Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [17]
That day she reported that a client named Nelson Octavio had called. At least she got the phone number right. Meadows felt a pulse of excitement as he waited for Nelson to come to the phone.
“Nelson, it’s Meadows. Have you arrested those guys yet?”
“No, amigo, we’re still working on it. But we’ve got a lead, and I’d like you to give us a hand.”
“Sure. What can I do?”
“They found a body last night in Coral Gables. It might be one of the guys you saw in the shootout. I’d appreciate it if you went down to the medical examiner’s office and took a look. Won’t take long.”
“Where?”
“The county morgue. Downtown.”
“Jesus. Can’t I just look at a picture?” Meadows asked. “I don’t want to go to the morgue.”
“Sorry, but a picture is no good. All these scumbags look alike when they’re dead,” Nelson said. “The complexion, the hairline, the size of the face—none of that comes through in a mug shot. Really, it would be a big help.…”
All look alike when they’re dead. Meadows saw Jessica’s body again as it arched into the air, Sandy’s as it dragged along the ground. “I’ll be there,” he said, and hung up.
THE MEDICAL EXAMINER’S office, Meadows discovered after a series of wrong turns, was a featureless two-story annex attached to Flagler Memorial Hospital. Buildings without architecture, Miami was full of them.
Meadows was intercepted by a laconic clerk who seemed as anonymous.
“I’m here to look at a body,” he said.
“Are you next-of-kin?”
“Uh, no. Definitely not.”
“Name?”
“Christopher Meadows.”
The clerk leafed through a stack of pink carbons.
“We don’t have a Chris Meadows. We have a Christine Reilly, but she’s already been ID’d by her daughter.”
“Meadows is my name. I was asked to come down here and look at a body that was found this morning.”
“OK, whose body?” The clerk tapped a Bic pen on her desk. She had all day.
“I don’t know. They didn’t give me a name.”
“Is this a joke?”
“No, Detective Nelson told me to come. He said he was going to meet me here.”
The clerk mashed an intercom button. “Dr. Appel?”
“Yes, Lorie,” a voice reverberated. It sounded as if the man were in Key West.
“There’s a man named Meadows here wants to look at a body. Says Nelson sent him.”
“Right. Send him back.”
Meadows edged cautiously through one set of swinging doors, then another. He found himself standing in a vast room, walled in old tiles the color of lima beans. It took several moments before Meadows realized he was surrounded by human bodies.
They lay, one after another, on silver autopsy tables. Some were splayed open at the sternum, the skin stretched back and the chest cavity open like a Thanksgiving turkey. Meadows thought the corpses looked very small. The whole room smelled rotten and cold. He swallowed hard.
“Hello there.”
Meadows spun around. Dr. Harry Appel stood behind him.
“Hello,” Meadows replied shakily. “You scared me.”
“Didn’t mean to,” Appel said. “Sit down.”
Meadows sat. Appel, a tall man with tortoise-shell glasses, turned back to his work. In one hand he held a half-eaten ham-and-cheese sandwich. The other hand held a human heart, a small bloody violet balloon. Meadows thought he was going to be sick.
“I’d offer you a sandwich,” Appel was saying, “but this is the last one in the house.” The doctor noticed Meadows pale. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He put the sandwich in a paper bag. “I normally don’t eat on the job, but we’ve had a very busy morning. As you can see.”
Meadows nodded weakly and looked at the floor.
Appel placed the heart on a scale and read the weight aloud into a Dictaphone. Then he took a plastic bag, the same kind sold as sandwich bags in any grocery store, and pinched an edge until it opened. He slid the heart in, twisted a metal tab to seal it and dropped the whole soggy package back into the chest cavity. Meadows watched, transfixed.
“I have to do this,” Appel explained. “Used to be I could throw the organs away after I took lab samples. Lately, though, a lot of families insist that their loved ones be buried intact, with all the parts and pieces.”
Meadows just nodded.
“So, you