The Hundredth Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

arrivals at the morgue, this level of the journey was over. Bad people, good ones, the indifferent—they’d all crossed to the final mystery and left behind a soft, soon-gone husk, not always to be mourned, but at least respected.
    Lindy and I turned to an insistent rapping: Doc Peltier high-heeling toward us. I detected she’d been to breakfast with her husband, Zane, since he was walking beside her and working his teeth with a toothpick. Zane’s fifty-nine, but looks younger, with cool gray eyes in a chiseled face, a nose ridge like the spine of a slender book, and a mahogany tan independent of seasons. He wore a charcoal three-piece cut to hide a touch of paunch and walked fast to keep up with his wife.
    â€œA little early, aren’t we, Ryder?” she said as I jumped into her slipstream. Her perfume suggested champagne made from roses.
    â€œI’d like to take a look at the body before the post.”
    I always tried to do this when the bodies weren’t badly decomposed, feeling it provided a stronger link with the victims. After the post, the invasion, the deceased seemed different, as if they’d shifted from our world to the anteroom of the next.
    Clair rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time to indulge you today.” She wasn’t big on my linkage concept.
    â€œPlease, Clair. A minute?”
    Clair sighed. We stopped at the door of the autopsy suite. She remembered her manners. “Have you met my husband, Zane?”
    â€œArt museum, months ago,” I said, offering my hand. “Detective Carson Ryder.”
    Zane Peltier had one of those handshakes that stop short of locking thumb to thumb; he shook my knuckles. “Of course I remember,” his mouth said as his eyes denied it. “Great seeing you again, Detective.”
    Clair opened the door. Her husband said, “I’ll wait out here, dear.”
    â€œThey won’t bite, you know, Zane.”
    He smiled but didn’t approach the door. I understood his hesitancy—I believe people sense death as precisely as cattle sense lightning forming, an atavistic warning system that’ll be with us until we evolve to creatures of pure reason, slim chance.
    Clair and I stepped into the suite. “Make it fast, Ryder,” she said. “I’ve got a busy day and don’t need distractions.”
    â€œYes, Your Majesty,” I replied, drawing a withering glare but no comment. She slid the body from its refrigerated confines, drew the sheet away.
    I studied the odd tableau for several seconds. Without the head I took no sense of being, just of loss. All I noted was the victim’s physical dimensions, wide of shoulder, narrow of hip, well muscled. Death removes some of the tone and definition, but it was obviously a body the owner had put time and effort into.
    Clair watched me with disapproval, then let her eyes wander the body with professional appraisal. She started to draw the sheet back into place, but paused.
    â€œWhat the hell?” she said, leaning over the pubic region. “What’s that?”
    â€œA penis?”
    â€œNo, dammit. Above the pubic hair. Make yourself useful, Ryder, get me some gloves.”
    I ran to yank a wad of latex surgical gloves from a box beside an autopsy table. Clair snapped them on and pressed aside the matted hair.
    â€œIt’s writing,” she mumbled. “So small I can barely read it. ‘Warped a whore,’ ” she said, squinting at words I couldn’t see. “ ‘Warped a whore. Whores Warped. A full quart of warped whores. Rats back. Rats back. Rats back. Rats. Rats. Rats. Back. Back. Back.’ ”
    Clair leaned back and I bobbed forward. There, in precise lavender writing, were two horizontal lines of words, just as Clair had read them.
    Without turning from the body she called, “Dr. Davanelle, come here.”
    I looked to the small utility office in the corner where a petite andpale