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Weinstock glanced at Crow and then turned a hard look on the caretaker. “There’s some risk of contagion here. Please, stand back. ”
“Contagion?” the man said, eyes flaring wide as he did indeed step back. “From what? I thought this fella was murdered. ”
Weinstock’s eyes were hard as flint, but even so they had a shifty flicker to them. Crow wore Wayfarers against the glare of the Sunday morning sun and he kept his face blank. Weinstock wore a heavy topcoat; Crow was in a bomber jacket and jeans. He held the clipboard with the exhumation papers on them, signed by Weinstock himself right over the signature of Nels Cowan’s wife. Her hand had trembled when she’d signed it and it made her handwriting look like that of a five-year-old. There were two small circles on the page where her tears had fallen and puckered the paper.
Weinstock licked his lips. “Not all of the blood work on Officer Cowan was completed at the time of interment. Our tests detected traces of a highly dangerous virus. ”
“Virus?” The caretaker’s name was Holliston and his seamed face was a study in skepticism. He rested his shoulder against the bucket of the front-end loader and folded his arms. “Nels Cowan didn’t die of no virus, he was killed by that Boyd fellow. ”
“I didn’t say he did, Mr. Holliston,” Weinstock said frostily. “I said traces of a virus were detected in his blood. Tests have suggested that the alleged killer may have been infected, and that during the struggle he was wounded. There may have been an inadvertent exchange of blood during the struggle. It is vitally important to establish if this is the case. Among other things, I am the liaison between the town of Pine Deep and the local office of the CDC. ”
“What’s that?”
“The Centers for Disease Control. So, it’s important that I conduct this test under the proper conditions. ” He pulled a surgical mask out of his bag and slipped it on, and then began squirming his hands into latex gloves. Holliston yielded and walked a few dozen yards away.
Crow waited until Holliston was far enough away and then said, “We are so going to go to jail for this shit. ”
“Joanie Cowan signed the paper and I’m the county coroner. It’s all more or less legal. ”
“More or less is not a comfortable phrase. ”
“It’s what we have. ”
“Any of that CDC stuff on the level?”
Weinstock shrugged. “More or less. ”
“Swell. ”
They looked around. For a Sunday morning the cemetery was remarkably empty; church probably hadn’t let out yet.
“You ready?” Weinstock asked, and Crow slipped his hand inside his jacket and pulled his Beretta nine half out of the shoulder rig. “If there’s anything in that coffin except a dead guy I’
m going to empty this thing in it. ”
“Just don’t shoot me. ”
“Don’t get in the line of fire. ”
“Fair enough. ”
On the drive home from the hospital they’d cooked up the plan, going on the basis that if something was still happening in Pine Deep they needed to know sooner rather than later, so by the next morning they were ready. Weinstock printed out the exhumation papers and cooked up the infection story—he’d deal with chain of evidence later—and then called Joanie Cowan at seven-thirty on that Sunday morning, waking her out of a deep sleep in order to break her heart all over again. Overwhelmed by Weinstock’s medical double-talk, she had disintegrated into tears and signed the papers, and the two of them slunk away like thieves.
“This is so wrong,” Crow said as they approached the coffin, which sat on the bucket of a big front-end loader. He brushed away clods of cold dirt and started twisting the wingnuts that held the lid on. His hands shook so bad his fingers slipped on the cold metal.
Weinstock stopped him and handed him a mask. “He’s been dead for two weeks…this is going to be bad. You don’t want to breathe it. Remember…smell is particulate. ”
“Oh man. I really could have gotten through the day without knowing that. ”
“Welcome to the field of medicine. ”
“This isn’t medicine, brother,” Crow said, adjusting the rubber band that secured the mask. “This is black magic. ”
They worked together to make a fast job of it. Even without opening the lid it smelled bad. Like rotting meat and raw sewage poured over molasses. Crow gagged.
Weinstock glanced around. The caretaker was ten rows down busy with the task of cutting the turf to dig a fresh grave. The doctor looked across the casket to Crow. “You ready?”
