In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [74]
She was glad he hadn’t slipped up and called her Zelda again. Marco Camelia was a nice man. A good man. A very attractive man. But his heart should belong to another, and so should hers.
“Friends,” she said again as he waved to the waiter for the check.
“Always,” he said simply.
And somehow, she knew he meant it. Loyalty was yet another facet of his character, hidden, along with the tenderness, beneath that tough Sicilian-cop facade.
40
An autopsy was not exactly the event Camelia would have chosen to attend after a memorable meal with his more than memorable companion, but he was here to do a job.
He dropped her off at the hotel. She kissed him good night in the lobby under the envious gaze of the other male guests and staff, then loped to the elevator with a tiny wave of one hand, smiling, friendly-style, at everyone she passed.
Staring after her, Camelia shook his head. He would treasure the memory of the way she looked forever.
The Pathology Department was all white tile and steel, with the smell of formaldehyde overlaying the odor of decay. A bank of refrigerated steel drawers held the remains of those waiting to be autopsied or to be claimed by next of kin. As he waited, a sheeted, toe-tagged body was wheeled past him en route to its final mortal humiliation of having its innards inspected to ascertain the cause of death.
He knew from experience that pathologists were not the gentle craftsmen and artists that surgeons were. Here, bodies were sawn roughly open, their organs removed and weighed, and dropped into steel dishes; even the contents of their stomachs were inspected and accounted for. Gaping wounds were prodded and poked, and when the job was finished, the bodies were sewn up again, with big darning stitches, not those neat little O.R. jobs. Back in one piece, after an autopsy the body resembled nothing more than Frankenstein’s monster, ready to rise up and claim fame on the silver screen.
Except in this case there was no body to saw open and dissect. All they had was a sickening heap of stinking rotted flesh and a pile of bones.
Somewhere in all that, the pathologist found teeth that could be matched to dental records for identification. And hair to be tested for DNA. And the fact that this was a male of the human species. Plus five slugs from what looked to be a .40mm semiautomatic.
Camelia regretted the crab-stuffed oysters. His stomach churned, but he forced himself to stand his ground. As a member of the Yankee NYPD, he couldn’t let his team down in front of the Confederates. “I don’t know how the hell y’do it,” he marveled when the job was done and the nauseating remains were carefully sealed in a steel container.
“To be truthful, sometimes I don’t either,” the gray-haired doctor answered. “Years of experience, I guess. But I don’t mind admitting how many times I lost my cookies, when I was a rookie.” He grinned as he removed his scrubs, then washed his hands. “Come on, let’s have a cup of good strong coffee and I’ll tell you what we’ve got.”
It was two-thirty in the morning and the hot coffee felt good in Camelia’s ice-bound stomach. The pathologist told him that this was undoubtedly a male and that he had been dead when he was placed in the cooler. That five shots at close range had been what killed him and, he would guess, had blown the top of his head off. Probably a .40mm.
The same as the bullets in Ed Vincent, Camelia noted.
From the hair and skin texture, the pathologist guessed the man was Latino. And he knew he had been shot from behind.
“How the hell can y’tell all that from . . .” Camelia couldn’t even begin to describe the slimy, rotting mess in the cooler.
“That’s my job,” he said coolly. “And now I have another one to tackle before I can get some rest. So if you’ll excuse me.”
As he shook the pathologist’s cold hand, Camelia smelled the faint odor of formaldehyde and disinfectant that still hung around him. He didn’t bother to finish his coffee. He was out of there and back at the hotel and on the phone to the department