bones of her pelvis. Her skin was puckered and hairless, the body impossibly small. T.S. stared down at his shoes. It looked like the freeze-dried body of an eleven-year-old girl.
The tiny doctor scurried to Emily's feet and pulled a white plastic sheet over her form. "Please excuse the informality. If I'd known she was having company, I'd have dressed her for the occasion." He cackled at his own joke and T.S. suppressed a groan. The old man was just the kind of weirdo Auntie Lil loved to collect. No doubt they'd be dining across the table from one another soon.
"Don't mind my macabre humor," the little man protested, stopping any potential giggles with an upraised palm, although no one had either laughed or had the slightest inclination to do so. "I was simply showing Cheryl here the ins and outs of being a pathologist," he giggled. "Giving her the inside scoop, you might say." He laughed again with a wheezy kind of snuffling sound and gestured toward a neat row of glass jars on a nearby shelf.
The jars held floating masses of tissue suspended in clear solution, some pinkish lumps and others grayish slabs. Yellow and white dangly ropes circled some of the organs, stretching out like tentacles from a body. It was impossible not to stare and still more impossible not to shift that stare to the long scar on the dead woman's torso. The doctor, noting their stunned dismay, rearranged his smile into a more sober expression.
"So sorry. So sorry. I forget that my humor may be a bit much for the layman. You're not relatives, are you?" He gazed anxiously at Auntie Lil. "I thought she was a Jane Doe. I mean, they told me they had no family or name. I was just seizing the rare chance for hands-on education for my new assistant. Not that Cheryl isn't fully qualified, but I have certain procedures that I like followed and…"
"Not at all. Not at all," Auntie Lil interrupted. "We're not relatives." She gave a dainty gulp and regained her composure. "My fault entirely for bursting in on you like this. Please carry on as if we weren't even here. We simply want to snap a few photographs to take back to her neighborhood to see if we could find out her true identity."
"How kind of you." His voice sounded as if he meant it, but his look was a bit skeptical.
"Please don't let us intrude," Auntie Lil repeated. "Do carry on with your… cutting or whatever." Her curiosity was starting to gain ground. She inched toward the body.
"You don't mean it?" The little doctor was delighted and looked at his assistant euphorically, as if not quite believing his luck. "Don't tell me you're one of the rare human beings who's not been conditioned to blanch at the sight of a little flesh and blood." He rubbed his hands together with anticipatory glee and stared at Emily's body. He looked, T.S. felt strongly, like a rabid raccoon eyeing a disabled fish.
"Well, that depends." Auntie Lil hastened to explain. "To a point, certainly, it can be… quite fascinating." T.S., meanwhile, was inching backwards toward the door. He had no desire to do anything but return to the limousine and look at Lilah.
The doctor froze suddenly and stared at them intently. "Say, wait a minute. You're the two people that Lilah Cheswick called me about." He thumped his bald pate in exasperation. "Of course. Now I remember."
T.S. halted his escape and stared back at the doctor. This was who Lilah knew at the medical examiner's office? No wonder she'd waited in the car.
"And how is Lilah?" the little doctor asked anxiously. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and peered at Auntie Lil. "I've been meaning to call her ever since my dear wife died. We'd be a perfect pair, what with us both being left so tragically alone. But I've been so wrapped up in my work, I haven't seen her at all. Her phone call was a total surprise. But a welcome one, of course."
"She's fine," Auntie Lil answered carefully. "As lovely and gracious as ever."
The little doctor's face brightened as if he'd forgotten Lilah's beauty. "But, of course. She is such a lovely woman." He put a hand on his chin and thought carefully. "Say, would you give her my regards when you see her? Perhaps she could give me a call again? Socially. I'm Dr. Millerton, by the way. Milton Millerton."