“I know who you mean.”

“Dr. Brennan and I can’t locate him.”

“’Course you can’t. He’s gone.”

“Gone?” Larabee was twisting and untwisting the receiver cord with his free hand.

“A funeral home came and got him.”

“I didn’t sign for release of the body,” Larabee snapped.

Joe answered with silence.

“Sorry. I just want to understand.”

“The FBI agent. I forget his name—”

“Williams.”

“Yeah. Williams. You said give him what he needs. That’s what I did.”

“Meaning?”

“He took your tox samples on Saturday. Called Sunday, said a van was coming, that I should prepare the John Doe for transport. Took all the X-rays, too.”

“The body left the morgue yesterday?”

“The paperwork’s there, Doc.”

Larabee’s eyes met mine. “Thanks, Joe.”

Larabee cradled the receiver.

Together we hurried to Mrs. Flowers’s station.

“Did Joe leave a transfer form yesterday?”

Mrs. Flowers flipped through her in-box, pulled a paper, and handed it to Larabee.

“What the hell’s SD Conveyance?” Larabee spoke as he read.

“Never heard of it,” I said.

“Special Agent Williams signed for the body.”

“Not a funeral home?”

“No.” Larabee thrust the paper my way.

Behind us, Mrs. Flowers had gone very quiet. I knew she was listening.

“This is outrageous. The medical examiner must operate independently. I can’t have government agents waltzing into my morgue and confiscating remains.”

Sudden synapse.

“You said the government is interested in ricin as a potential bioweapon.”

“So?”

“Ted Raines works for the CDC.”

“The guy who went missing last week?”

I nodded.

Catching my implication, Larabee began pacing.

Mrs. Flowers watched, eyes shifting like a spectator’s at a tennis match.

“Sonofabitch.” Larabee’s face had gone crimson.

“Don’t have a heart attack,” I said.

“How do I ID a body without the body? Or the X-rays?”

“Maybe the feds don’t want this body identified.”

We were gnawing on that when my brain cells fired up another offering.

“I cut bone plugs from the John Doe in case we decided to do DNA testing.”

Larabee and I raced to the stinky room.

I checked the counter. The cabinets. The small refrigerator used for storage of specimens.

The large autopsy suite.

My office.

The shelves in the cooler.

The microscopy lab.

The bone plugs were gone.

Chapter 11

I’D JUST RETURNED TO MY OFFICE WHEN THE PHONE RANG.

“I asked him to wait, but he wouldn’t listen.” Mrs. Flowers was peeved. “He never does.”

Heavy footsteps alerted me to the source of her irritation.

“It’s all right,” I said.

I was replacing the receiver when Slidell appeared in my doorway. Today’s jacket was tan polyester. The tie was black, the shirt orange.

Without invitation, Slidell entered and dropped into a chair.

“Please come in,” I said.

“What’s eating you?” Two scuffed loafers shot my way. The carroty socks matched the carroty shirt. Nice.

“Mrs. Flowers prefers to announce visitors,” I said.