looked up and smiled. “Howard. How are you?”
“Missing being in your loving arms, but otherwise doing very well. How are things? How is, um — Kedrick?”
“Good memory. We’re both well, thanks. It’s been a while.”
“It has, hasn’t it?” A spurt of embarrassment showed on Howard’s face. “Sorry about that last time we were together. I guess I was a little jealous or something.”
Dan shook his head. “Don’t mention it.”
“Did the beer stains come out of your jacket?”
Dan smiled. “Pretty much. So how did you come to be working in the city morgue? Didn’t you use to work in film?”
Howard made a face. “Precisely. I used to do hair and make-up, but I find this far less stressful.”
“Are you kidding?”
Howard gave him a rueful look. “Have you ever worked with actors?”
“Thankfully, no.”
Howard checked his clipboard. “Say, you’re not waiting for unit three, are you? The murder vic from the slaughterhouse?”
Dan nodded, suddenly alert. “That’s me.”
“Come on down the hall. They’re nearly finished,” Howard told him. “I can probably sneak you in if we’re quiet.”
“I think you said something like that the last time we saw each other,” Dan said with a wink.
“Still a cheeky boy.”
Dan followed him to a set of double doors with a red light blinking overhead. Howard turned the knob and peered through the crack. He waved Dan in after him.
The body lay on a table, covered by a sheet up to the shoulders, leaving the head exposed. From across the room, Dan could make out the severed ear base, the dried blood turned black and grimy.
There were three men in the room. The first, clearly
a morgue attendant, carried a clipboard loosely under his arm. The second was the fleshy cop from the slaughterhouse last night. Probably continuity, Dan decided. He would have stayed with the body until the autopsy was completed to provide a continuity of evidence. In other words, so that no one could sneak in and fiddle about with the remains. Once that was done, the body would be sealed in a bag and left undisturbed till it was released to family. The other officer was new. He was smooth-faced and boyish, almost pretty. He’d have had a hard time in the training academy, Dan thought. Probably needed to prove himself at all times. His longish hair was slicked back Latino-style. Definitely not a regulation haircut.
Both cops were consulting sheets, making marks as the coroner told them his findings. They were as unlikely a pair as Jack Spratt and his lean-hating wife, the one small-framed and tidy, the other oversized and as unkempt as they came. The lumpy officer looked as though he’d never learned to tuck in his shirttails or iron his trousers. Even his boots were scuffed, the laces loosely tied.
“We’re almost finished,” said the morgue attendant, glancing over at Dan and Howard. “You can come in.”
The two cops glanced over with disdain, reminding Dan of the original meaning of the word “morgue.” Toronto cops had a reputation for being arrogant. To a degree it was deserved, but not by all. Dan had heard that small town cops resented them for making them all look bad. He’d met his share of cops. For the most part, he could take or leave them. Many were just ordinary folks off the beat, but some had a hardened attitude, as though they felt hard done by and ready to take it out on anybody who gave them cause. As if somebody had forced them to enter the ranks.
Apart from his size, the larger cop was nondescript. If he had the nerve for it, he’d probably be successful working undercover. He could take on any disguise with that doughboy face, potbelly, and stooped shoulders. With minimal effort, he might easily be mistaken for a truck driver, construction worker, or even a biker.
The other barely looked old enough to be a cop.
He was chewing gum, making loud smacking noises. His small stature emphasized his cocky attitude, as though he needed to make up in presence what he lacked in size. His eyes were green. Envy, zealotry, hard to tell. He had a girl’s nose and pouting lips. His hair, thick and honey-blonde, was the kind that seldom made it to middle age without receding, usually along with a sagging middle.
The larger cop said something to his partner, who turned to regard Dan with greater interest.
“You the one that found him?” he threw out.
“Yes, I am.”
“Missing persons investigator, I understand?”
“Correct,” Dan said. He could almost hear him thinking, Wannabe cop.
The officer turned away as though he couldn’t possibly be of further interest.
“I have some information that might help identify the victim,” Dan offered.
Both officers turned to him.
“What would that be, sir?” asked the larger one.
“I spoke with my client this morning. The man I’m searching for — Darryl Hillary — has a gold-capped lower incisor.”
“Well, you’re too late. We already know who this guy is,” replied the younger officer with more than a hint of surliness. “We got his fingerprints on file.”
Dan was aware of the competitiveness police officers felt around him. He wasn’t a cop, yet he often found himself working in their presumed territory.
“Might I ask if this is the person I’m searching for then?”
The blonde cop smirked in a humourless way. “Ask all you want, but it’s none of your business, sir.”
Dan felt his anger igniting. There was more than one way to say “fuck you” to an arrogant prick who took his authority too seriously. As far as Dan was concerned, cops were just one more form of civil servant. They could stand to be a lot more civil to the taxpayers who hired them.
He turned to the coroner and held out his hand.
“Dan Sharp.”
“Tim Johnson.”
“Good to meet you, Tim. Did you notice a gold-capped incisor?”
“Yes, I did.”
The attendant smiled and turned up the dead man’s lip with a gloved hand. There for all the world to see was the gold cap. Dan got the feeling that Tim was relieved to be talking to someone who didn’t look down on him. He also seemed more than happy to upstage this little martinet.
Howard stood looking down at the body with its missing ear and badly beaten face.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “Who did this? It’ll take more than a little lipstick and mascara to make this one
