Port Mortuary Read Online Free PDF Page A

told, I don’t see how that would be possible.”
    “I said if I was paranoid,” Briggs replies, and from where I stand, I can make out his formidable sturdy shape but can’t see the expression on his face. I don’t need to see it. He’s not smiling. His gray eyes are galvanized steel.
    “The timing is either a coincidence or it’s not,” I say. “The basic tenet in criminal investigations, John. It’s always one or the other.”
    “Let’s not trivialize this.”
    “I’m doing anything but.”
    “If a living person was put in your damn cooler, I can’t think of much worse,” he says flatly.
    “We don’t know—”
    “It’s just a damn shame after all this.” As if everything we’ve built over the past few years is on the precipice of ruin.
    “We don’t know that what’s been reported is accurate—” I start to say.
    “I think it would be best if we bring the body here,” he interrupts again. “AFDIL can work on the identification. Rockman will make sure the situation is well contained. We’ve got everything we need right here.”
    I’m stunned. Briggs wants to send a plane to Hanscom Field, the air force base affiliated with the CFC. He wants the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab and probably other military labs and someone other than me to handle whatever has happened, because he doesn’t think I’m competent. He doesn’t trust me.
    “We don’t know if we’re talking about federal jurisdiction,” I remind him. “Unless you know something I don’t.”
    “Look. I’m trying to do what’s best for all involved.” Briggs has his hands behind his back, his legs slightly spread, staring across the parking lot at me. “I’m suggesting we can dispatch a C-Seventeen to Hanscom. We can have the body here by midnight. The CFC is a port mortuary, too, and that’s what port mortuaries do.”
    “That’s not what port mortuaries do. The point isn’t for bodies to be received, then transferred elsewhere for autopsies and lab analysis. The CFC was never intended to be a first screening for Dover, a preliminary check before the experts step in. That was never my mandate, and it wasn’t the agreement when thirty million dollars was spent on the facility in Cambridge.”
    “You should just stay at Dover, Kay, and we’ll bring the body here.”
    “I’m requesting you refrain from intervening, John. Right now this case is the jurisdiction of the chief medical examiner of Massachusetts. Please don’t challenge me or my authority.”
    A long pause, then he states rather than asks, “You really want that responsibility.”
    “It’s mine whether I want it or not.”
    “I’m trying to protect you. I’ve been trying.”
    “Don’t.” That’s not what he’s trying. He doesn’t have confidence in me.
    “I can deploy Captain Avallone to help. It’s not a bad idea.”
    I can’t believe he would suggest that, either. “That won’t be necessary,” I reply firmly. “The CFC is perfectly capable of handling this.”
    “I’m on the record as having offered.”
    On the record with whom?
It occurs to me uncannily that someone else is on the line or within earshot. Briggs is still standing in front of his window. I can’t tell if anyone else might be in the suite with him.
    “Whatever you decide,” he then says. “I’m not going to step on you. Call me as soon as you know something. Wake me up if you have to.” He doesn’t say good-bye or good luck or it was nice having me here for half a year.

2

    L ucy and Marino have left my room. My suitcases, rucksacks, and Bankers Boxes are gone, and there is nothing left. It is as if I was never here, and I feel alone in a way I haven’t for years, maybe decades.
    I look around one last time, making sure nothing has been forgotten, my attention wandering past the microwave, the small refrigerator-freezer and coffeemaker, the windows with their view of the parking lot and Briggs’s lighted suite, and beyond, the black sky over the void