Vanish (2 page)

declares loudly: “Nice. Very nice.”

I stare at Anja. At first I think that she must be dead, because she does not move. The man

doesn’t even glance back at her, but reaches into a backpack for a water bottle. He takes a long

drink. He does not see Anja come back to life.

Suddenly she rises to her feet. She begins to run.

As she flees into the desert, I press my hands against the window.
Hurry, Anja! Go. Go!

“Hey!” one of the men yells. “That one’s running.”

Anja is still fleeing. She is barefoot, naked, and sharp rocks are surely cutting into her feet. But

the open desert lies ahead, and she does not falter.

Don’t look back. Keep running! Keep . . .

The gunshot freezes my blood.

Anja pitches forward and sprawls to the ground. But she is not yet conquered. She struggles

back to her feet, staggers a few steps like a drunken woman, then falls to her knees. She is

crawling now, every inch a fight, a triumph. She reaches out, as though to grab a helping hand

that none of us can see.

A second gunshot rings out.

This time, when Anja falls, she does not rise again.

The van driver tucks the gun in his belt and looks at the girls. They are all crying, hugging

themselves as they stare across the desert toward Anja’s body.

“That’s a waste,” says the man who raped her.

“Too much trouble to run them down,” the driver says. “You still have six to choose from.”

They have tried out the merchandise; now the men begin to barter. When they have finished,

they divide us up like livestock. Three girls in each van. I do not hear how much they pay for

us; I only know that I am the bargain, the one thrown in as part of another deal.

As we drive away, I look back toward Anja’s body. They have not bothered to bury her; she

lies exposed to the sun and wind, and already hungry birds are circling in the sky. In a few

weeks, there will be nothing left of her. She will vanish, just as I am about to vanish, into a

land where no one knows my name. Into America.

We turn onto a highway. I see a sign: US 94.

TWO

Dr. Maura Isles had not smelled fresh air all day. Since seven that morning she had been

inhaling the scent of death, an aroma so familiar to her that she did not recoil as her knife sliced

cold skin, as foul odors wafted up from exposed organs. The police officers who occasionally

stood in the room to observe postmortems were not so stoic. Sometimes Maura caught a whiff

of the Vicks ointment that they dabbed in their nostrils to mask the stench. Sometimes even

Vicks was not enough, and she’d see them suddenly go wobbly and turn away, to gag over the

sink. Cops were not accustomed, as she was, to the astringent bite of formalin, the sulfurous

aroma of decaying membranes.

Today, there was an incongruous note of sweetness added to that bouquet of odors: the scent

of coconut oil, emanating from the skin of Mrs. Gloria Leder, who now lay on the autopsy

table. She was fifty years old, a divorcee with broad hips and heavy breasts and toenails

painted a brilliant pink. Deep tan lines marked the edges of the bathing suit she had been

wearing when she was found dead beside her apartment swimming pool. It had been a bikini—

not the most flattering choice for a body sagging with middle age. When was the last time I had

the chance to put on my bathing suit? Maura thought, and she felt an absurd flash of envy for

Mrs. Gloria Leder, who’d spent the last moments of her life enjoying this summer day. It was

almost August, and Maura had not yet visited the beach or sat by a swimming pool or even

sunbathed in her own backyard.

“Rum and Coke,” said the young cop standing at the foot of the table. “I think that’s what she

had in her glass. It was sitting next to her patio chair.”

This was the first time Maura had seen Officer Buchanan in her morgue. He made her nervous,

the way he kept fussing with his paper mask and shifting from foot to foot. The boy looked

way too young to be a cop. They were all starting to look too young.

“Did you retain the contents of that glass?” she asked Officer Buchanan.

“Uh . . . no, ma’am. I took a good whiff. She was definitely drinking a rum and Coke.”

“At nine A.M.?” Maura looked across the table at her assistant, Yoshima. As usual, he was

silent, but she saw one dark eyebrow tilt up, as eloquent a comment as she would get from

Yoshima.

“She didn’t get down too much of it,” said Officer Buchanan. “The glass was still pretty full.”

“Okay,” said Maura. “Let’s take a look at her back.”

Together, she and Yoshima log-rolled the corpse onto its side.

“There’s a tattoo here on the hip,” noted Maura. “Little blue butterfly.”

“Geez,” said Buchanan. “A woman her age?”

Maura glanced up. “You think fifty’s ancient, do you?”

“I mean—well, that’s my
mom’s
age.”

Careful, boy. I’m only ten years younger.

She picked up the knife and began to cut. This was her fifth postmortem of the day, and she

made swift work of it. With Dr. Costas on vacation, and a multivehicle accident the night

before, the cold room had been crammed with body bags that morning. Even as she’d worked

her way through the backlog, two more bodies had been delivered to the refrigerator. Those

would have to wait until tomorrow. The morgue’s clerical staff had already left for the evening,

and Yoshima kept looking at the clock, obviously anxious to be on his way home.

She incised skin, gutted the thorax and abdomen. Removed dripping organs and placed them

on the cutting board to be sectioned. Little by little, Gloria Leder revealed her secrets: a fatty

liver, the telltale sign of a few too many rums and Cokes. A uterus knobby with fibroids.

And finally, when they opened the cranium, the reason for her death. Maura saw it as she lifted

the brain in her gloved hands. “Subarachnoid hemorrhage,” she said, and glanced up at

Buchanan. He was looking far paler than when he had first walked into the room. “This

woman probably had a berry aneurysm—a weak spot in one of the arteries at the base of the

brain. Hypertension would have exacerbated it.”

Buchanan swallowed, his gaze focused on the flap of loose skin that had been Gloria Leder’s

scalp, now peeled forward over the face. That’s the part that usually horrified them, the point at

which so many of them winced or turned away—when the face collapses like a tired rubber

mask.

“So . . . you’re saying it’s a natural death?” he asked softly.

“Correct. There’s nothing more you need to see here.”

The young man was already stripping off his gown as he retreated from the table. “I think I

need some fresh air . . .”

So do I, thought Maura. It’s a summer night, my garden needs watering, and I have not been

outside all day.

But an hour later she was still in the building, sitting at her desk reviewing lab slips and

dictated reports. Though she had changed out of her scrub suit, the smell of the morgue still

seemed to cling to her, a scent that no amount of soap and water could eradicate, because the

memory itself was what lingered. She picked up the Dictaphone and began to record her report

on Gloria Leder.

“Fifty-year-old white woman found slumped in a patio chair near her apartment swimming

pool. She is a well-developed, well-nourished woman with no visible trauma. External exam

reveals an old surgical scar on her abdomen, probably from an appendectomy. There is a small

tattoo of a butterfly on her . . .” She paused, picturing the tattoo. Was it on the left or the right

hip? God, I’m so tired, she thought. I can’t remember. What a trivial detail. It made no

difference to her conclusions, but she hated being inaccurate.

She rose from her chair and walked the deserted hallway to the stairwell, where her footfalls

echoed on concrete steps. Pushing into the lab, she turned on the lights and saw that Yoshima

had left the room in pristine condition as usual, the tables wiped down and gleaming, the floors

mopped clean. She crossed to the cold room and pulled open the heavy locker door. Wisps of

cold mist curled out. She took in a reflexive breath of air, as though about to plunge into foul

water, and stepped into the locker.

Eight gurneys were occupied; most were awaiting pickup by funeral homes. Moving down the

row, she checked the tags until she found Gloria Leder’s. She unzipped the bag, slipped her

hands under the corpse’s buttocks and rolled her sideways just far enough to catch a glimpse of

the tattoo.

It was on the left hip.

She closed the bag again and was just about to swing the door shut when she froze. Turning,

she stared into the cold room.

Did I just hear something?

The fan came on, blowing icy air from the vents. Yes, that’s all it was, she thought. The fan. Or

the refrigerator compressor. Or water cycling in the pipes. It was time to go home. She was so

tired, she was starting to imagine things.

Again she turned to leave.

Again she froze. Turning, she stared at the row of body bags. Her heart was thumping so hard

now, all she could hear was the beat of her own pulse.

Something moved in here. I’m sure of it.

She unzipped the first bag and stared down at a man whose chest had been sutured closed.

Already autopsied, she thought. Definitely dead.

Which one? Which one made the noise?

She yanked open the next bag, and confronted a bruised face, a shattered skull.
Dead.

With shaking hands she unzipped the third bag. The plastic parted, and she saw the face of a

pale young woman with black hair and cyanotic lips. Opening the bag all the way, she exposed

a wet blouse, the fabric clinging to white flesh, the skin glistening with chilly droplets of water.

She peeled open the blouse and saw full breasts, a slim waist. The torso was still intact, not yet

incised by the pathologist’s knife. The fingers and toes were purple, the arms marbled with

blue.

She pressed her fingers to the woman’s neck and felt icy skin. Bending close to the lips, she

waited for the whisper of a breath, the faintest puff of air against her cheek.

The corpse opened its eyes.

Maura gasped and lurched backward. She collided with the gurney behind her, and almost fell

as the wheels rolled away. She scrambled back to her feet and saw that the woman’s eyes were

still open, but unfocused. Blue-tinged lips formed soundless words.

Get her out of the refrigerator! Get her warm!

Maura shoved the gurney toward the door but it didn’t budge; in her panic she’d forgotten to

unlock the wheels. She stamped down on the release lever and pushed again. This time it

rolled, rattling out of the cold room into the warmer loading area.

The woman’s eyes had drifted shut again. Leaning close, Maura could feel no air moving past

the lips.
Oh Jesus. I can’t lose you now.

She knew nothing about this stranger—not her name, nor her medical history. This woman

could be teeming with viruses, yet she sealed her mouth over the woman’s, and almost gagged

at the taste of chilled flesh. She delivered three deep breaths, and pressed her fingers to the neck

to check for a carotid pulse.

Am I imagining it? Is that my own pulse I feel, throbbing in my fingers?

She grabbed the wall phone and dialed 911.

“Emergency operator.”

“This is Dr. Isles in the medical examiner’s office. I need an ambulance. There’s a woman here,

in respiratory arrest—”

“Excuse me, did you say the medical examiner’s office?”

“Yes! I’m at the rear of the building, just inside the loading bay. We’re on Albany Street, right

across from the medical center!”

“I’m dispatching an ambulance now.”

Maura hung up. Once again, she quelled her disgust as she pressed her lips to the woman’s.

Three more quick breaths, then her fingers were back on the carotid.

A pulse. There was definitely a pulse!

Suddenly she heard a wheeze, a cough. The woman was moving air now, mucus rattling in her

throat.

Stay with me. Breathe, lady. Breathe!

A loud whoop announced the arrival of the ambulance. She shoved open the rear doors and

stood squinting against flashing lights as the vehicle backed up to the dock. Two EMTs jumped

out, hauling their kits.

“She’s in here!” Maura called.

“Still in respiratory arrest?”

“No, she’s breathing now. And I can feel a pulse.”

The two men trotted into the building and halted, staring at the woman on the gurney. “Jesus,”

one of them murmured. “Is that a
body
bag?”

“I found her in the cold room,” said Maura. “By now, she’s probably hypothermic.”

“Oh, man. If this isn’t your worst nightmare.”

Out came the oxygen mask and IV lines. They slapped on EKG leads. On the monitor, a slow

sinus rhythm blipped like a lazy cartoonist’s pen. The woman had a heartbeat and she was

breathing, yet she still looked dead.

Looping a tourniquet around one flaccid arm, the EMT asked: “What’s her story? How did she

get here?”

“I don’t know anything about her,” said Maura. “I came down to check on another body in the

cold room and I heard this one moving.”

“Does this, uh, happen very often here?”

“This is a first time for me.” And she hoped to God it was the last.

“How long has she been in your refrigerator?”