The Fregoli Delusion by Michael J. McCann Page A

beneath her hair net onto her high, freckled cheekbone.
Her soft blue eyes stared at Hank.
    “Great.” He leaned over for a
closer look at the image of the head that was currently displayed on the laptop
screen. “I expected to see you busy at one of the other tables when I came in.”
    “I was scheduled to do the Chee
autopsies today, but we agreed it was better to move them back and have an
extra pair of eyes on this one.” She sighed. “When I called Detective Carleson
to let him know, Lieutenant Jarvis was pretty upset. I could hear him yelling
in the background.”
    “He’ll get over it,” Hank said.
    “He’ll have to,” Easton said over
his shoulder, watching Harry excise the entrance wound and surrounding tissue
and place it into a container with fixative. “If he tries to get into a
political pissing match over his place in line versus this case he’s going to
get his ass kicked.”
    At that moment the door opened and
a man in a dark suit walked in. He hadn’t bothered to put on the protective
gear that all observers were required to wear when attending an autopsy. He
passed the other empty dissection tables in a confident stride, head up, arms
swinging, eyes fixed on Easton.
    “Speaking of politics,” Hank
murmured. He glanced up at the observation booth and saw another arrival,
Glendale State’s Attorney Warren Exler, peering down at them.
    “Sir,” Easton called out to the approaching
intruder, “I’m very honored to have you here today but I’ll have to ask you to
leave my autopsy theater immediately. We’re about to begin and I can’t have
unnecessary bodies getting in the way, living or dead.”
    The man stopped and folded his
arms, his eyes avoiding the corpse lying naked on the dissection table in front
of him. “You’re Easton, I take it? I’m Attorney General Johnson S. Perry.”
    “Of course you are. Now get the
hell out of my autopsy theater.”
    Perry was a young-looking
fifty-year-old who’d run unopposed in the last state election and was making a
name for himself as a relentless prosecutor of organized crime elements in
Maryland. He was known as an aggressive, savvy politician with an excellent
chance of becoming governor in the near future.
    “H.J. Jarrett was my friend,”
Perry said. “I flew down from Annapolis expressly to assure his family, his
company’s shareholders, and the public that this outrage will not go unpunished.”
It was obviously a speech he planned to deliver again, very shortly, to the
press.
    Easton looked up at Exler in the
observation booth and calmly flipped down his face shield. “Warren, as you
know, there’s a serious risk of infection to anyone in an autopsy theater who’s
not properly dressed. On top of that, no one is allowed to attend a procedure
without the permission of the medical examiner or the prosector in charge.” He
turned to Perry. “Since I am he, in both cases, I’m ordering you the hell out of
my theater right now before I have to call security and have you marched out at
gunpoint.”
    “Really,” Perry said, “I think I
need to—”
    Easton motioned with his
double-gloved hand. “Harry.”
    “Yes, Dr. Easton.” With precise,
practiced movements the diener used his scalpel to
make a long, deep incision from behind one ear to the other ear of the corpse,
passing over the crown of the bald head. Setting the scalpel aside, he grasped
the lower edge of the skin and, with some effort and the assistance of a knife,
began to pull the skin down from the top of the skull over the face to expose
the front of the skull. It made a disgusting sound and produced a distinct odor
that had an immediate effect on Attorney General Perry.
    “Unh,” he said, turning away.
    Harry then peeled away
the back flap of skin so that the entire top of the skull was visible. He
picked up an electric saw and tested it to make sure it was working.
    Easton had had his fun, so Hank
moved around the dissection table. “Mr. Attorney General, why