‘No,’ I said. ‘The elevator requires a security key for any floor above two.’

‘Did he go down to the morgue again?’ Marino was getting increasingly agitated.

‘I went down there a few minutes later and didn’t see him,’ an officer said.

‘The crematorium,’ I suggested. ‘He could have gone down to that level.’

‘All right. You check the morgue,’ Marino said to the officers. ‘And I want you staying together. The doc and I will look around the crematorium.’

Inside the bay, left of the loading dock, was an old elevator that serviced a lower level where at one time bodies donated to science were embalmed and stored and cremated after medical students were through with them. It was possible Jakes might have gone there to look. I pushed the down button. The elevator slowly rose with much clanking and complaining. I pulled a handle and shoved open heavy, paint-chipped doors. We ducked inside.

‘Damn, I don’t like this already,’ Marino said, releasing the thumb snap on his holster as we descended.

He slipped out his pistol as the elevator bumped to a halt and doors opened onto my least favorite area of the building. I did not like this dimly lit windowless space even though I appreciated its importance. After I moved the Anatomical Division to MCV, we began using the oven to dispose of biological hazardous waste. I got out my revolver.

‘Stay behind me,’ Marino said, intensely looking around.

The large room was silent save for the roar of the oven behind a shut door midway along the wall. We stood silently scanning abandoned gurneys draped with empty body bags, and hollow blue drums that once contained the formalin used to fill vats in floors where bodies were stored. I saw Marino’s eyes fix on tracks in the ceiling, on heavy chains and hooks that in a former time had lifted the vats’ massive lids and the people stored beneath them.

He was breathing hard and sweating profusely as he moved closer to an embalming room and ducked inside. I stayed nearby as he checked abandoned offices. He looked at me and wiped his face on his sleeve.

‘It must be ninety degrees,’ he muttered, detaching his radio from his belt.

Startled, I stared at him.

‘What?’ he said.

‘The oven’s not supposed to be on,’ I said, looking at the crematorium room’s shut door.

I started walking toward it.

‘There’s no waste to be disposed of that I know of, and it’s strictly against policy for the oven to run unattended,’ I said.

Outside that door, we could hear the inferno on the other side. I placed my hand on the knob. It was very hot.

Marino stepped in front of me, turned the knob and shoved the door open with his foot. His pistol was combat ready in both hands as if the oven were a brute he might have to shoot.

‘Jesus,’ he said.