Nocturnal Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t go your way.
    “Forget it,” Bryan said. “Come on, the sooner we find Goldblum, maybe the sooner we get back on nights.”

Robin-Robin Bo-Bobbin
    R obin Hudson backed her Honda motorcycle into the thin parking strip on Harriet Street just outside the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office. Several bikes were already there, some owned by her co-workers. The guys had 1200s; the women mostly had scooters — Robin’s ride sat right in the middle at 745ccs.
    The morgue van was already backed into the unloading dock. Maybe it had been a busy night. She walked past the AMBULANCES ONLY sign and up the ramp toward the loading dock. She liked to enter work every day the same way her subjects did — through the doors where the bodies were rolled in.
    It surprised her to see her boss get out of the van and gingerly step down to the ground.
    “Doctor Metz! How are you this morning?”
    Metz stopped to look at her. He gave his trademark single slow nod. “Good morning, Robin.”
    “Did you go out on a pickup?” When she’d started working here seven years ago, Metz had gone out on pickups three or four times a week, whenever there was a really bad killing or something unusual about a body, something interesting. As the years had passed, she’d watched him go out less and less. These days, he rarely left the office at all. He still ran the department, though, expecting his people to display the same dedication and perfection that he had shown for almost four decades.
    “I did,” he said. “I’ll do the x-rays myself, right now, then I’ll be in the private exam room for the next few hours. I don’t want to be interrupted. Would you mind handling the department?”
    “Sure, no problem.” Robin tried to keep her voice neutral, but she couldn’t help but feel a little excited by the request — yet another sign that he was grooming her to replace him. She had a lot of work ahead of her and a long way to go to qualify in his eyes, but everyone knew the chief medical examiner job was hers to lose. “Happy to do it,” she said.
    “Thank you. And I will want to use that RapScan machine. You received the training on it, yes?”
    She nodded. The rapid DNA tester was a potential sea change in law enforcement. DNA samples were usually taken at the morgue, then shipped off to labs for processing. Depending on the test, it could take weeks to get results — sometimes even as long as two months. The newportable machines, however, could be taken right to the body and provide a reliable DNA fingerprint in a matter of hours. Rapid Analysis, the RapScan 2000’s manufacturer, had given San Francisco a model because of Dr. Metz’s nationwide reputation in forensics.
    Metz had asked Robin to master the device. For all the RapScan 2000 could do, the size still amazed her — it was no bigger than a typical leather briefcase. Labeling and data entry were done on a built-in touch screen. That same screen displayed results. Sample cartridges were the size of a matchbook, and the machine could process up to four samples simultaneously.
    “It’s easy,” she said. “You could have taken it with you into the field, you know. It’s small enough to fit right in the back of the van. That’s the point of it, Doc — if you’d started the process while you were in the field, it would probably be kicking out the results right now.”
    He thought about that, then gave his single slow nod. “That would have been helpful. Call the Rapid Analysis company and tell them I want a second test unit. But do that
after
you show me how to operate it.”
    “Sure thing, Doctor Metz.”
    Why was he in such a hurry? She peeked past Metz to the body on the cart. The white body bag hid any details of the corpse, although the form inside it did look a little misshapen. She detected a whiff of urine. Not unusual for a body to void itself upon death, but it had to be pretty saturated for her to smell it through the thick material. She tilted her