Siegfried slapped the surface of his desk with his good hand loud enough to cause Bertram to jump. He stood up and stepped to the shuttered window overlooking the town square. He glared over at the hospital. He’d never liked the epicene bookish researcher from their first meeting. When he’d learned Kevin was to be coddled and accommodated in the second best house in the town, Siegfried had boiled over. He’d wanted to assign the house as a perk to one of his loyal underlings.

Siegfried balled his good hand into a fist and gritted his teeth. “What a meddling pain in the ass,” he said.

“His research is almost done,” Bertram said. “It would be a shame if he was to muck things up just when everything is going so well.”

“What did Lyons say?” Siegfried asked.

“Nothing,” Bertram said. “He accused Kevin of letting his imagination run wild.”

“I might have to have someone watch Kevin,” Siegfried said. “I will not have anyone destroy this program. That’s all there is to it. It’s too lucrative.”

Bertram stood up. “That’s your department,” he said. He started for the door, confident he’d planted the appropriate seed.

CHAPTER 7

March 5, 1997

7:25 A.M. New York City

The combination of cheap red wine and little sleep slowed Jack’s pace on his morning bicycle commute. His customary time of arrival in the ID room of the medical examiner’s office was seven-fifteen. But as he got off the elevator on the first floor of the morgue en route to the ID room, he noticed it was already seven twenty-five, and it bothered him. It wasn’t as if he were late, it was just that Jack liked to keep to a schedule. Discipline in relation to his work was one of the ways he’d learned to avoid depression.

His first order of business was to pour himself a cup of coffee from the communal pot. Even the aroma seemed to have a beneficial effect, which Jack attributed to Pavlovian conditioning. He took his first sip. It was a heavenly experience. Though he doubted the caffeine could work quite so quickly, he felt like his mild hangover headache was already on the mend.

He stepped over to Vinnie Amendola, the mortuary tech whose day shift overlapped the night shift. He was ensconced as usual at one of the office’s government-issued metal desks. His feet were parked on the corner, and his face hidden behind his morning newspaper.

Jack pulled the edge of the paper down to expose Vinnie’s Italianate features to the world. He was in his late twenties, in sorry physical shape, but handsome. His dark, thick hair was something Jack envied. Jack had been noticing over the previous year a decided thinning of his gray-streaked brown hair on the crown of his head.

“Hey, Einstein, what’s the paper say about the Franconi body incident?” Jack asked. Jack and Vinnie worked together on a frequent basis, both appreciating the other’s flippancy, quick wit, and black humor.