Carcass Trade by Noreen Ayres Page A

roses in a paper-wrapped pot near the telephone, and the tiny framed photo of a man with a little boy on his knee. The woman at whose desk I sat I didn’t know well, and I felt a bit intrusive.
    I turned the pages of the pathologist’s report. This bone and that bone, the organ weights and measures, and, because I’m sensitive to it, the phrase, “gross cervical dysplasia,” meaning a precancerous condition, the same as I had had. I read again my Jane’s estimated age, revised it to early forties. No kids. No evidence of stabbing or shooting. Nor had she burned to death, because her lungs were clear. A head wound, perhaps, but we had hardly any pieces to assemble to complete that puzzle.
    I flipped through the autopsy photos. Wedged against the corpse was the triangular stainless-steel block used to prop the body so it could be photographed from all sides. The block gleamed like a new railroad tie. The photos didn’t tell me anything new. The first X ray I came to was a side view. Dr. Margolis had noted the plastic implants that did in fact show as white disks on the film. I felt a wave of pity for the woman. It comes to this. A proud or vain woman, attempting to enhance her life; two white, hardened disks like new moons grinning through the black night.
    My reverie was broken by hearing Dr. Schaffer-White’s voice in the hallway as she gave instructions to the baby-fat lab tech. I replaced the file and went out to see her. Leaned against the wall, she was turning pages in a folder. She was in her lab coat and old-lady shoes, but the pearls were there and the diamond earrings. She noted me, smiled wanly, and lifted the folder higher. “A senior who may be an abuse victim,” she said, brushing wayward blonde hairs away from her face. She looked tired.
    â€œFrom a home?” I asked, meaning convalescent.
    â€œHis daughter’s,”. she said, then added without looking up, “I hope there’s a short stairway to hell for those kind of people.”
    I said, “How ’bout we start a vigilante committee. I’d have no trouble getting charter members.”
    â€œHe was scalded. He was starved. Who would you get to do the same to the daughter?”
    â€œI know a few cops.”
    â€œThat’s not funny these days,” she said.
    â€œIt never was.”
    She sighed heavily, closed the folder, and started moving toward the autopsy room. I trailed along. “What brings you out tonight, Smokey?”
    â€œOh, just reviewing a case from last week. Burn victim, crash victim, we don’t know yet.”
    â€œThat awful one?” she asked, and turned her blue eyes to me as we stopped in the doorway. She had a small cold sore on her bottom lip. Behind her, the vacant autopsy room was quiet and sterile as anyone could make it. With the intercom music off, I could hear the cooling unit for the refrigeration room hum.
    I told her about the male Doe we brought in from the campground. “Do you know anything about it?”
    â€œI did that one,” she said. “As I remember, he had a fractured skull, four ribs, femur, and tibia, and a dislocated patella.”
    â€œWorked him over good,” I said.
    She tested her sore lip with the top one, then said, “They used his chest for an ashtray.”
    â€œGod. I didn’t see that.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t, with the shirt on. There was wire around the neck, but that was not the manner of death. I sent it to Property.”
    â€œWhat did the wire look like?”
    â€œIt was flat but had these little nubs on it, triangles, that dug into the flesh. It wasn’t even long enough to strangle him with. I think it was tied to something else that broke.”
    â€œJoe Sanders and I found some strange wire about ten miles from the campsite in a trash can.”
    She smiled and said, “I can’t believe you guys.”
    â€œWell, it’s a long shot.”
    In the autopsy