Part 2 (1/2)

She pulled a wad of tissue from the box and began to wipe her face. When she was finished, she stood, straightened her back, and took a deep breath.

”Anything,” she said. ”Anything for my girls.”

Chapter Five.

Erlene insisted on driving, so she followed me to the medical examiner's office in her red Mercedes convertible. The office was located at the Quillen College of Medicine, attached to the Veterans Administration in Johnson City, about six miles from the courthouse. Along the way, I called Sheriff Bates and told him I thought I was about to get a positive identification on the women. He said he'd meet us there. I tried to call the medical examiner to let him know we were coming, but got no answer.

Erlene and I walked in to find Hobie Stanton, the acting medical examiner, sleeping on a gurney in the examination room. Hobie was in his mid-seventies. He'd been a forensic pathologist for thirty years when he retired at the age of sixty-five, but had been asked to fill in temporarily two weeks earlier after the previous medical examiner packed his bags unexpectedly and moved to Florida. I knew Hobie was supposed to be performing the autopsies on the three dead girls, but he hadn't called me or faxed me any preliminary results, and now I wondered whether he'd even started.

I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. His liver-spotted hands were crossed over his chest like he was lying in a coffin; his gla.s.ses were perched on the tip of his nose. He was wearing a white lab coat and what little white hair he had left was sticking straight out from his head. The tapping didn't do any good, so I leaned over him and listened. He was breathing, so I began shaking him.

Hobie's eyes suddenly flew open and he bolted straight up from the waist. He glared at me for a second, obviously confused, and then threw his legs over the side of the gurney.

”You scared me,” he growled. ”I nearly peed my pants.”

”Don't you have a secretary?” I said. ”An a.s.sistant? An intern or resident or something?”

”My predecessor took the secretary with him when he left,” he said. ”He failed to take his wife and child along, however. The conditions in this office must be conducive to romance.”

He pushed his gla.s.ses up with an index finger. ”I suppose you're here about the bodies. I've been working all night. I finished the last one about an hour ago.”

”This is Erlene Barlowe,” I said. ”She might be able to identify them. Erlene, this is Dr. Hobie Stanton.”

Hobie grunted and nodded his head. ”They're in the cooler.”

He led us down a short hallway into a refrigerated room with stainless steel walls. There were four gurneys sitting against the wall to our right. One of them was empty, while the other three were occupied by sheet-covered bodies with tags on their toes.

Hobie walked to the first gurney, then turned and looked at me with raised eyebrows as if to say, ”Well?”

”Are you ready?” I said to Erlene.

She nodded and raised trembling fingers to her lips. Hobie lifted the sheet, revealing the face of the first girl, the one with the tattoo. Her skin was now the color of cold ashes. Erlene gasped.

”Oh no, that's her,” she said, ”that's Lisa.” She began to cry softly as Hobie moved to the next one.

”Kerrie,” Erlene whispered, her voice barely audible. A moment later, she identified the third girl as Krystal, and I put my arm around her shoulders and led her out of the room.

”Is there an office we can use for a little while?” I said to Hobie. ”We're going to need some privacy.”

”You can use mine,” he said. ”I'm going to get some coffee.”

”Go in and have a seat,” I said to Erlene as we walked by Hobie's office. ”I need to talk to the doctor for a minute.”

I followed Hobie out the front door into a hot, overcast morning. It had rained up until about an hour ago, and the steamy water evaporating from the streets rose toward the sky like an opaque curtain. Hobie pulled a pipe out of his pocket and lit it.

”What killed them?” I said.

”The one she called Lisa died of heart failure, apparently too much high-quality cocaine,” he said, the pipe clenched tightly between teeth stained by nicotine. ”The other two were strangled. Both of them had fractured hyoid bones and tears in the cartilage around the neck.”

I noticed Bates pulling into a parking spot about twenty feet away.

”How long were they in the water?” I said.

”Not long. I'd guess an hour, maybe a little more. They went in within five or ten minutes of each other.”

”I don't suppose you found anything that will help us prove who did it.”

”Sorry, no calling cards. I can testify to cause of death, but that's it.”

Hobie shuffled off toward the cafeteria just as Bates stepped onto the curb.

”Got your teeth in, Hobie?” Bates called.

”Go kiss a rat's patoot,” Hobie hollered over his shoulder as he kept shuffling in the opposite direction.

”Hold still a minute and I'll bend over and pucker up.”

Bates stood on the sidewalk, hands on his hips, grinning and watching Hobie walk away.

”I take it you know him,” I said.

”Me and Hobie are kin, brother Dillard. He's my momma's cousin on her daddy's side. I see him every year at the family reunion.”

I filled Bates in on the identifications and the causes of death, and he and I walked back inside to talk to Erlene. Her eyes were still red and puffy when I introduced her to Bates, but she wasn't crying.

”Are you okay?” I said as I took a seat next to her. Bates sat down in Hobie's chair on the other side of the desk.

”I want to help you find out who did this,” she said. ”I'll cry later.”

She took a deep breath, folded her arms beneath her huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and began to rock back and forth in her chair.

”He called himself Mr. Smith,” she said. ”Every year it was the same. He'd call the week before Labor Day and tell me he wanted three blonde-headed girls for the whole night on the Sat.u.r.day before Labor Day. He paid three thousand dollars apiece for the girls. He'd come by the club the day after he called, come into my office, and pay me in cash. Always hundred dollar bills. The girls would go, they'd party, and they'd come back. Never a single problem. And now this. . .”

She dropped her head and began biting her lip, fighting back the tears again.

”What does he look like, Erlene?” I said.

”He's not very tall, shorter than both of you,” she said. ”Stocky. Black, curly hair and dark eyes. Probably in his early thirties. He's a rooster, I can tell you that. c.o.c.ky. Talks like he's a gangster or something. Wears his pants real low on his hips, a lot of jewelry.”

”Did he talk like he was from around here?” I said.

She nodded. ”He talked like a black man, but I'm guessing he's local.”

”Any tattoos or scars?” Bates said.