* * *
In the morning, Morgan went directly to the morgue after a brief stop at The Columbian Connection on the edge of the Annex, a new place that made him think of a Starbucks made over by Tim Hortons, a place of such compromised authenticity he found it unnerving. He doubted he would become a regular patron.
Coffee and bagel in hand, he flagged a taxi. The driver had no idea where the city morgue was located. Morgan was surprised. He did not often take cabs, but he trusted that the cabbies would be familiar with notable locations.
Morgan preferred to walk or take public transit — the subway, never buses. Together, they usually took Miranda’s XK 150, her consolation for a sordid episode in the recent past, something to remind her she was a survivor. She was a better driver; he liked her car, but not driving.
Although it was early, Ellen Ravenscroft was already at work. Morgan apologized for not bringing her a coffee. He offered her part of his unfinished bagel, but she declined. He nodded in the direction of the shrouded cadaver. “What’s the verdict? Was it murder?”
“You tell me, love. Did someone want her dead?”
“Wanting a person dead doesn’t make it murder. Possibly a gruesome coincidence. Of course, there is no such thing as coincidence,” he said, mouthing a cliché he didn’t believe.
They approached the stainless-steel table isolated in a pool of light. Ellen pulled back a plasticized sheet, revealing Maria D’Arcy’s face. It was empty, now, the personality vanished. Death was not unkind, only indifferent.
“You don’t want to see the rest of her, not until I’ve done some tidying up.”
“No,” Morgan agreed, leaning down so close to the dead woman, in another context he might have been her prince, come to kiss her awake.
“What are you looking for, love?”
“Perfume.”
“Very expensive. With all she’s been through, it lingers, doesn’t it?”
“No. That’s the point,” said Morgan. “It doesn’t. Yesterday morning, it was distinct, the smell of sunlight and pebbles. But there’s nothing, now.”
Ellen Ravenscroft leaned over so that their heads almost collided. “You’re right,” said the medical examiner. She stood upright and tilted her head back, with nostrils flared, gazing slowly around the room. “How very strange. There’s still a bit lingering in the air.”
“Did you wash her down?”
“Not the parts you’re sniffing.” The ME pulled the sheet back all the way. Her normally animated features congealed into a mask of stunned disbelief. “Apparently someone has given her a right good clean-up.”
“Is that possible?”
“It’s ridiculous. An embarrassing, offensive, outrageous, ridiculous comical absurdity. Oh God, I’ll have to get to the bottom of this. When I left her last night she was scented with money, the way the good Lord intended. And I was the first in, this morning. The universe is not unfolding as it should, David, no one breaks into a morgue.”
Morgan was aware she had used his first name. The only person to use his first name had been his wife of brief duration — and occasionally Miranda, but only in exceptional circumstances. “Someone apparently did,” he said. “Unlikely as it seems. Security’s light.”
“That’s an explanation, not an excuse.” Ellen Ravenscroft drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Damn it! Damn it, I was pretty much done with the autopsy part, moving on to analysis. So, God damn it, I don’t think anything’s been compromised except my dignity. And hers, of course.” She took in another deep breath and exhaled with a warming smile, searching for equilibrium in morbid good humour. “Bloody ghouls, if you ask me. Necrophiles. Hapless vampires — the blood’s already been drained. Necromancers, social pariahs, royal creeps. Generally the dead don’t make very good company, you know. Well, they do, sometimes. But they don’t issue invitations.”
“Invited or not, she had visitors. So why is she here?”
“She’s dead. Oh, you mean why is she dead?” Ellen Ravenscroft grimaced. “From causes yet to be determined. I’d say what killed her was generalized hypoxia brought on by acute respiratory distress. She died from asphyxiation. Exactly what caused the asphyxia, I just don’t know.”
“She could have been smothered. I don’t see any strangulation marks.”
“There aren’t any. It might be self-induced hypocapnia.”
“Suicide?”
“Death by hyperventilation, which could be a possible response to the symptoms of hypothermia. A side effect from exposure.”
“In the middle of summer.”
“It’s August, Morgan. The nights are cold.”
“Cool.”
“It doesn’t have to be freezing for hypothermia. And she had a fair bit of alcohol in her system. French champagne, I believe. And not much on in the way of clothes.”
“Can you check out the champagne for me?”
“Yes, of course. And before you say it, I know French champagne is redundant. If it’s real champagne, it’s French, n’est ce pas?”
“Could someone else have done it?”
“Exposed her, yes — misadventure, or at the worst, manslaughter. Asphyxiated her, yes, but damned if I know how. I’ll keep trying. No evidence of a man lurking about down there in the nether region. Maybe a bit of messing about, but gently, perhaps on her own. I’ll let you know. I’d say the bikini top was put on by a man post-mortem — he cupped her breasts in it, before struggling to secure the clasp. Left a few abrasions. A woman would have done it up at her waist, then slid it around.”
“Her husband did it.”
“That’s quite a revelation! He’s confessed, has he?”
“To covering her breasts, not to murder. Bared breasts may be commonplace these days, but not at the RTYC.”
“You think it’s about owning her boobies, Morgan?” She looked down at the body and smiled capriciously. “He doesn’t own them anymore.”
“Yeah, he does. He’ll be along to collect the remains. Don’t let her go?”
“What?”
“Her body, don’t let her go.”
“Of course not. Her remains remain.”
“Good. Now all we have to figure out is why her husband wants a murder investigation, what nefarious crimes is he trying to obscure through misdirection? And what’s with the perfume?”
She looked up at him. “Listen to you,” she said. “Morgan, you need me. Without your partner, you’ve got no one to talk to.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Off you go, then, love. I’ve got work to do.” She did her best in the circumstances to shrug coquettishly, then turned back to peruse the exposed corpse. “I’ll call if the lady reveals anything more.”
Morgan edged back into the shadows that circled the autopsy tables, casting each in a separate cone of light. “Yeah,” he said in a casual voice as he turned and sauntered out the door, irritated that she might be right. About Miranda.
She would be in the air over the Pacific by now, landing about the same time as he reached headquarters if he walked slowly and didn’t stop along the way.