Pulyatkin, the coroner, pulled a sour face when he saw Grip and Morphy return. Grip sucked on a toothpick and surveyed the room under heavy lids, as though something or someone might be trying to hide from him. Morphy, as always, was more laconic, disconcerting Pulyatkin with an unblinking stare.
“You figured anything out, comrade?” Grip asked, close to the old man and leading with his chest.
Pulyatkin took a step back. “Something, yes. I haven’t been able to identify her, but, well, let me show you.”
The two cops followed Pulyatkin to the far examination table where Pulyatkin pulled back the sheet to expose the corpse’s face. Grip was again taken with how attractive she must have been when life had animated her features. In death, she retained the quality of beauty that one might find in a statue.
“So, again, this is her,” Pulyatkin said. “I can tell you this, no identifying birthmarks or major scars. I’m waiting on fingerprints, but it will take a while. Dead prostitute, no sign of foul play….”
Grip was fixed on her face, mottled with the little sores. “You said you were going to show us something.”
“I don’t know for certain, but I would guess she’s not American. Not originally, at least.”
Grip jumped on this. “She’s foreign? From where? How do you know?”
Pulyatkin looked over at Morphy, who was slowly walking around the room, his head tilted slightly as if at a better angle for hearing.
Pulyatkin hesitated; Morphy’s wandering had thrown him off. The humming sound of the lights filled the void. “I took a look at her possessions, what was found on her body: a necklace, a cross with an inscription in Cyrillic letters.”
Grip said, “Yeah?”
“It didn’t say anything interesting, Detective. You aren’t that lucky. A good-luck charm that would be common in rural Russia.”
Grip nodded, his eyes eager. “Could she have gotten it here? Maybe from a relative?”
Pulyatkin shrugged. “Could be, but I don’t think so. You get a sense of bodies when you’re in this business as long as I’ve been. You can tell things. She isn’t American. Her body doesn’t have that history.”
Grip nodded, not sure he was convinced. He looked to Morphy, but Morphy was leafing through a folder he’d pulled off a metal table by the wall.
“Detective,” Pulyatkin called to him. Morphy finished reading the paper and tossed the folder back on the table.
“There’s another thing you might find of interest.” Pulyatkin reached into a bowl and pulled out a pink-and-purple mass.
“Jesus,” Grip said. “The hell’s that?”
“Her liver.”
“Fuck,” Grip said.
Morphy walked over, hands behind his back. “What are those white marks?” he asked, nodding to the slightly raised white welts that formed a lattice over the organ.
“Lesions of some sort. I haven’t seen anything quite like them before.” Pulyatkin replaced the liver and pulled a second organ from a different bowl. “Her heart, also with the white lesions.”
Morphy took a close look, his face inches away. Satisfied, he straightened up. “That doesn’t look healthy.”
Grip gave a quick, truncated laugh.
“No,” Pulyatkin said gravely. “I suspect that she would have died very soon if she hadn’t drowned.”
“So, what does all this mean, in your opinion?” Grip asked.
Pulyatkin replaced the heart. He turned from them and walked to the washbasin, talking over his shoulder. “She had some kind of disease, something that I have not seen before. Based on that and the necklace, I would surmise that she picked it up abroad, and I would think not from the USSR. One hears about diseases like this; Africa, maybe South America. I don’t know. It’s just a guess.”
Pulyatkin turned on the water and began to wash his hands.
Grip looked at Morphy. “Doesn’t tell us a whole hell of a lot.”
“I saw the necklace when she was in the river.” Morphy frowned and asked of Puyatkin’s back, “There’s nothing else?”
Pulyatkin shrugged without turning. “There’s no identification, no personal effects except for her clothes and the necklace. Maybe someone will come and identify her.”
Something about the coroner’s dismissive tone angered Grip. He stalked over to the washbasin and grabbed Pulyatkin’s shoulder and turned him so that the two men faced each other.
“Listen, comrade. This is a very important case, right? We don’t have time to wait and hope that someone comes in to identify her. We need to know now. What else can you tell us?”
Pulyatkin stared back at Grip, keeping his gaze steady, not backing down. They stared at each other for a few moments, then Pulyatkin dropped his eyes to Grip’s hand on his shoulder. Grip pulled it away.
Pulyatkin spoke quietly. “If someone comes to claim the body, I will let you know. Beyond that there is nothing I can tell you about this woman. Now I have some work to do.”
Grip continued to stare at Pulyatkin. Morphy put a hand on Grip’s shoulder. “Come on.”
Grip kept his eyes on Pulyatkin, hesitating as if he had something else to say, but he just shook his head and followed Morphy to the door while Pulyatkin, motionless, watched.