Chapter Twelve
TWELVE
My eyes fly open, and I look up at Gray, just as he glances down, his dark eyes meeting mine.
“Did you hear…?” I whisper as softly as I can.
He nods, his mouth in a grim line, and then he turns to McCreadie, who’s just catching up. He leans in to whisper what we heard, and the detective gives a soft curse.
We move forward. Or Gray does, still holding my hand. We’ve gone maybe a dozen steps when I can make out the dark shape of a small building.
Another whispered conference with McCreadie. Then Gray leans down to my ear.
“We are going to let Hugh go around,” Gray says. “He will see whether he can get a look inside. We will cautiously approach from this side, but Hugh will take the lead.”
I nod.
McCreadie heads out. We wait until he’s gone, and then Gray slides forward, still holding my hand, his grip tighter now, as if I might flee.
Okay, I suspect his grip is tight in case someone comes barreling out with a raised weapon and he needs to save me.
Sure, I can save myself, but he really likes to play knight-protector, and as long as he keeps holding my hand, I’m going to let him.
As we approach the building, it takes form. It’s not big enough to be a house or a barn, but it’s in decent shape, which means it’s standing upright. It’s made of wood, and light flickers through the cracks. A smell also wafts through those cracks. The stench of a decomposing body.
The voice inside has gone quiet. When we reach the nearest wall, I spot a crack big enough to peek through. I do that and see—
I pull back. Blink. Check again and then move aside for Gray.
Inside are three figures dressed in hooded black cloaks.
They’re gathered around a table, and there’s something on that table.
I have a very good idea what that something is, but it’s like a scene from a horror movie—walk through the pitch-black meadow, following the sound of voices, to find hooded men gathered around a dead body.
I once went on a date with a guy who asked me how often cops see “occult shit.” Please note that this was a blind date.
I did not intentionally choose to go out with this man.
I’ve had a lot of blind dates in my life.
Apparently, I’m the kind of woman that friends and family are dying to fix up with each and every eligible bachelor they know.
I’m also the sort who finds it really hard to refuse when a person I like and respect begs me to give their nephew/neighbor/friend’s-son-in-Vancouver-on-business a shot.
Except that if the nephew/neighbor/friend’s-son accepts a blind date with a female cop, there’s a decent chance he’s looking for someone to handcuff him to the bed.
This guy wanted tales of grisly satanic cult murders.
I was a big-city detective, so naturally I must have seen dozens.
Or none. Yep, none. Never met a cop who had.
Oh, I met cops who said they’d met a cop who had, always on a different force.
And I did actually work a robbery once where the thief spray-painted occult symbols on the walls.
They resembled pentagrams, except they had seven points, the thief apparently not knowing that “penta” means five.
I also was once called to an incident at a high school where someone had allegedly left a ritually sacrificed cat in the locker room.
It was not a cat. It was a large rat wearing a flea collar, and it had been dead for days, killed by rat poison. Also, it was Halloween.
So I do not peer through that slat, see hooded figures around a corpse, and think Ritual sacrifice! I think What the hell? And from the look on Gray’s face, he’s thinking the same thing.
Then one figure clears his throat. “Please note the condition of the skin. I believe we can conclude this body has been submerged for several days.”
I turn to Gray and mouth it now: “What the hell?” He squeezes his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose, and exhales.
I nudge him with my shoulder. Another long exhale that has me wondering what I’ve done, before he strides forward, hand still locked in mine.
The sudden movement catches me off guard, and before I can tug back, he’s at the door, swinging it open and striding through. While still holding my damn hand, like he’s forgotten he’s gripping it, which means I’m pulled through into the shack along with him.
It is at this point that I realize I’ve forgotten something. Well, two things, though either one of them would have sufficed.
I don’t have my switchblade or my derringer, and Gray just strode into a building where hooded figures are doing something with a corpse. Hooded figures holding knives.
From the other side of the wall, McCreadie curses, as he figures out what his friend just did.
“Agreed,” I mutter under my breath.
“Put down that scalpel,” Gray says, and I want to throw up my hands. I might have, too, if he weren’t still holding one of them.
Damn him. Really? March in and tell them to just put down …
Did he say scalpel?
I pause as I remember what we just heard. Something about the condition of the skin?
“Are you authorized to conduct an autopsy?” Gray says.
“We—” one of the figures begins.
“No, you are not,” Gray says, “and unless one of you is Dr. James Addington, the Edinburgh police surgeon, you are committing a crime. First, theft of a dead body. Second, indignity to a dead body.”
“Dr. Gray?” One of them pushes back his hood to show a young man of about twenty, with dark hair and a gap-toothed grin. “Dr. Duncan Gray?”
Gray finally drops my hand and moves in front of me, as if that genuinely delighted grin signifies imminent attack.
The other two push down their hoods. Both are also college aged. I resist the urge to drop my face into my hands. Now I understand that pained expression on Gray’s face.
“Sir,” one says, stepping forward with his hand extended. “We are great admirers of your work. Great admirers. We are medical students at the university.”
“Shocking,” I mutter just loud enough for Gray to hear.
The door opens, and McCreadie walks in. Then, seeing the trio of beaming young men looking up at Gray, he slows his step.
“Duncan?” he says. “Do you … know these lads?”
“I do not.”
“They’re admirers,” I say. “Of Dr. Gray’s work.”
“Oh.” McCreadie lifts a gloved hand to his nose, to mask the stench, and then looks at the table, where a body lies partially covered, grayish and slack skin showing where the sheet has been pulled up. “That is…” He clears his throat. “Do I need to ask what you lads are up to?”
“Examining a dead body, of course,” the gap-toothed one says. “A drowned one. We don’t get any at the college, and we have been looking for a specimen for months. We have a fellow who keeps his ear out, and when he heard about this one, he scooped it up for us.”
“Scooped it up…” McCreadie says. “You do realize this is a human body, yes? Not a dead fish?”
The young man looks indignant. “We wouldn’t study a dead fish. We’re medical students.”
Gray’s voice takes on a low rumble, as if he’s fighting to keep from growling at them. “Detective McCreadie means that it is the remains of a human being. You cannot just ‘scoop it up’ and study it.”
The gap-toothed boy blinks at him. “Why not? That is what you do.”
Gray’s expression goes dark enough that I step forward.
“That’s not what Dr. Gray does. He works with bodies that have been identified.
The next of kin have been notified. The police are investigating.
Dr. Addington has conducted his autopsy.
Only after all those proper steps have been taken does Dr. Gray get involved, and then he examines the body with the utmost respect and an eye toward research and publication.
He does not take bodies from the bog and cut them open in shacks. ”
The gap-toothed one stares, as if my words strike a chord. Then he says, “Why are you dressed like a boy?”
“She’s not a boy,” one of his comrades whispers.
“Obviously,” he says, his gaze dropping to my chest.
“You didn’t hear anything Miss Mitchell said, did you?” McCreadie says.
“Miss Mitchell? Mallory Mitchell? From the books?”
“I want your names,” McCreadie says, taking out his notebook. “All of you.”
“Why?”
One of the others leans over and hisses, “He’s a criminal officer. Didn’t you hear that part?”
“But we’ve done nothing wrong,” the gap-toothed one says. “We are conducting a scientific experiment, just like Dr. Gray.”
“No, you are not,” Gray says. “You are breaking the law. Multiple laws. Is one of you Joseph Nunn?”
The gap-toothed one perks up. “Yes, sir. That’s me. When you did not reply to my correspondence—”
“I did reply. Two months ago. And gave my answer.”
The young man squints. “That was you? I thought it was Miss Mitchell.”
“It was signed by me. Therefore it was from me.”
“Are you sure? There was just the one word. ‘No.’”
“Which proves it was indeed me. You are lucky to have received a response at all.”
“Do I want to know what this is about?” McCreadie asks.
“This young man sent me a letter telling me to fire Miss Mitchell and hire him, with the audacity to say he would start on Monday, which was the only reason I bothered with a response.”
“Pinching my job?” I say. “How rude.”
“No offense intended, Miss Mitchell,” the young man says. “I only pointed out that you were a woman and better suited for other tasks.”
“Duncan’s right,” McCreadie says. “You are lucky he replied at all. You are also lucky Miss Mitchell did not.”
“It is a medical position,” Nunn protests. “I am a medical student with a keen interest in the science of death, as I have been following Dr. Gray’s work for years. I am much better suited than…”
“A woman,” I say.
“You cannot help what you are. I understand Dr. Gray was desperate for assistance, so I was demonstrating that he did not need to stoop to hiring—”
“A woman,” I say again.
“Step back, lad,” McCreadie murmurs. “Step back now.”
I march to the table and flip the sheet back over the corpse’s arm.
“I believe you were noting the condition of the skin. What you are seeing here is the effects of decomposition in water. The gases have released due to bacteria, causing the body to bloat and rise to the surface. The wrinkling of the skin is caused by the water, and we see it beginning to slough off here on the hands. We also note abrasions.” I point to them. “Can you tell me what these might be?”
“Defensive wounds,” Nunn says, puffing up.
“Wrong. These are nicks caused by debris at the bottom of the shallow water.” I look at him. “Go back to school and learn something.”
Nunn’s face mottles, his mouth opening and closing as McCreadie snickers.
“You will not contact me again,” Gray says. “You will, as Miss Mitchell said, go to school and learn, and you will thank the stars that you may continue that schooling.”
Nunn looks confused.
Gray steps toward the young man. “You really do not understand what you have done here? There is a reason grave robbing is illegal, even when the corpses were being used for legitimate study in an institution of higher learning. The dead expect to rest. Their families expect them to rest. The most deplorable cases of body theft, though, occurred when the body was not yet in a grave, when no one knew the deceased was dead and no one had a chance to investigate that death. That is what you have done. Moreover, you cannot even claim the higher purpose associated with a medical college.”
“But we’re students. All of us.”
“And this is not a school. You are not conducting sanctioned work under the tutelage of a professor. You are curious about the science of death? Read. Attend lectures. Attend autopsies, which are regularly conducted in lecture theaters for the purpose of education.”
“That sounds very dull.”
I swear Gray grinds his teeth.
“If you really want to study the dead,” he says, “speak to farmers and ask to buy deceased livestock.”
“Still dull.”
Gray steps toward Nunn, who is so oblivious that he perks up, as if Gray is moving closer to tell him a secret.
“Do you understand why what you have done is wrong?” Gray says.
“Not really,” Nunn admits.
“I do,” one of the others pipes up. “Because we did not have permission to take her body. It was illegal, but more importantly, it was disrespectful. To her family and to her.”
“Gold star,” I murmur.
Nunn scoffs at his companion. “She’s a girl from the slums. Vermin need to be cleared out. It isn’t as if I killed her, and if her body can do some good—”
“I have changed my mind,” Gray says, his voice deceptively soft.
“I said to thank the stars that you are allowed to continue your schooling. I meant that I would not report this, and I would ask Detective McCreadie to let you go with a warning.” He turns to McCreadie.
“You may decide to charge them or not, but I will be reporting this young man to the college. And…” He turns to the one who hasn’t spoken yet. “Do you know what you did wrong?”
“Y-yes, sir. I ought not to have—”
“In writing. Send it to my address by noon tomorrow.”
Nunn speaks up. “You cannot report me and not them. I will tell them who else I was with.”
“Such a good friend,” McCreadie says.
“Go ahead,” Gray says. “I will tell them which of you I saw with the scalpel. Which one seemed to be in charge. Which one hired the driver to bring the body. Which one uttered the most disrespectful and repugnant defense. I believe I shall speak to Dr. Knox at the college. Do you know him?”
“No…”
“You should. He is in a position of great authority, which is particularly impressive for a man raised in the Old Town. To a mother raised in the Old Town. What did you call them? Vermin?”
Nunn pales. “I—”
“Good evening, gentlemen. I will take charge of this poor young woman’s body and see she is transported to Dr. Addington, the city’s police surgeon. Detective McCreadie will take charge of you three. Step outside, please. Miss Mitchell and I have work to do.”