Chapter 18

2:30 PM Sunday: Downtown Knoxville has plenty of curbside parking on Sundays, so I only had to cross the deserted street to reach the coroner’s office. Jim, a tall man with a hairline in full retreat, horn-rimmed glasses and an old pipe, was waiting in the lobby to let me in the locked building. He lead the way to the elevator and, on the third floor, to his office in the corner. The brass plaque outside it read, "Dr. James L Meeks, Coroner". We passed a secretary’s desk in the front room, and went on the back. Jim dropped into the chair behind his desk, and I pulled one up from the back for me.

I had been explaining the situation on the way up. I had just said that I was interested in seeing any pictures or reports he might have on one of the bodies from Testament when he stopped me.

"Not you too!" he protested. "I’ve been fighting off reporters for weeks."

"About what?" I asked. "I haven’t even seen notices of any deaths in Testament County, except one small one about Mary Cole."

"That’s just it! When a shapely female gets conked on the head, they swarm the place like bees. I, however, happen to agree with the sheriff in Testament. Making a spectacle out of something like that does more harm than good. I’ve been referring everyone to him. The same thing’ll happen to this third death, maybe, but to my mind," Jim took off his glasses and wiped them, "those news boys are missing the real story." I waited, but he didn’t go on, just kept wiping his glasses.

"Okay, what’s the great story?" I demanded impatiently.

"Oh, forget it, you won’t be interested." He put his glasses back on. "You’re just like everybody else: let a boob get free of the bra, and that’s all anybody sees."

"But it’s the second one I’m interested in!" I protested.

Jim looked at my skeptically. "Really?"

"Yes!"

He bounced to his feet. "Why didn’t you say so? Come on." He led me back down stairs, to the basement. There he pulled open a file cabinet, removed a file near the front, and began tossing pictures from it onto the desk. I discretely avoided looking at them.

"Look at that!" he said. "That heart should have lasted another ten years at least! Look here! Those are the best lungs I’ve seen in a man his age." He dropped the file on the desk. "Look at all of it! From muscle tone to the condition of his blood vessels, the man was in fine shape. Not a trace of poison in his veins, no sign of stroke in his brain." He pointed to the file. "That man should be alive!"

"What about the skin discoloration?"

"Ah, that’s our only hope. So far as we can tell right now, it’s just a kind of flash burn. You could get worse lighting the pilot to your water heater, only two things: first, it’s absolutely uniform, right to the bottom of his feet, excepting only the hair on his head; and two, he didn’t have a pilot light in his home, didn’t use gasoline or lighter fluid in his fireplace; in fact, had no place to get flash burned." Jim smiled. "Fascinating, isn’t it? Some non-profit corporation has been trying to get custody all day yesterday, but I’ve been holding off."

"Isn’t it murder?"

"Hell if I know. I can’t even be sure it’s death, yet." Jim began to gather up the pictures. "You have quite a collection down there, don’t you? A naked goddess, a naked sexterian superman, and a heroin-addicted sixties throw-back."

"Heroin?"

"I wondered if you knew. I figured you’d have asked if you did. Yeah, heroin, but not recent. Lots of old track-mark scars, but all healed over a long time ago. Still, they make quite a conversation piece." He put the folder away. "Enough?"

"Too much. Let’s go."

Jim smiled. "I get to choose the restaurant, okay?"