Eager to be rid of Candace, Val didn’t bother to ask who Howie was and as soon as Candace was gone Val breathed a sigh of relief. She knew to trust her first instincts. Candace was trouble. Trouble, as it turned out, she could handle. Hell, I’ve handled worse before, she thought. Val quickly changed her clothes and waited. She was busy thumbing through the folders on the countertop when she heard a knock on the open door and glanced up.

“Dr. Knight, nice to meet you. I’m Howie Watts. Your fellow death scene investigator. Dr. DeHaviland asked me to show you the ropes. Some of this can be confusing at the beginning, so feel free to ask me anything you need to.”

He was a big man, over six feet tall and easily 250 pounds, but had a clean-cut, boyish appearance that didn’t fit with his size. “There are no death scenes to go to right now so we’ll be working in the morgue instead. Are you ready to get to work?” he asked.

“Nice to meet you too, Howie. I couldn’t be more ready,” Val said eagerly, relieved that Julia was the one who had sent Howie. He seemed to have an understanding of what her experience level was, and that she needed to be trained.

“Well, then come with me. I’m going to show you the autopsy room. Dr. Blythe’s about to do roll call. That’s where he goes through the bodies that came in last night and decides which ones need a post-mortem exam. He’s ready to start.”

Val had never been inside a morgue before. After seeing depictions on TV shows, she had her own idea of what one should look like and expected there to be one body per room, kind of like an operating room. Instead, she was surprised to see eight stainless steel tables placed one after the other in this big open space.

In the center of the morgue, five dead people were on gurneys. Two of them were in white body bags, the zippers open, lifeless faces exposed. The other three were not in bags, but were wearing hospital gowns, obviously patients of the hospital who had died during the night. One still had EKG tabs on his chest. At the far end, a sixth body lay on its own, separated from the rest, the white bag completely closed. Beyond this person was a steel door with a sign that read Autopsy Isolation Room.

In the corner of the room, a female photographer was standing almost on the top rung of a stepladder, taking pictures of clothing laid out on the floor. The clothing consisted of a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Both were blood-soaked.