11

Despite the sour tone in which I delivered it, Rodgers and Quinto accepted my invitation. After dropping by Boatreng’s desk with the tattoo parlor address, we all descended the steps to the morgue. The cool stone underfoot echoed the sounds of our footsteps, and a dim light suffused the equally cool, sterile air.

When I turned the corner into the cavernous investigation room, the usual suspects presented themselves. The shiny steel cadaver vaults along the room’s far side, the examination tables laden with bleached white sheets, steel bowls, collections of scalpels, forceps, and pincers alongside the occasional clipboard, and our resident expert on all things deceased, Cairny. She’d replaced last night’s little black dress with a pair of flowing black pants and a white lab coat, presumably with a black blouse underneath it, given her proclivities. Everything was as it should’ve been—except for the presence of Cairny’s colleague.

He stood somewhere between Quinto’s and my height, with close-cropped hair and cheekbones so sharp you could slice an apple on them. His ears were pointed as only a pure-blooded elf’s could be, but even accounting for his race, he was on the gaunt side. His lab coat hung over his shoulders loosely, his clavicles a coat hanger of bone.

The pair of them stood side by side, up to their wrists in Biggie’s chest cavity. I stopped a few yards shy. I didn’t have any need to get up close and personal with the man’s spleen.

“Cairny,” I said.

She turned. “Hello, Daggers. I was wondering when you might drop by. Good to see you, Rodgers. And you, too, of course, Quinto.”

She gave her beau a warm smile. Come to think of it, I couldn’t recall her referring to him by his first name. Then again, I usually referred to Steele by her last name at work—not that the occasional given name or term of endearment didn’t slip though the cracks. Usually only when we thought other people weren’t listening, though.

“Who’s your friend?” I asked.

“Coroner Larkspur,” said Cairny, tipping her head toward the elf. “He’s been lending me a hand most of the morning.”

When the elf spoke, it was in an emotionless drawl, too high pitched to be pleasant. “Hel-lo.”

What was it about the coroner profession that attracted individuals with severe social issues? At least we’d reformed Cairny. Mostly. “Right. Captain said you’d be here. From the Grant Street Precinct?”

“In-deed.”

There was something about the man’s eyes that gave me the willies. Nothing suspicious. Just your average, run-of-the-mill creeper mortuary vibe.

I nodded toward the body. “Make any progress, Cairny?”

She gave a waffling nod. “Yes and no.”

“That doesn’t sound promising,” said Quinto.

He was right. Cairny usually brimmed with enthusiasm for autopsies.

“Larkspur and I already finished our examination of the first deceased,” said Cairny, shooting a thumb toward a white sheet-draped exam table on the far side of the room. “His examination was straightforward, which isn’t to say simple, mind you. We had to add more paper to his file to catalog his many injuries. Dozens of facial lacerations. Bruising to the ribs, stomach, chest, and back. The broken arm—which you did quite a number on, Daggers—as well as numerous other fractures he must’ve sustained during your fall. We counted sixteen, all told, including three ribs, a tibia, and his coccyx. And that’s before getting to the severe puncture wound that ended his final suffering quite rapidly. The broken post from the coffee cart managed to tear open the lower portion of his right ventricle.”

“That’s part of the heart, right?” I said.

“In-deed,” Larkspur said again. I was starting to question his vocabulary in addition to his social skills.

Quinto pointed toward Biggie. “I assume he’s the one giving you trouble.”

Cairny sighed. “To say the least.”

I snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re stumped.”

“In regards to what killed him?” said Cairny. “Certainly not, mostly because we haven’t come close to exhausting our options yet. What we do have is an ever expanding list of what didn’t kill him. The gut wound for one, as we already discussed last night. As it turns out, my initial guess was correct. The blade lacerated his bowels but nothing else. Larkspur and I have since ruled out a heart attack, which could’ve been triggered by an adrenaline surge induced during the fight. We haven’t cut into his head, so we can’t disregard a ruptured aneurysm, triggered by any number of blows he received, though we think that’s relatively unlikely, too.”

“An an-eurysm would’ve in-capacitated him quite rapidly,” said Larkspur. “You would’ve noticed.”

“Exactly,” said Cairny. “It would’ve killed him too quickly. Which leaves my poison hypothesis from last night. I took blood and tissue samples from the cadaver. I’ve started what tests I could here in my lab. The rest I’ve sent for further analysis. I should have the results back by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“And I imagine we’ll have to wait on those for an explanation of his too rapid rigor mortis,” I said.

“Most likely,” said Cairny, “but…that’s where things get confusing.”

“I was confused when you tried to explain it last night,” I said, “but go on.”

Cairny shared a glance with Larkspur. “We talked it over, and neither one of us could come up with a toxin that would cause both of the effects we witnessed in the deceased. Either, sure, but a fast acting poison that also causes accelerated rigor mortis? If it exists, neither of us is familiar with it, which would imply that if this man were poisoned, it was with a cocktail of chemicals.”

We stood there in silence for a moment.

Rodgers scratched his chin. “I’m sorry. Is there a reason we’re supposed to be concerned by that?”

“Not especially,” said Cairny. “But it begs the question of why? If the blade were intended for Detective Daggers, and by his own recollection it certainly was, then it’s reasonable to assume it might’ve been laced with a fast-acting poison. But why also apply an additional chemical that affects the body’s decomposition response? Why would that be a desirable outcome, either in the attempted murder of Detective Daggers or in the murder of anyone else? And it would have to be a desired outcome, otherwise why apply the second chemical?”

The combined weight of three sets of eyes turned my way, all except those of the skeletal Larkspur. “What are you looking at me for?”

“Isn’t this sort of your specialty?” said Quinto. “The rest of us do the leg work, collect evidence, and you piece it together into a wild scheme only you have the creative chops to dream up.”

“Hey, now,” said Rodgers. “He’s not the only one with creative chops.”

“You want to take a stab at this, then?” said Quinto.

Rodgers shrugged. “Easy. Whatever made the rigor mortis set in quickly must be a preservative, right? It would imply the killers didn’t just want to murder Daggers, they wanted to keep his body for some reason.”

I gave the blonde charmer the old eyebrow raise. “Seriously? You’re freaking me out. As if having two hitmen try to off me wasn’t bad enough.”

“You got any better ideas?”

I didn’t.

“There is, of course, another possibility,” said Cairny.

“That being?” I said.

“That Larkspur and I are entirely wrong. We tested the knife and didn’t find any lingering poisons at the base of the blade. If it was poisoned, it must’ve only been at the tip, where the poisons entered and spread through the deceased’s body.”

“But if Biggie wasn’t poisoned, then what killed him? And what made his body lock up like that?”

Cairny shrugged. “You’re better at coming up with unfounded theories than the rest of us. It could be something completely removed of our realm of thought. Something magical in nature, perhaps.”

“Really, Cairny?” I said. “You’re usually not one to delve into the supernatural.”

“I’m also not one to get stumped. Which I’m not. Yet.”

I shook my head. “I’d love to indulge you, but I think poison makes the most sense. It wouldn’t necessarily have to have been on the blade, either. It’s possible Biggie realized he was a dead man and took a pill to put himself out of his misery, or to keep himself from being captured and interrogated. You find any evidence of elevated drug residue in his stomach?”

“We haven’t bothered to look yet,” said Cairny. “We’ll take swabs, but those’ll require additional toxicology tests.”

“And more days of waiting. Wonderful.”

Cairny crossed to an empty exam table and lifted a saw. “In the meantime, Larkspur and I are going to put the aneurysm question to the test. Anyone care to stay for the results?”

Quinto may have been engaged to Cairny now, but his feet carried him out the morgue and up the stairs as fast as Rodgers’ and mine did.