she said.
"Impossible," said Dr. Hubbard. "The drying-out process took place because they were sealed into an airless closet, Joleen. They may have been dressed after they were dead, but their crypt was clearly undisturbed until we opened it yesterday."
The graduate student did not appear intimidated, nor particularly dissuaded, but said nothing. Morgan considered the implications of a lengthy delay between death and the memento mori tableau. He wondered: was the arrangement meant to inflict humiliation on the dead? To provide grisly satisfaction for the killer? To symbolize the transcendence of love for the lovers' accomplice? To taunt posterity with an impenetrable mystery?
Shelagh Hubbard had rejoined her colleague, and the two of them huddled over the headless corpses, conferring in whispers. The graduate student lingered beside Morgan. He introduced himself.
"And where are you from, Joleen?"
It was his favourite question, the way others will ask a stranger, What do you do? or, How do you like the weather? He needed to know where people were from. He was so completely a creature of one city, it connected him to the larger world.
"Cabbagetown," she said. "That's right here in downtown Toronto."
"I know where Cabbagetown is," he said quickly, staring at her for a moment, trying to place her within the social spectrum — tenement or townhouse?
"Working class, poor," she declared, as if reading his thoughts. She was neither defiant nor ashamed; it was like saying she was brunette or a woman. "And what about you?"
"The same."
"What are you two on about?" asked Shelagh Hubbard, turning around as if she were coming up for air.
"Common ancestry," said Joleen with a laugh.
"Common heritage," Morgan amended. She was of Chinese extraction — Morgan hated the brutal and trivializing term, "extraction." They were both from Cabbagetown.
"Joleen, eh? Did your parents ever go to Nashville?"
"When your last name is Chau and you don't live in Chinatown, you get called ‘Joleen.' It's about trying to fit in, avoiding the ethnic thing."
"You draw from a counter-ethnicity," said Morgan, rolling the name Joleen through his mind with a country cadence.
"I like that," said Shelagh Hubbard. "You could have been an academic, Morgan, the way you make up your own jargon. There'd be a publication in that: ‘Crossing Over: Second-Generation Immigrants and Counter-Ethnicity in Naming Their Offspring.'"
"I'm seventh-generation, actually," said Joleen.
"I'm from Vancouver, myself," said Dr. Hubbard, as if her declaration made sense. "We'd better get back to work," she continued. "We can't leave everything to Professor Birbalsingh. You can watch along if you want, Detective."
"The clothes," said Morgan. "How did you remove them?"
"Very carefully. The limbs articulated with gentle persuasion. Hers were easier than his."
"They didn't have underwear on," said Joleen. "She didn't even have bloomers."
"They weren't invented yet," said Dr. Hubbard.
"Open-crotched culottes. Whatever. She wasn't wearing anything under her petticoats. Neither was he — no underwear under his trousers. The frock coat is fine worsted but his pants are a really coarse twill. You can bet they didn't get dressed like that on their own."
"The clothes are as valuable as the lovers themselves," Shelagh Hubbard observed.
"I doubt they would have agreed," said Morgan.
Shelagh Hubbard smiled enigmatically.
"And the bodies?" he asked. "They'll be examined and recorded and then shelved, I suppose."
"We really should get back to work."
"What are we looking for?" he asked.
"We? Anything at all. The cause or causes of death. They might have died separately. You could help us track down their identities, Detective. Not that it really matters, but it might give us insight into why they were killed. I doubt we'll ever know by whom."
"It matters. Without names, they're generic," Morgan observed. "Without a story, they're artifacts."
"I think you'd make a better poet than professor," said Joleen.
"Thank you," said Morgan.
"We're looking for anomalies," explained Shelagh Hubbard. "Discovery through difference: what is out of place, what distinguishes these individuals from others, who are they now? As bodies, they're generic, yes, but as artifacts they are a present phenomenon, one which we need to study, Mr. Morgan."
"Sorry. Carry on, by all means. I'll just take a peak in the box."
"Those are the heads. I think it would be better if you left them alone for now. We need to examine them in laboratory conditions."
"We're in a laboratory," he said as he lifted the top off the box. The heads had been carefully arranged side by side, protected from sliding about during transportation by a black, velvety material that bunched up between them. He instinctively reached down to suppress the material so that they could seem more together.
Shelagh Hubbard placed her hand on his arm, trying to draw him back. "These must be considered scientific specimens. If you don't mind."
"I do, actually." He pulled away. Unsure whether he was joking or trying somehow to restore a little of their lost humanity to the dead, he said, "The least we could do is set the box up on its side so they can observe what they're missing." He could hear Joleen suppress a giggle.
"Don't be absurd," said Shelagh Hubbard. She fixed her gaze on Morgan with an intensity that made him shudder. She seemed able to turn her allure on or off like a wilful chameleon. Her pale eyes had taken on a predatory lustre and the death's-head appearance of her high cheekbones, accentuated by her blond hair pulled back tightly against her skull, seemed suddenly, dangerously exciting. In spite of his better judgment Morgan felt drawn in, wanting vaguely to please her, uncertain what was required.
She stood unnaturally close. He tried to hold his ground. He thought he felt the curve of her breast against his chest as she turned slightly to the side. She turned again, and this time there was no mistake. She was using sexuality as an instrument of intimidation. She leaned into him. He flinched, then to her surprise he pushed forward, pressing his body against hers. For the briefest moment they stood torso to torso in an armless embrace. He could feel her breasts, both of them, the tight roundness of her belly, her upper thighs. He did an instant inventory, then she turned and stepped away as if nothing had happened.
Morgan looked down into the box. "Her lips are sealed," he said.
"Death has a way of doing that," said Shelagh Hubbard.
"No, I mean it. They're sewn shut." He pointed to a thread barely visible among creases of wizened flesh.
"Not an uncommon funerary practice," she said.
"Let me see that," said the professor,
