Draw One In The Dark(40)

"Oh, that . . ." He shrugged. "Look, I'm the investigating officer. We don't have a murder department. Until these bodies started appearing three months ago, our murder rate was one or two a year and those usually domestic. And the investigating officer has to attend the autopsy. It's . . . That way we're there. They film the autopsy, you know, but a lot of it never makes it onto the film or even the official report. And we need to know everything. Even some casual comment, that the examiner might forget to put in the official report, or that the cameras might not catch. Sometimes, crimes are solved on little suff." He grinned suddenly, disarmingly. "Of course, I'm going on my criminal-science class. As I said, most of the murders here don't involve much solving. The murderer is usually sobbing by the kitchen door, holding the knife. But the classes I took said I should be there. Also, if they find any evidence—dust or hair on the victim's clothing, I'll be there to take it into custody. Chain of custody is very important, should the case ever come to trial."



The victim's clothing. Kyrie remembered the sodden rag of a body the night before, soaked in blood. She hadn't been able to tell if he was wearing clothing, much less what it might be.



She emerged from the reverie in time to hear Rafiel say, "To the morgue?"



"Beg your pardon?"



"I was asking if you'd come with me to the morgue. To watch the autopsy."



"Why?" she asked.



He shrugged. "I don't know. Because though I'm not deputizing you, in a way I am? Because there might be something you see or notice. There might be a hair on the victim's body that is that of a diner regular—"



"I doubt they can find a hair, with all that blood," she said.



"You'd be amazed what's found in autopsy. And I think you can help us. Perhaps help me solve the whole thing." He paused a moment, significantly, playing with his napkin by folding it and unfolding it. "And then we can deal with it." From his expression, he looked about as eager to deal with it as she felt.



"Won't people mind?" Kyrie asked. "Isn't it irregular to have me with you at something like an official autopsy?" She imagined facing the dead body again. All that blood. It was safer during the day, but it would still trigger her desire to shift.



"I'll tell them you work at the diner," he said. "And that you're there because I think you might see or remember something. And if needed I'll tell them you're my girlfriend and you're thinking of studying law enforcement. But it should just be me, and Officer Bob—Bob McDonald. Good man, he usually helps me. He'll be there. But he was my dad's partner when Dad was in the force. Bob won't ask much of anything. He'll trust me. He thinks I'm . . . as he puts it: "strange but sound." And no, he doesn't know. At least we never told him. Of course, he's around the house a lot." He shrugged and set the napkin down, neatly folded, by his still half-full water glass. "So, will you come? With me?"



Kyrie sighed. She nodded. It seemed to be her duty to do this. Would it be her duty, also, to kill someone? To . . . execute someone? Until early morning today she'd never even examined her own ideas on the death penalty—she hadn't had any ideas on the death penalty, trusting brighter minds than hers to figure that out. But now she must figure it out. If Tom had killed the man yesterday, did they need to kill him? Was there another way to control him? How much consciousness did he have while killing? And would any considerations of justice or injustice to him have anything to do with it? Or would it all be overruled by the need to keep society safe?



The server dropped off the credit card slip, and Rafiel signed it.



"Your name," Kyrie said. "It's an odd spelling."



"Rafiel? I was named after an Agatha Christie character. Mom is a great fan."



"Jason Rafiel," Kyrie said. "Nemesis and Caribbean Mystery."



He smiled. "Mom will love you." Then he seemed to realize how that might sound, and he cleared his throat. "So, will you come with me?"



Kyrie sighed. "I really don't want to," she said. "But—"



"But?"



"But I think I might have to." She felt as if her shoulders were being crushed by the weight of this responsibility she didn't really want to take.

* * *



Tom had given Keith coffee and shuffled him to the back room where Tom had spent the night. He felt more at ease there, as if he were intruding less on Kyrie's privacy. She'd let him sleep here. It was a de facto guest room.



"I was just worried about you," Keith said, sitting down on the love seat as Tom motioned toward it. "The paper said a corpse was found behind that diner place where you work. And then with the apartment the way it looked, I thought—"