Page 98 of Two Kinds of Stranger

I put four mugs on the counter. Poured black coffee for Bloch and I. Another for Harry, with a little shot from a bottle of Kentucky bourbon I kept in the kitchen. For Lake, I made hot water with lemon. I don’t know how he drinks it.

Once I’d carried the drinks into my office, I saw Harry was starting the video.

‘In cases of exhumation,’ began Harry, ‘the key concern for police officers is establishing the chain of evidence for the body. Every second that corpse is out of the ground has to be accounted for. Otherwise, it’s Christmas time for the defense.’

‘How so?’ asked Lake.

‘Think about it. They want the body to be examined in the hope of finding evidence of foul play. If a smartass defense lawyer can say that between the time of the body being exhumed and the time the body is examined or tested, there was an opportunity for someone to interfere with the state of the corpse then it renders the test results shaky. They need an unbroken chain of evidence to prove that their examination is accurate, and that no one could have had access to the body to distort their investigation results. Look. . .’ said Harry, and hit play on the laptop.

The screen showed a team of police and forensics officers, together with cemetery workers, breaking ground in a cemeterywith a small backhoe. Harry speeded up the video. The gravestone was that of Stewart Yorke, Elly’s father. The grave beside it belonged to her mother. Once the hole was big enough, two grave diggers jumped down into the grave carrying long straps. It looked from the video like a peaceful place to be laid to rest for eternity. Beyond the graveyard, the river and the Manhattan skyline were visible.

The canopy of a large tree sat above both graves, providing some shelter for the workers, and for mourners, I guessed.

Once the straps were in place, a telehandler appeared in shot and the straps were attached. It hauled the casket out of the grave and into a black steel case, which sat on a flatbed truck. The case’s sole purpose was for transporting exhumed bodies. The lid of the case was closed, locked and for the first time Detective Bill Sacks appeared in shot. He peeled off a police evidence seal sticker from its backing and stuck it over the lid of the steel transport box. Close-ups of the seals were recorded.

The video went blank and started again in a different location with a close-up of the same evidence seals on the steel box, to demonstrate that they had not been broken and were in exactly the same place, but this time the flatbed was at the loading bay of the medical examiner’s office in Manhattan. We saw the seals being broken and mortuary workers in white forensics overalls lift the casket from the transport box, onto a trolley and wheel it inside. The camera followed it to an examination room where Dr. Sharpling, the medical examiner, was waiting. He wore a full forensic suit and was only recognizable because of a tuft of white hair sticking out from his hood.

The mortuary assistants opened the casket, and the camera swept over the body of Elly’s father, from his shoes to his head.

But the camera stopped at his knees.

‘What’s this,’ said a voice in the video that sounded like Sharpling. He appeared in frame with a pair of long steeltongs. He called for a baggie. Sacks appeared at his side with a transparent plastic evidence bag.

Sharpling reached inside the casket and when his arm came out there was a moth in the teeth of the prongs. The moth was dead, unmoving. As he placed it in the evidence bag, he offered an explanation.

‘Probably came from the funeral parlor. Most of them have a room of old, spare clothes to dress the customers who don’t have anything formal. This little guy was probably in a suit hanging up in the funeral home and next thing he gets buried with a corpse. . .’

Sacks sealed the bag, then handed it to someone else.

‘I’ve never seen that before,’ I said. ‘Anything out of the ordinary, it bugs me. The rest of the video shows the autopsy and Sharpling taking samples of tissue.’

‘Rewind that back to when the doc holds up the moth,’ said Lake.

Harry used the keyboard on the laptop to find the section of video.

‘There,’ said Lake, ‘freeze it.’

Lake and Bloch leaned forward, looked at the screen. The moth was large enough, I guessed, with brown forewings dotted with black spots. The same spots appeared on its scarlet hind wings.

Lake and Bloch looked at each other. They smiled.

‘Rewind it further, to the cemetery,’ said Bloch.

Harry started the video again from the beginning, showing the backhoe starting to dig up the remains.

‘That’s it,’ said Bloch.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘What did you see?’

Lake smiled and said, ‘We just saw heaven.’

‘What does that mean?’ said Harry.

Bloch stood, said, ‘It means we just found a defense.’

PART FIVE

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