I cocked an eyebrow at him. “You really need a life.”
A smile ghosted across his lips, which on him was equivalent to a full-belly laugh. Carl was the morgue assistant to Dr. Jonathan Lanza, the parish pathologist. Tall and lean, with short, almost colorless hair and hazel-brown eyes, he managed to avoid looking like the archetypical morgue worker by having a semblance of a tan and a fairly athletic build. However, he was reserved to the point of appearing emotionless, which tended to swing him right back into the stereotype. In the past few months I’d had the chance to get to know him some, and I’d come to learn that he was anything but emotionless. He was a keen observer and tended to think carefully before speaking, but moreover, he was my aunt’s boyfriend—and that right there told me there was something very special about him. My aunt was…odd. But he seemed to understand her. Better than I did, to be honest.
We were in the cutting room of the St. Long Parish Morgue. On the metal table before us was the naked body of Barry Landrieu. The scent of formalin and Pine-Sol mingled, and my stomach gave off an unfamiliar twinge of queasiness. I’d only been wearing the cuff for a few hours, and I was already feeling the effects. As long as I don’t puke during the autopsy I’ll be all right, I tried to reassure myself. I would never live it down if I lost my breakfast.
“You don’t normally come to autopsies of natural deaths,” Carl said as he readied instruments on a side table. Scalpels, scissors, syringes, a bone saw. And one that always made me wince—long-handled pruning shears, used to cut through the ribs so that the pathologist could better examine the internal organs.
“Two deaths with nosebleeds in the same day?” I said. “I tend to be suspicious of coincidences.” Out of habit I tried to shift into othersight to give the body a once-over and silently cursed as it proved impossible with the stupid cuff on.
He gave a mild nod. “It does seem odd,” he agreed. “And you sometimes have more reason than most to dislike what appears to be coincidence to others.”
I was