Four men were clustered around the form on the stainless-steel autopsy table: two in dark blue uniforms, a homicide detective in a plain dark suit, and the medical examiner in a knee-length white lab coat. The room was cool, sterile, gleaming metal and white plastic. Latex gloves and various instruments of invasion were carefully laid out. A Mr. Coffee was perking happily in the corner.
It was early and quiet, even for the morgue. Sometimes when four or five tables were in use it was almost a locker-room atmosphere, with dark humor the order of the day. But not this morning.
She was a cold, dead, naked teenager, and nobody felt like cracking wise. They didn't know who she was. Her skin was shockingly white. It had the perfection of youth. Her face was that of a child, although she hadn't been a child maybe ever. The tracks on her arms said that. Her face was unremarkable, but not without strength. Her hair was dyed an unnatural deep jet black, black as night, and was streaked with orange and green and yellow like some mysterious tropical bird from a vanishing rain forest. Was she pretty? Hank Sawyer, one of the uniforms, wondered. Often you couldn't tell looking at them dead, the prettiness fading with the pulse. A dark red channel had been carved down her middle. It looked like someone had poured red raspberry preserves from her crotch to her breastbone and now it had dried to a reddish black crust. Hank had seen smaller openings in gutted deer.
"Another lost soul with a nice ass," Carmen Bastio, the homicide detective, said. "Popcorn for perverts and heartbreak for Mom and Dad." Carmen kept up a good front, but Hank knew these kinds of killings affected him. He had three daughters, the oldest seventeen. Carmen's face was ruddy. He drank too much late in the evening.
"No tats, huh?" Hank said. "That's rare these days."
"She's got a little one on her butt," Carmen said. "A little blue butterfly. Light blue and ragged. Looks homemade."
"Why do you think he opened her up like that?" the other uniform, Joey Sheridan, asked. Joey had the round, smooth, freckled face of a man who would still be called "boyish" at sixty-five. He had recently transferred from public relations to street duty, and the jury was still out. Despite several years on the force, he was still considered green. An unknown quantity. A desk in PR wasn't the street.
"Why does a dentist from Minnesota fly to Zimbabwe to shoot Cecil the Lion?" Daniel Linsky, the ME, asked. "Because it makes him feel good, that's why. There, I just saved the department ten grand in psychological consultation. Be sure to tell them."
"At least Cecil the Lion had a name," Hank said.
"Oh, this girl has a name," Carmen said. "That's the big challenge. Not finding her killer. Finding out her name."
"One thing about a little town like where I'm from," Joey said. "If a young girl ever goes missing, everybody knows her name, everybody knows her family, and everybody goes looking for her. Everybody helps, everybody pitches in." Joey had wavy blond hair, was tall and lanky, and had a kind of yokel look about him. A country boy. " 'Course, this would never happen in my hometown in the first place."
Almost in unison Hank and Carmen and the ME raised their heads from the butchered girl to look at Joey. There was an innocent undercurrent to what he had said, the kind of innocence that if any of them had ever had it had long since been ground away. It conjured up a magical apple-pie American small town where everyone's a friend and beautiful teenage girls are never disemboweled by vicious freaks. They knew no such town existed, but they weren't sure Joey did.
An awkward silence. Carmen broke it. "Hank, I asked you to stop by because she was found near that area in Campbell where you've been working. You seen her before?"
"If I did, it probably would have been in front of a club," Hank said. He stepped in closer and studied her face. Hank was accustomed to seeing the dead. He'd seen more in Iraq in an afternoon than he'd seen during his entire time on the force. He was beyond shocking, but not beyond anything else.
She looked surprised. Young and surprised for the last time.
It was not a flashback. Not a disorienting, disabling episode. Those were pretty much behind him now. It was a remnant of Iraq, nonetheless. Something in the shape of the girl's sad lips that reminded him of the slain matriarch. A powerful memory that took him back.
He was inside the home. The bodies of the Sunni family were lying awkwardly on the floor, twisted and splayed by the bullets that had killed them. Hank was standing alone, black rifle over his shoulder, surveying the silent scene, when a tall, crusty major, a fellow Marine, entered, the oldest-looking soldier he had ever seen.
The major stood next to Hank for what seemed a great while. Together they stared at the bodies. In the middle of the carnage two children were embracing at this, their last moment. Whoever had paid this fratricidal visit, whatever faction or militia or perhaps even the Mahdi Army, they had gunned them down at their evening meal, creating this contorted fatal ring. Blood everywhere, food and shards of bowls and glasses everywhere. Colors and textures splashed across clothing and faces.
The faces were those of individuals, young and old. Their expressions, all different, burned into Hank's memory. His eyes rested and became fixed on the face of the matriarch he had spoken to and warned the day before. She was the wife and mother and grandmother and even in death was the force in the room. The one who was close to them all, had helped them all, had been there for each of them in many different ways. The one who bore their weight.
Suddenly the dead woman's head jerked slightly and a faint sound escaped her lips. Hank took a clumsy half-step forward. The major blocked him with an arm. "Some kind of death rattle," he said. "The weight of the body pushes out gas. There's nothing we can do.
"We've been telling them to clear out for two weeks," the major went on gruffly. "We warned them. We told them to leave. We told them it was dangerous."
"Yes sir," Hank said. If he had learned one thing in the Corps, it was that corporals don't question majors. But he felt compelled to speak anyway: "What if we'd never have liberated this family, Major? Think they'd be any worse off?"
The major glanced sharply at Hank. His face tightened, then instantly relaxed, and he shrugged. "Well, Corporal, there's that, isn't there? There's always that." A long moment went by. "Where you from, soldier?" the major asked softly.
"Michigan," Hank said. "Black River."
The major wore a blank look.
"Northeastern Michigan. About two hundred and fifty miles north of Detroit," Hank said. "Little town right on the coast."
"Ah," the major breathed knowingly. "Ah. The shores of Lake Huron."
"Yes," Hank said.
The wistfulness, the fondness in the major's voice told Hank of the major's intimate knowledge of the region and brought to Hank a painful sense of loss. He might never see the big lake again. Never again see that high blue sky with circling gulls, see the towering white pines, and hear the quiet lapping of waves softly surging up a sandy beach. A gust of dry desert wind came through an open window and brushed his face with the faint scent of death.
The major put his hand gently on Hank's shoulder: "Son," he said, "no matter where your travels take you from here—become an astronaut and fly to the moon—you'll never be any further away from home than you are right now."
"Hank?" Carmen queried. "Anybody home?"
"Sorry," Hank said, then quickly, "There's some around Campbell the same age, same look, but I don't think I've ever seen her. Was she wearing a black leather jacket, high waisted and tight, lots of bangles on it? You know, those shiny trinket-things like on bracelets."
"Charms," Carmen said, looking at Hank appraisingly. "Yeah, she was."
"Well, she's in sort of a club, then, not really a gang, I don't think, just a bunch of young girlfriends dressing alike. It's worth checking out. I'd start at Tubby's about ten. From what I've seen, there's at least five or six of 'em. I'd bet nobody over twenty."
"Okay, good," Carmen said. "Good. I can use that. Thanks for stopping by."
As they left, Carmen motioned for Hank to wait up. "Go ahead," Hank said to Joey and went back to Carmen.
"So that's Joey Sheridan," Carmen said. "I heard about him. If you bring 'em to the morgue again he'll need therapy."
Hank laughed. "You think it's that bad?"
"You know there's a pool on him?"
"Pool for what?"
"For what he'll do if there's real trouble. Melt. Freeze. Puke. Be okay. Lot of guys think he should have stayed in PR, that he's not cut out for the street."
"Yeah? Where's the smart money?"
"You kiddin'? Where do you think? Anyway, I figure if anything happens you'll handle it because you always handle it."
"Like I'll have a choice," Hank said.
"I was sorry to hear about Frankie. How long were you guys together?"
"Six years."
Frankie Cohen passed a physical, then two weeks later had a heart attack. He went from cholesterol being a little high to the cardiologist saying he should think about early retirement to dying at forty-one while reeling in a northern pike. He was a good partner and a good friend to Hank. They took turns watching each other's back. Their relationship had a comfortable rhythm to it.
"Well, I don't think this Joey is going to fill his shoes," Carmen said. "I don't think he understands that we don't always help little old ladies cross the street. Sometimes we have to put her down with an arm bar because she's high on crack and trying to kill her two-year-old grandson. Rose-colored glasses. A sweet man headed for a fall. Better get Butch to transfer him back to PR."
"Got a meeting with him first thing in the morning," Hank said.
Hank shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He was six foot three and stocky and easily overwhelmed the standard office chair. He had something to say to Assistant Chief Butch Johnson about Joey Sheridan, and he really didn't want to.
If you could draw a soldier—square shoulders, square jaw, determined bearing, sandy hair cut shorter on the sides—that soldier would look like Hank Sawyer. Butch Johnson was a darker, shorter, denser version.
A dark green Marine, Butch was the informal leader of the informal Marine Corps Mafia within the South Bend PD; all the ex-Marines who never really considered themselves "ex." Mostly veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, they were a close-knit group who hung together and helped each other out. Butch was a busy man. Hank was sure he would consider his concern petty. He hoped he would be wrong.
Among themselves, the Marine Corps Mafia expressed serious doubt about Joey Sheridan. Like Hank, this group of veterans had seen plenty of combat. Yes, it was war, but killing is killing. And if the moment ever came, they weren't sure Joey Sheridan would be up to the task. And none of them wanted to partner with him, including Hank.
"Okay, let's have it," Butch said, recognizing Hank's reluctance to speak.
"I'm not comfortable with the guy."
"What guy?"
"Joey Sheridan."