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“It wasn’t in the wine for the morning service, and it was in—if it was—for the funeral. Maybe somebody snuck in, broke into the box-thing, laced the wine without knowing who’d be taking the first drink. But my vote is Flores was the target.”
But she’d hold her report in reserve until she talked to Morris.
Into the chilly, artificial air, death slipped and snuck—the god of all thieves. No amount of filtering, sealing or cleaning could quite banish the insidiously sweet and human smell. Used to it, Eve wound through the white, harshly lit corridors of the morgue—thought fleetingly about hitting Vending for a tube of Pepsi to kick up the caffeine level—and pushed open one of the doors of an autopsy room.
It surprised her to be immediately assaulted with the romantic perfume of roses. They stood, red as fresh blood, on one of the rolling tables used to hold the nasty tools of the trade performed there. Eve studied the small forest of them, and wondered if the naked corpse behind them appreciated their elegance.
Elegant, too, was the man who hummed along with the choral music drifting through the rose- and death-scented air. Chief Medical Examiner Morris wore black today, but there was nothing ghoulish or funereal in the sharply tailored suit. The lightning-bolt blue T-shirt—probably silk—kicked it up a notch, Eve supposed. He’d pinned one of the red rosebuds to his lapel, and wound red and blue cords through his long black ponytail.
The clear, protective cloak didn’t diminish the style, and when he turned his exotic eyes to her and smiled, Eve had to admit that kicked it up another notch.
“Nice flowers,” she commented.
“Aren’t they? A token from a friend. I decided to bring them in. They class up the place, don’t you think?”
“They’re mag.” Peabody walked over, took a sniff. “Man, there are like two dozen easy. Some token.”
It was an obvious ploy for more information, but Morris only continued to smile. “She’s a very good friend. It occurred to me I should have had flowers in here before. It’s traditional, after all, to bring them to the dead.”
“Why is that?” Eve wondered.
“I believe they’re symbolic of a resurrection, a kind of rebirth. Which,” Morris continued, “your current interest should appreciate. Along with, I hope, the music. Mozart’s ‘Requiem.’ ”
“Okay.” Eve looked over at Flores and doubted he appreciated much of anything, being dead, on a slab, and currently opened by one of Morris’s delicate and effective Y cuts. “How’d he get here?”
“The road is long and winding. But his ended with a dose of poison with his wine and wafer.”
“Cyanide.”
Morris inclined his head. “Potassium cyanide to be precise. It dissolves easily in liquid, and the dose was lethal. Enough, in fact, to have felled a rhino. I haven’t finished with him yet, but other than being dead, he appears to be a very healthy corpse. Fit as a fiddle, if not ready for love.”
“Sorry?”
“A play on an old song. The injuries were a result of his fall. He had bran cereal, rehydrated bananas, yogurt, and soy coffee about three hours before death. Sometime around puberty he suffered a broken radius, left arm—it healed well. I’m assuming he trained—let’s say religiously, because we can—and played sports.”
“That fits.”
“And may explain some of the wear on the joints, but doesn’t satisfy me regarding the scarring.”
“What scarring?”
Morris crooked his finger, then offered Eve a pair of microgoggles. “Let’s start here.” He adjusted his scope so Peabody could observe on the comp screen, then bent over Flores with Eve. “Here, between the fourth and fifth ribs. Very faint, and I believe someone made an attempt with Nu Skin or something similar to reduce the scarring. Nu Skin won’t help on the rib itself, which still carries its own scar. See here.”
Peabody made a gurgling sound behind them as Morris exposed the rib cage.
Eve studied the rib through the goggles. “Knife wound.”
“Yes, indeed. And a second one here.” He indicated the faint scar on the right upper pectoral. I’ll run tests, but my extremely expert opinion puts the first wound at no less than five, no more than ten years old, the second between ten and fifteen. And here, on the left forearm. Again, this would be barely visible to the naked eye. A good job.”
“That’s not a wound,” Eve muttered as she scanned the faint pattern on the skin. “Tat removal.”
“My prize student.” Morris gave her a quick pat on the back. “I’ll send a copy of the enhanced visual to the lab. They should be able to recreate the image your priest had on his arm. Now for something really interesting. He’s had face work.”
Eve’s head came up, her magnified eyes meeting Morris’s. “What kind?”
“A full compliment, I think. But again, I haven’t finished. I can tell you it was a first-class job, and first-class face work is very pricey. One would think out of the range of a servant of God.”
“Yeah, you would.” Slowly, she pulled off the goggles. “How long ago did he have the work?”
