“There’s actually another floor below us,” Kir said.
This elevator was an oversize freight elevator, large enough to hold three gurneys at once. Empty, it felt like a room.
Downstairs, the hallway seemed narrow, a result of the sanitize chamber that had been retrofitted along the outside of the morgue in the aftermath of the first pandemic. Inside the chamber there were benches and spare hazmat suits. It was cold, colder than the rest of the hospital. Through the window of the inner door, Laughton could see eight cadavers laid out on stainless steel tables and covered with sheets. Three medical students in hazmat suits were gathered around one of the tables, their corpse uncovered, its chest open. One of them was hunched over the body, her hands in the cavity as she made careful cuts to remove one of the organs. A tablet on a stand showed a painting of some anatomical structure.
Sitting on a stool at a high shelf was an older man with thick gray hair, not wearing a suit or even a mask. If he doesn’t have to wear one, Laughton thought, then no way I am. The chief pressed the release button to the side of the inner door. A red light flashed, and with a thunk, the outer door locked, and the light turned green as the lock disengaged on the inner door.
The smell in the room was like a physical assault, a burning in the back of the throat. It mixed with Chief Laughton’s headache to send a wave of nausea from his gut to his mouth. Where did they get this many human bodies?
The older man had stood when Laughton and Kir walked in. Now, as they approached, he said, “May I help you?”
Laughton showed him his ID, taking off his own mask. “You are… ?”
“Dr. Conroy,” the older man said. Then the ID registered. “You’re working the murder?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why he’s here,” Dr. Conroy said. Then to Kir, “Why are you bothering to wear that?” he said.
Kir said, “Jesse thought it would help me blend in.” He left it on. “I kind of like it.”
Dr. Conroy shrugged. “I was just finishing up the report,” he said, gesturing to the tablet sitting on his high desk.
“The autopsy’s done?”
“I didn’t get any word that someone was coming.”
“Nobody knew who to contact,” Jesse said.
“They knew where to send the body.”
“Bodies go to morgues,” Kir said.
Dr. Conroy said, “Well, you want to look?” He stepped around Chief Laughton, and led them the length of the room. Built-in cabinets and a counter ran down the back wall. Fluorescent lights under the cabinets lit the various bottles and supply bins neatly organized on the counter. A large bank of stainless steel sinks was along the short wall. A light array hung on an articulated arm above each table. Dr. Conroy took them to the farthest table. He pulled the sheet off of the body, bunching it up in his arms.
Carl Smythe, his torso sporting the traditional Y-shaped incision, stitched up now, was laid out on the table. The simul-skin on the arm and leg had been peeled off, leaving just the metal skeleton. Seeing the metal alongside the organic body was disorienting. It reminded Laughton of photographs he had seen as a child of fantastical creatures that showmen of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries used to make by gluing parts of different animals together, claiming they had mermaids or missing links on display. He had no problem with cyborgs. He knew some like Smythe had no choice.
Dr. Conroy tilted Smythe’s head to the side with gloved hands, and raised the shoulder in order to better reveal the Taser wound. The area around the two puncture points was red and slightly shiny. The punctures themselves had been cleaned, any encrusted blood washed away, but they still appeared darker than Laughton would have expected. “The subject was Tasered at close range,” Conroy said. “The puncture points are singed, which suggests to me the Taser might even have been pressed up against his neck when it was fired. The burns aren’t so bad to suggest that the Taser was left in place for a long time, though, and without a continued or repeated charge, a Taser shouldn’t have killed him. But the wounds are right on the wiring for his prosthetics, in fact with almost impossible precision. High enough charge overloaded the system, instant heart attack. Like ancient electric chairs.”
“Go back. You said ‘impossible precision.’ Why ‘impossible’?”
“Because the wiring can’t be located from outside, and it’s not like the victim would have stood still while his killer looked for it, anyway. To have caught it so perfectly is either luck or—”
“Someone with X-ray vision,” Kir said. “Meaning, a robot.”
Conroy shrugged. “Possibly.”
“Any signs of struggle? Fingernails? Scrapes?”
“No. If you ask me, I’d say the murderer came up behind the victim, grabbed him and Tasered him before the victim even knew someone was there.”
“And what’s with the arm and leg?”
“I’d say childhood accident,” Conroy said. He pointed out the spot where the metal met the flesh. “The electronic ports are old, maybe fifteen, twenty years. The limbs are newer. Means they’ve been replaced at least once. If they were from childhood, probably more than once. They’re a basic model, though. Nothing special.”
“So why were they cut up?”
Conroy went over to a sink and counter in the corner and came back with an oversize Ziploc bag that contained the mess of simul-skin he had removed from the corpse. He pulled a piece out. Simul-skin didn’t hold fingerprints well. They’d no doubt been dusted already. He unraveled the skin and pointed out what looked like a little pocket on the underside of the forearm. “My guess is that they were looking for something.”
“Was it there? Did they get it?”
“Well, we didn’t get it, so I’m guessing they did. Couldn’t have been bigger than a finger, probably a memory stick.”
“He hid it in his body?” Laughton’s face clenched in disgust.
Conroy shrugged. He was indifferent to the practice. He returned the simul-skin to the evidence bag, and tossed it back on the counter.
Laughton looked at Kir. “Thoughts?”
“Yes,” Kir said without elaborating.
“We have no way of knowing anything was actually in the arm,” Laughton said, although it seemed likely.
“No,” Conroy said.
Laughton closed his eyes for a moment to think. He shook his head. So if something was hidden in the arm, that could have been the motive. What was it? He opened his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
“I’ll have the report tonight, but I told you everything that matters.”
“Thanks,” Laughton said again.
“I know it’s not much.” The doctor seemed almost embarrassed in his apology, like he’d failed by not finding more.
“Nice meeting you,” Laughton said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but, I hope I never have to see you again.”
Conroy looked at Kir. “And I hope I never see you again.”
“So do I,” Kir said. “Tell me, why don’t you wear the suit? Isn’t it required?”
Dr. Conroy said, “The suits just make people feel better. If another plague is coming, it won’t be a suit and a couple of doors that save me.”