“The DNA results just arrived.” Doc Thomas adjusted his latex gloves. “The state forensics lab sent them right on.”

“And?” she asked. “Who killed my kid sister, Trish?”

Pausing, Doc Thomas took stock of his deiner, a young girl named Eva Blackburn. This morning -- soon to be replaced by cloroxed, floppy hospital scrubs -- her goth-punk outfit was more restrained than usual: a camo mini skirt, a black satin cincher corset, and black hose. The ball chain choker accented the 3-row spike and chain belt riding low on her sharp hips. A weird girl. Still, he valued her assistance, especially given the gritty dedication she’d displayed this previous week.

Eva’s mauve-glossed lips twitched into a slash. “Who is it, Doc?”

His booties stepping up to the morgue's stainless steel table, Doc Thomas blinked off the fluorescence swamping his red-veined eyes. “Oh, never damn mind,” he muttered. “I can’t tell you. You’re way too involved to know it.”

Eva: “Why did you bring it up then?”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have. It was insensitive, a stupid idea,” he said. “Will you please bring in the next subject?”

While trundling the transport gurney alongside the cooler shelf, Eva scowled. The young, well-dressed Caucasian male inside the pale blue body bag was a hit-and-run victim who’d been clipped late two nights ago. A senseless tragedy, she thought. The inept cops would never track down the offending drunk driver. Tugging each corner, she was able, by fits and starts, to scoot the bagged corpse off the shelf onto the gurney.

For the past couple mornings, she’d been expecting the lab to send the DNA report. So, here now, it was to remain a big mystery. “Screw that noise,” Eva grumbled. Like miniature grenades, her short, frosty breaths heaved out. Shoving with both hands, she whapped shut the cadaver cooler’s door.

Meantime, Doc Thomas worried with his instruments. A bread knife, a bone chisel, a retractor -- all at once, he banged both fists on the table. Oh damn, why had he even mentioned anything about the killer’s DNA? Above him on a window ledge, sunrays filtering through potted ferns and cacti cast a greenish hue on their ghoulish toil. He hadn’t always sagged this dispirited and glum. Only until last week’s autopsy, this morgue was had always been his oyster . . .

“Doc, didn’t you hear me?” Eva had aligned the transport gurney with the examination table. “I asked if you\rquote d lend me a hand here?”

Absently nodding, Doc Thomas stood at one end of the body bag, she at the other. Together, on the count of three, they hefted the dead weight over to the table’ s tilted surface. Trickling water on the lower table provided a constant flush. Blood and tissue from any cadaver oozed through drain holes to this catch-all.

After his face canted to the harsh glare of the surgical task lights, Eva first noticed Doc Thomas’ grim-set jaw. He was under a lot of strain, too. She both liked and trusted him. With a veteran surgeon’ s precision, he lay the young man’s chest apart using a classic Y-incision. Exposed tissue and muscle glistened a dark purple, a specter that electrified a shudder through Eva’s shoulders. That surprised her. She hadn’t experienced such a violent reaction to the initial cut since her first week interning at the morgue.

With a start, Eva realized it was her need to know who the DNA fingered that so agitated her. Who, who, who had raped, then murdered her kid sister? Again, she shivered, only much harder.

* * *

Home again, Doc Thomas gathered around his old pals. Dave Brubeck on the CD. Jack Daniels in the tumbler. Walter Raleigh in the briar pipe. Except it wasn’t a happy tableau. He sat peed off at himself. H
is sore bones collapsed on the orange sleeper sofa. It was a hideous color, a hand-me-down only a busy bachelor such as himself could abide.

The local tabloid, unfolded and unread, on the equally ugly orange hassock could go burn in hell. He could well guess what homicide was reported in the crime column. Trish, Eva's kid sister's. Bah! Between generous sips, what he cherished most was the amber alcohol kicking the snot out of him. But tonight it was late, if ever, coming.

His eyes blurred, then refocused. The skel the DNA belonged to really wasn’t at all stunning. Semen had soiled the vaginal swab packaged in the rape kit, but the six male pubic hairs tweezed out had yielded the DNA analysis jackpot. Doc Thomas gripped his stomach. Damn peptic ulcers. A deep breath sucked in. He’ d been a M.E. for twenty-three years, encountered all twists of perversity and brutality. Yet none of that tedium had prepped him for what last week’s autopsy had demanded of him.

Was there no justice left in the world?

A crisp tremor circuited through his lank frame. Dropping back his head, Doc Thomas belted out a coyote’s yip. Feeling no less calmed, he leapt off the couch, stumbled on one leg, and banged his shin on the monkeypod coffee table. “Goddamn it!”

But throughout the ordeal, hadn’t Eva Blackburn been a real pro? Oh yeah, she was a keeper, not to be wasted behind the fryer at a Wendys. The M.E. profession begged for more proteges like her. He sloshed in a slug of Jack Daniels. Looking at his shaky hand, he scoffed. What if he was a bit unsteady?

The stale joke made him put on a wry grin. What was a M.E.’s unspoken fringe benefits? Patients never complained. There was no malpractice insurance, no anxious loved ones hovering at the OR’ s doors for any grim post-operation status.

“I’m truly sorry, ma’am. I did everything within my earthly power to save your beloved husband, but the old buzzard just up and kicked the bucket.”

Doc Thomas snickered. He was nearabout drunk enough. No. More drink. More drink to blot out any memory of last week’s autopsy. Then, a gentle fade to black.

* * *

Meantime, in the jaundiced half-light, Eva profiled before the full-length mirror screwed on behind her bedroom door. For a quarter-hour, she’dbeen staring, her mind embroiled with savage thoughts. Eyes and hooks down her black satin corset had been undone. Her breasts, these strange pink-tipped orbs, excited men. In fact, her entire body deep in its curves and mysteries translated into a potent domain over them. She sighed.

She rotated, studied a scar zippering up from the cleft of her muscular buttocks. A memory of her Jet Ski accident sprang to mind. Trish and she that Sunday afternoon had rented the jet skis at a local lakeside beach.
It was a gas. Trish, the least adventuresome and always most cautious of the two, never strayed beyond the orange buoys. Just the opposite, Eva could never respect boundaries. Despite Trish waving and calling after her, she’d accelerated full tilt straight for the wide waters.

Daredevil boaters had churned up wakes, one of largest slamming into Eva broadside. The force of the impact had hurled her off the Jet Ski into the side of a motorboat carving too close. A flash of white seized Eva a split second before the agony of cracked vertebrae. In that depth, she would’ve drowned but strong, eager hands pulled her on deck. Luckier still, a young doctor was onboard.

That’s what now puzzled Eva. Trish’s seemingly reckless disregard to step alone into a murky alleyway behind Black Slax to grab a smoke. The techno music club was a rathole-in-the-wall tucked into the city’s poor, seedy sector that cops dubbed Hogtown. Trish’s pals, space cadets all, had lost track of her. Or so they later pleaded. It was a safe bet they’d been stoned out of their minds on Ecstasy, the party drug of choice.

As it was, some hard-hearted bastard had apparently abducted Trish at knifepoint. He then proceeded to ravish her, capped off with an OJ run ear to ear. He was sure a razor’s edge would cover his tracks. Only his tracks weren’t so well concealed. Trish’s body was processed at the crime scene, then transferred to the morgue. Damning physical evidence crawled over her corpse like maggots.

The next morning at eight-thirty on the dot when Eva punched the time clock, she confronted a double whammy. Not only did she first learn her sister was slain the night before, but Trish also cooled on their slab, scheduled for autopsy. Misery and grief crushed Eva, but she sucked it up and screwed on her best game face.

Off the bat, Doc Thomas excused her from work. Tried to send her home. Tried to finish it while she was gone. Tried to spare Eva’s feelings.

“For balls sake,” Eva had told him. “What gives? You think I can’t handle this? You think I’ll pass on the opportunity to put a name with the animal who did this shit to Trish?”

“As you wish it,” replied Doc Thomas.

In strained and cold silence, they forged ahead. It was Eva’s thirty-third autopsy. Except this one was anything but routine. Like a benumbed sleepwalker, she ran the Stryker saw to cut through bone, next removed the skullcap of her sister’s head. Lips pinched, Doc Thomas choked back a gag. The brain tissue, like all brain tissue, was pulpy gray . . .

And now their investigative labors had borne bitter fruit. The DNA was identified The killer’s name was sealed in the envelope. Eva patched herself back together. This hemming and hawing was nuts. Having no choice but to act, she retrieved the morgue’s key ring. While hurrying out the back door, she snapped off the porch lights.

Eva lay in her brass bed sound asleep. That was how she’d account for the next few hours.

* * *

The evening was still young. Ten o’ clock. Doc Thomas’ dire mission to reach maximum intoxication had stalled. Instead, a deep-seated anxiety cleared his head of a drunk’ s clouded thinking. Not having to report for work in the morning didn’t encourage him to drink. Instead, something dire was tearing him apart. He knew full well his diener was spirited back to the morgue. He’d recently made her a set of door keys and she learned how to deactivate the alarm system.

Eva would peek inside that DNA envelope sitting on his desk. After that, what happened was anybody’s guess. She packed an ill temper capable of igniting the most radical, impulsive actions. For a moment, Doc Thomas upbraided himself for having forgotten to bring the envelope home. Chill out, he rued. Self-anger does nothing to rectify the
present problem.

After dragging on his pants and tying his shoelaces, Doc Thomas shambled out the door to his car. The still night was cold. A swatch of pinpoint stars pierced the city’s light pollution. His hope, however faint, was to get his hands
on that DNA envelope before Eva ever did. As the engine cranked over, he cracked the car door, leaned out, and said good-by to his pal Jack Daniels.

* * *

Eva was busy fulfilling her boss’ worst suspicions. The key to the morgue’s front door slotted in and she inhabited its dark interior. The stringent formalin odor overlaid the sweet lardy smell of death. She tapped in the deactivation code on the alarm panel but didn’t dare switch on the overheads. The arched windows might flash illumination and pique the curiosity of a passer-by like a night owl cabbie or a beat cop.

The skinny beam of a handheld MagLite scratched a tunnel for Eva’s eyes. She sprayed it over the white board, list charts, X-ray view boxes, hanging organ scales, camera stand, autoclave, and eye wash. If caught after hours like this, she’d get in more trouble than the law allowed. Too bad because she’d no intention of leaving the morgue until she learned her kid sister’s killer’s name. Trish deserved that much.

Whew, Lord! For some odd reason, Doc Thomas had hiked up the heat. Eva removed the sweatshirt and tied its arms around her waist, the whole while holding the MagLite between her teeth.

“Some bastard zapped you, Trish,” she muttered under her breath. “Who was it? May I have the envelope, please?”

Epoxy sealed walls and white tiled floors reflected a clean but blank intelligence at her. She took a second to recall where Doc Thomas put his incoming mail. He kept an antique oak rolltop desk behind the cadaver cooler. Pausing at the cooler door, she took a quick look inside. The hit-and-run victim’s left ankle protruded. From the tag wired around it, she read: Joe Doe. His autopsy report, right now a half-typed form still rolled inside Doc’s electric typewriter, detailed everything they had expected to find. No surprises there.

The gooseneck lamp flared on. Eva’s hands sifted through the piles of papers and folders on the rolltop desk, a mess she was never allowed to file and organize. Her boss had a system. Right now she was having a difficult time trying
to figure out where in that system an 8” X 11-inch manila envelope might be. A thought soured her optimism. Once presented the killer’s name, she didn’t want to consider what she’d have to do next. It wasn’t pretty.

A crashing sound bolted her upright.

“Aha! Caught you red handed!”

Eva’s shoulders relaxed a bit. “Doc, you should apply for a position with the city’s detective squad. You’ve a real nose for snooping.”

Doc Thomas, half-loaded and unshaven, wagged his head. “No more than you, my dear Eva. What are you doing in here?”

“Three guesses, the first two don’t count,” she shot back.

“With a baleful expression, Doc said: “You’re after the DNA envelope.”

“Bingo. Cough it up, Doc. It’s a safe bet that I’ll dig the name out one way or another anyway. Save us both tons of unnecessary trouble.”

“ What happens after you know?”

Eva produced a new pack of Virginia Slims, split the seal, and tapped out one for herself. Frowning, Doc refused her offer. A reformed smoker himself, he nearly panted for one when the tangy tobacco she exhaled pulled at his nose.

“Well?” he prompted her.

“Well, what, Doc? I don’t carry around a road map or itinerary. Fact is, I make this shit up as I plod along. Hell, my kid sister was killed just a week back. Cut me some slack, huh?”

“I don’t want you charging out of here on a vengeful rampage,” said Doc Thomas.

Eva smiled. “Quick, give me a name.”

Doc Thomas, arms folded on his chest, hesitated.

“Or do I fling a fit on the spot?”

Doc Thomas, pale face pinched, handed her the envelope.

Eva opened and read from the DNA report. “Jimbo Reese, eh? He has a long rap sheet. Assault and battery, vehicular manslaughter, license suspended from DWI.”

“You rest easy, though,” said Doc Thomas. “Homicide is all over it. Let them do their jobs.”

“Ha! They aren’t over it too damn well. I happened to know Jimbo Reese is the bouncer at the Black Slax Club over in Hogtown.”

His mouth slackening a quarter inch, Doc Thomas moaned. “Hogtown? At Trish’s crime scene?”

“You got it,” said Eva. She checked her wristwatch. “The Black Slax Club closes down in about a half hour. That gives us enough time to do something I have in mind.”

In a flash, Doc Thomas grew defensive. “What’s that?”

“Rip a page from the playbook of the John Doe in our cadaver cooler,” she replied.

Doc Thomas: “Ugh. Where are my Tums? I already don’t like this.”

“Can’t be helped,” said Eva. “My kid sister isn’t to be another statistic destined for the cold case file.”

Disbelieving, Doc Thomas heard himself ask: “How can I help?”

***
Early Monday morning, parked outside the brick morgue was Eva Blackburn’s car, washed and undamaged. Doc Thomas and she were attired in their hospital scrubs, eye shields, and respirators. They were finishing the autopsy. However, their discussion was on anything but the task at hand. It seldom was.

“My favorite comedy sketch of all time?” Doc Thomas said. “Without a doubt, Monty Python doing the ‘Spam’ routine. I split a gut laughing at it.”

“Hmmm. I’m partial to Chris Rock and Jackie Chen’s humor,” said Eva. “Hand me a tag . . . thanks.” She printed out J-i-m-b-o R-e-e-s-e on it.

Eva began stitching together Jimbo’s torso using a sailcloth needle and wax cord. “Another hit-and-run accident, another unsolved tragedy in and out of our morgue.”

Doc Thomas was washing up. “Yep. We’re getting them more and more. Call the funeral home. No next of kin is reported, so this one can be released for cremation.”