorrow.”
“But you want to dive in the morning,” she said.
“Yes. I think it’s important we be there for the next few days.” He suddenly pulled the car to the curb. They were close to the hotel, and she had no idea why he’d stopped.
Bastet curled up on her lap, still purring.
“What?” she asked him.
“Every time we go down to the ship, you stare at the grand salon. Why?”
“The ship’s impressive.”
He smiled. “You don’t lie well, you know.”
“What do you mean? The ship isn’t impressive?”
His smile deepened and he leaned back in the seat. “There’s a reason.”
“It may be nothing.”
He leaned toward her, touching her hand where it lay on the cat’s soft fur. “In our world, nothing is rarely nothing. Please, tell me.”
“It just seems kind of…well, ridiculous. And maybe it shouldn’t.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I feel like I’ve always seen the dead—which of course doesn’t mean that I see every dead person. Or that I can pull out a cell phone and dial a ghost. I’m accustomed to seeking them out or having them come to me when we can help them, but I’ve never had precognitive dreams or visions of the past.”
“But now you did?”
“At first, none of it connected. At first all I could think of was how horrified I felt. In L.A. we nearly lost a young woman because of a movie made in the forties—about a murderous high priest named Amun Mopat. You’re aware of all this, right? Well, what I didn’t know was that the author of the screenplay had used a real entity. So, all I could think was, Oh, Lord, you have to be kidding me, not the mummy of that creep! But the night before Logan talked to me, I dreamed I was on a ship and people in Victorian dress were dancing and music was playing, and then…a storm came up.”