“You don’t know shit and can shut up about that dead boy,” Marino says nastily. “And you can shut up about the Doc. And you can get the hell out of here.”

“You mean that little boy from the other day?” Shandy says.

Lucious rattles off with his stretcher, leaving the body he just delivered on the gurney in the middle of the hall, in front of the stainless-steel cooler door. Marino opens it and pushes the uncooperative gurney inside, his arousal still obvious.

“Christ,” Benton says to Lucy.

“He on Viagra or something?” Her voice in his ear.

“Why the hell don’t you get a new cart or whatever you call that thing?” Shandy says.

“The Doc don’t waste money.”

“So she’s cheap, too. Bet she doesn’t pay you shit.”

“If we need something, she gets it, but she don’t waste money. Not like Lucy, who could buy China.”

“You always stick up for the Big Chief, don’t you? But not like you stick up for me, baby.” Shandy fondles him.

“I think I’m going to throw up.” Lucy’s voice.

And Shandy walks inside the cooler to get a good look at what’s inside. The cold air blowing is audible through Benton’s speakers.

And a camera in the bay picks up Lucious sliding behind the wheel of his hearse.

“She a murder?” Shandy asks about the latest delivery, then looks at another pouched body in a corner. “I want to know about the kid.”

Lucious rumbles away in his hearse, the bay door loudly clanking shut behind him, sounding like a car wreck.

“Natural causes,” Marino says. “Old Oriental woman. Eighty-five or something.”

“How come she got sent here if she died of natural causes?”

“Because the coroner wanted to send her in. Why? Hell if I know. The Doc just said for me to be here. Hell if I know. Sounds like a cut-and- dried heart attack to me. I’m getting a whiff of something.” He makes a face.

“Let’s look,” Shandy says. “Come on. Just a quick peek.”

Benton watches them on-screen, watches Marino unzip the pouch and Shandy recoil in disgust, jump back, cover her nose and mouth.

“What you deserve.” Lucy’s voice as she zooms in on the body: decomposing, bloated by gases, the abdomen turning green. Benton knows that odor all too well, a putrid stench unlike any other that clings to the air and the roof of your mouth.

“Shit,” Marino complains, zipping up the pouch. “She’s probably been lying around for days and the damn Beaufort County coroner didn’t want to fool with her. Got a noseful, did you?” He laughs at Shandy. “And you thought my job was a piece of cake.”

Shandy moves closer to the small black pouched body parked in a corner all by itself. She stands very still, staring down at it.

“Don’t do it.” Lucy sounds in Benton’s ear, but she’s talking to Marino’s image on the screen.

“Bet I knows what’s in this little bag,” Shandy says, and it’s hard to hear her.