Open Season by Archer Mayor Page A

was a case you handled…”
    “I remember it—three years ago. Did we have a meeting scheduled that I’ve forgotten or something? This doesn’t ring the slightest bell.”
    “I’m afraid it wouldn’t; I drove into town unannounced. Your secretary mentioned you were here and your assistant wasn’t at the office, so I took a chance.”
    Igor walked into the room with two shiny steel slats and stood by the table. Hillstrom nodded to him. “I’ll be right with you, Harry. A chance at what, Mr. Gunther? That we could have a little chat over a lukewarm corpse? I don’t just carve these people up like Thanksgiving turkeys.”
    I opened my mouth to speak, but she lifted her gloved hand to silence me. There was a moment of quiet in the room as she briefly closed her eyes. When she spoke again, eyes open, the edge was gone from her voice. “I apologize; that was short-tempered. I take it you are in a bit of a rush to have this conversation, is that right?”
    Assuming that if Ski Mask didn’t sense some action on our part soon, he’d feel obliged to stimulate us once again, and perhaps as fatally as he had with Jamie Phillips, I was hard put to argue. “I’m afraid time is a little tight. I didn’t mean to be this much of a nuisance.”
    “You’re not—so far. It’s been a long day.” She turned an icy gaze onto the young cop from Rutland. “Filled with delays.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said for the third time. She took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s start over. I’m Hillstrom; this is Evans, Gunther, and this is Harry Bergen. Let’s all hope I’m about to open up Mrs. Emma Ricci, sixty-three, the victim of a pedestrian-auto mishap having occurred in Rutland at 6:30 P.M. yesterday. Is that right, Mr. Evans? What’s your rank, by the way?”
    “Corporal, ma’am.”
    “All right, Corporal; now, you’re here for a blood sample, some photographs, and cause of death, correct?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “ ‘Doctor’ will do fine. Good. Well then, as I determine potential causes of death—and there will be several judging from her appearance—I’ll let you know and you can take your photos. Harry will be doing some of that himself for our files. Lieutenant Gunther, I’ll be happy to talk with you after this is over. If you’d like to attend, be my guest. Have either one of you attended an autopsy before?”
    “No ma’am—Doctor.”
    I nodded. We didn’t have to do it often, and when we did, it was usually a case just like this one, involving a car.
    “Well, if you get dizzy or worse, let us know so we can help you out. There’s nothing disgraceful about having normal human reactions to all this. Ready, everyone?”
    We both nodded like schoolchildren and watched her and Harry Bergen get to work. Harry had the gentle touch of a caring mother—more than Dr. Hillstrom—smoothing Mrs. Ricci’s hair and occasionally resting his hand on her lightly as if to lend some little comfort. I felt that if any of Mrs. Ricci’s relatives had been here, their horror might have been blunted by his touch.
    I had stood over quite a few dead bodies in my time, considering it covered both the Korean War and some thirty years as a cop. Most of them had been in context, from shell holes and blasted trees to twisted auto wrecks and smashed living rooms. Autopsies were different. The bodies were stripped, both of clothes and environment. They were laid out, cold, white, and flat on their backs, and they were dissected, just like frogs in a classroom. In many ways, an autopsy for me was the careful disassembling of a complex machine, piece by piece. I will admit, though, that I kept this side of me private. People tended to get twitchy around other people who enjoy autopsies.
    Hillstrom and Bergen struggled to roll Mrs. Ricci onto her side so they could fit the two slats beneath her. That done, she lay somewhat suspended above the surface of the table, allowing a gentle stream of water to course under her, carrying