Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [43]
Chapter Seventeen
The medical examiner’s office was housed in a stolid, bland structure typical of the 1960s genre of institutional buildings. Dull and functional, its rectangular glass windows were bordered by metal rims set in a featureless brick façade.
Just down the block from the Victorian opulence of Bellevue Hospital, with its dark red brick, heavy, ornate balustrades, and carved gargoyles hanging from ivy-covered eaves, the ME’s building was like the prim Lutheran cousin who came to visit for the weekend and ended up staying.
They entered the lobby, with its scuffed yellow plastic chairs and cheap carpeting. Within these bland walls were the laboratories and autopsy rooms filled with corpses of people who had been drowned, poisoned, shot, stabbed, beaten, and hacked to death.
The desk attendant wasn’t sure which direction to send them, so they headed for the main autopsy room. Standing in front of a glass window so clean it was invisible, they looked around for a medical examiner or lab technician, but the room was empty of all living beings, quiet as a tomb. The only occupants were half a dozen bodies on steel gurneys, in various stages of decay. Even the pressed white sheets covering them couldn’t hide the ravages of death on the human body—here a livid arm protruded, there a brown stain seeped through the pristine covering.
Lee looked away. At least Laura, when they found her, would be nothing more than clean white bones, none of this messy and gruesome horror. He looked at Kathy, but her face was grim and unreadable. Maybe she didn’t like seeing corpses any more than he did.
Chuck Morton came walking down the long hallway with his cell phone to his ear. He waved at Lee and said into the phone, “Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.” He put the phone in his breast pocket and approached them with a rueful expression. “Missing soccer again. Afraid I’m not much of a dad lately.” Seeing Kathy, he held out his hand. “Chuck Morton, Captain, Bronx Major Case Unit.”
She shook his hand. “Katherine Azarian, forensic pathologist. I’m just here to give my opinion, for what it’s worth.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard of you. You’re out of Philadelphia, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’m here testifying in the Lorenzo case.”
“Right, right—the skeleton that turned up in Queens.” He turned to Lee, his face apologetic.
“I’m sorry to call you here like this. It could be there’s no connection, but I just thought—”
“It’s all right,” Lee answered. “I’m glad you called. Where is…” She? It? He couldn’t bring himself to say either word, so his sentence trailed off into thin air.
“Elaine’s just bringing the…uh, remains…from the main morgue.” Chuck also seemed to have trouble finding the right words.
Lee swallowed, his Adam’s apple tight and dry in his throat.
A short blond woman with a tight pixie face came down the hall wheeling a metal gurney. Under the white sheet was the clear outline of a skeleton. Lee forced himself to concentrate on his breathing as the woman wheeled the gurney into the autopsy room. The three of them followed her, and Lee wasn’t prepared for the smell as the door opened. In spite of the strong odor of disinfectant, as well as formaldehyde and various other laboratory chemicals, the stench lingered underneath, clinging to his nostrils with a noxious insistence, causing a deep, instinctive repulsion.
It was the smell of death.
“This is Elaine Margolies,” Chuck said, introducing the blond woman. “She’s chief assistant medical examiner.”
Elaine Margolies was all business. “A couple of boys came