Their daughter’s trial flashed through my brain, and yes, I reminded myself with terrific firmness: yes, I must be very careful with regard to what I said about Ebenezer’s confession or behavior. Any little thing could be used, construed, or bent to whatever ends the authorities settled on when the time for formal inquiry came around.

But Wolf pressed on. “Something like a drowning? What do you mean?”

Still, I was cautious. “He was quite distraught. He talked in circles, and not all of it made sense.”

The inspector eyed me warily, a moment longer than was comfortable. Then again, he might’ve only been trying to stare at something other than the corpses before us. My extensive experience with the dead had done precious little to ready me for the sight of these two, so I could hardly blame him if that was the reason. But surely a man who investigated murders would have experience comparable to mine in war, or some experience anyway. Unless he typically investigated something else. Really, I had no idea—and his evasive answers thus far suggested he wouldn’t be too forthcoming, were I to ask.

I forced myself to look at the corpses again. No, even in war there was nothing to compare this to. War was only brutal. This was unnatural.

Beside the table was a shelf, with the implements of embalming ready at hand. How the Wann family planned to prepare the Hamiltons, I could scarcely imagine. The boy was in pieces, and his mother was . . .

Not herself.

I picked up a long metal probe and gingerly, with as much respect (and as little disgust) as I could muster, I prodded at Matthew’s flesh. It oozed fluid—water? Some unusual decomposition?—and the probe left virtually no impression in the flesh. The texture reminded me of nothing half so much as a sea-jelly.

“What are you doing?” Wolf asked.

“Nothing useful. I’m at a loss. They’ve been dead two days or less, and they almost look like they washed up on the rocks after a week in the ocean. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He cleared his throat and reached into his pocket for a set of vials. “So might it be said, Doctor Seabury, that I have your permission to take some samples?”

“My permission? You don’t need it. You’d be better served to ask the Wanns, but honestly, there’s little they can do for these two. Other than close the casket.”

He agreed, and selected a small scalpel from the table with the probes, tubes, and jars of foul-smelling fluids.

I averted my eyes while he worked, though I loathed myself for it, just a little. I ought to be stronger, better, more of a man—and a professional—than this. If I were to treat myself more kindly, I might’ve made the excuse that my specialty was the living body, and not the dead.