“I do understand,” he said gravely.
“Oh.” It wasn’t a question, but she didn’t move, just stood there waiting for him to leave.
Praying for him to leave, he thought. He was sorry for Miss Beaudreaux, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“Look, no matter what’s happened in the past, people are still dying now,” he told her. “There are still killers out there, and Dr. Abel is aware of that fact.”
“Oh, God! Are you investigating a murder?” she asked.
“A possible murder,” he said.
She nodded, straightened purposefully and walked back to the phone. She spoke quietly into the receiver, and when she hung up, she said, “I’ll lead you back.”
When she stopped outside an autopsy room, she pointed to a rack of white jackets. “You may want to suit up,” she told him.
He entered the room, slipping into a coat and mask. It looked as if Jon Abel had just started his current autopsy.
Aidan was sure that this body had been awaiting a break in the M.E.’s schedule, when the man had made time for it in order to avoid seeing him.
“I told you, Flynn, I’m busy,” the doctor said, without looking up. He made his first incision, and something green and putrid streamed from the body. One of his assistants muttered something and jumped back.
Abel looked up, clearly hoping that Aidan was also disturbed.
It was disturbing, Aidan thought. Death was frequently disturbing. It could be the natural end to a life long lived, but too often it was ravaged flesh and shattered bone, and horror in the open eyes of someone who had died violently. He had seen the bodies of those who had been killed in war, murdered, assassinated, even tortured. It was never easy. But he had learned not to react. Not usually.
He had reacted when he had seen Serena.
He pushed the thought from his mind. “I imagine this guy sat around in the heat a while before being discovered?” he asked.
Abel grunted—maybe granting him a modicum of respect? “Leroy Farbourg. I’m guessing he spent about a week up in a hot attic. The cops say his wife claimed she shot him by accident—shot him by accident four times. Now that ain’t easy.”
“What did she have, an Uzi?”
“Just old Leroy’s shotgun,” Abel said. He had backed away to let his assistant wash away some of the putrid fluid.
“Anything on those thighbones?” Aidan asked him.
Abel tensed with irritation. “As you can see, I’m busy.”
“You could give them to a coworker or an assistant,” Aidan suggested.
That drew a venomous stare. “Mr. Flynn, do you know how many unclaimed bodies we’ve dealt with? Wait—how many body parts we’ve dealt with?”
“Too many to count, I imagine,” Aidan said evenly. “But…please. When you can, look into those bones for me.”
Abel stared at Aidan. “Are you after a missing person, Mr. Flynn? Do you have a client breathing down your neck? If so, that client will have to wait until I am able to make a thorough forensic investigation. Am I clear?”
“I don’t have a client,” Aidan told him.
Abel’s silence was deadly.
“I would deeply appreciate your help,” Aidan said.
Abel rolled his eyes, but then he said gruffly, “I’ll get to those bones within the next few days. And when I do, I’ll call you.”
“All right, thanks. If I don’t hear anything, I’ll call you,” Aidan assured him pleasantly.
Abel’s scalpel cut deeply into the dead man. Aidan wondered if there was any law against the use of excessive force on the dead. But for the moment, there was nothing more he could do here. He thanked Jon Abel politely again and departed.
Kendall had heard all the stories about Marie Laveau, the famous voodoo queen of New Orleans. The woman had clearly been talented, but had she been truly psychic or only a superior practitioner of the art of listening, then drawing conclusions? Kendall’s mental jury was still out on that one. Actually, reading the tarot cards was easy. They all had several meanings. The Death card didn’t always—or even often—mean death. It frequently indicated change, the end of one thing and the beginning of something else. It was the same for all the cards. Reading tarot cards really meant appearing to be in deep concentration, asking a few carefully targeted questions and then giving answers general enough that they could never be proven wrong.