He could hear another voice, too, now, carried on the wind and coming up the trail, and he ran helter-skelter out of the graveyard and into the surrounding woods. The branches tore at his sleeves and the thicket was almost impenetrable but he just kept running. The breath was hot in his throat, and he realized, not for the first time, just how out of shape he was. Two years in the penitentiary can do that to you. So it was a miracle when he stumbled into a tiny glade where an ancient hut still stood. All that was left of the place was a few boards holding the walls in place and a door made out of wooden staves, but right now it looked better than the Yardarm to him.
He banged through the brittle door, closed what was left of it behind him, then bent over double, gasping for breath. The beer came up in a rush of hot vomit, splashing onto his boots. The wind rattled the sticks of the door. He saw a table, and an old, empty dynamite crate drawn up to it like a stool. He leaned one hand on the side of the table. An old leather book was on it, with the frozen nub of a candle in a pewter dish. His head was pounding so hard he thought he was going to stroke out on the spot. Get a grip, he told himself. You haven’t even done anything wrong yet. It was Harley who broke open the grave. I’m just along for the ride.
He sat down with a thump on the dynamite box, which groaned but remained intact.
All he’d done, he reminded himself, was trespass—and maybe on government property. What could the penalty be for that, anyway? It couldn’t be that bad, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was still on parole, it wouldn’t have even been worth worrying about. But he was on parole, and if he ever had to go back into that cramped cell in Spring Creek—where the walls had pressed in tighter every day—he’d kill himself.
First, however, he’d kill Harley Vane for getting him into this mess.
Chapter 34
“What’s that mean again?” Dr. Lantos asked, as she extended the masking tape.
Slater finished writing on the cardboard—“Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae”—before slapping the sign on the outside of the thick plastic walls separating the autopsy chamber from the rest of the lab tent. “It means, ‘This is the place where death rejoices to help the living.’ At the AFIP, we always kept the sign up to remind us why we were there. To help the living.”
“I hope the deacon feels the same way.”
“He was a man of God, wasn’t he?”
Lantos snorted. “You must have a higher regard for organized religion than I do.”
Slater had been brought up without any religion at all. And though he sometimes envied those who were able to find solace in their faith—his ex had still attended church on a regular basis—he was convinced that if the seed of belief weren’t planted early, it could never really thrive.
Both he and Dr. Lantos were already garbed from head to toe in hazmat suits, and now that they were ready to enter the autopsy chamber, they put on their face masks with plastic goggles. They took a few extra seconds to adjust them and make sure they felt secure, since once they were inside it couldn’t be done again without running the risk of breaking the seal. Satisfied, Slater held open the heavy-duty plastic flaps of the chamber, and in a muffled voice, said, “After you.”
Lantos, whose hood was raised an inch or two by the frizz of her hair, ducked inside, and Slater followed, turning to seal the long Velcro strips that held the flaps closed. In here, even the rubber floor had a heavy plastic sheath beneath it; that way, when the work on St. Peter’s Island was done, the entire autopsy compartment could be rolled up like an enormous sheet of cellophane and incinerated. To Slater, it felt as if he’d stepped inside a jellyfish, with shimmering translucent walls all around, above, and below him.
The body of the deacon, still in his long black cassock with the red lining, lay on the autopsy table staring at the ceiling.
Lantos, poking at the corpse with one gloved finger, said, “They always take longer to thaw than you expect.” It was as if she were talking about a Thanksgiving turkey, and though an ordinary person might have been put off by her tone, Slater recognized it for what it was. This was how medical professionals—epidemiologists included—often spoke to each other. The casual banter was meant to dispel the doubts and fears and just plain moral confusion that confronted anyone about to desecrate and dismember human flesh. Otherwise, it was all too easy to see yourself instead lying on that table, a hunk of mortal ruins swiftly on its way to decay.
“Do you want to wait a while,” Lantos asked, “or start removing the clothes?”
Slater squeezed the deacon’s shoulder, pressed the abdomen, flexed a booted foot, and said, “We can go ahead. The clothing may be stiffer than the skin.”
“Then pail and scalpels it is.”
Everything they would need for the autopsy was already in the room, from surgical instruments to disposal bins, and in the small freezer in the corner they had already stored the in situ specimens from the graveyard; these would remain the cleanest and purest samples of all, transported back to the AFIP untouched.