Or infamy, in this case.” Dr. Gulo shrugged. “Ancient history. If you count a decade as ancient.”
“Ridiculous bullshit! I can’t even think of Shakopee without embarrassment. So that’s quite enough o’that.” Magnus stopped staring down at all that was left of Sue Smalls. “This was all you found?”
Dr. Gulo inclined his head. “We were lucky to get what we did, given that the crash site is on land owned by a Stable.”
“Lucky,” he replied, and shook his head.
“I have to say, Dr. Gulo, this is the most immaculate morgue I have ever seen. Not that I’ve seen any particularly dirty morgues, mind you.” Nadia looked the way she did when she got advance notice of a Macy’s sale: delighted and a little surprised. “It’s quite, quite something.”
Gulo smiled. “I find it easier to concentrate when surrounded by order as opposed to chaos.”
“Really? Sounds dreadfully dull.” Nadia was doing the wide-eyed simper thing, which was all to the good. Oz had long gotten over his surprise at how easily a sharp-dressed woman with a cut-glass British accent could get people to open up to her. “Speaking only for myself, I thrive on chaos.”
Gulo nearly shuddered. “That would be difficult for me.”
There were autopsy kits (for lack of a better word; this wasn’t Oz’s field), and all the scalpels were perfectly lined up. So were all the scissors, the chisels
(what the hell are those for?)
and the retractors. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. All the chrome and steel gleamed; so did the floors. The light bulbs weren’t even dirty, and the lights themselves were almost blinding. There weren’t any smudge marks on the light switches, despite all the fingers that flipped them back and forth every day. The biohazard bins looked like a biohazard had never been allowed near them. The bottles in the recycling bin looked like someone had sterilized them first. The carts looked like you could operate on them. For all he knew, that’s exactly what Gulo did with them.
Gulo had apparently recovered from the revulsion at the thought of working with a dusty scalpel. “But we were discussing the crash site and the remains. For now, it’s sealed off. But it seems an obvious accident to me.”
“Really? Because it doesn’t t’me.”
Dr. Gulo bristled; you could almost hear his hackles going up. No surprise. Bears and wolverines, what could you do? “Please elaborate.”
Berne obligingly started ticking off his points: “Sue was an excellent pilot, I take meticulous care of my property, and her little girl is in the center of something increasingly sinister. I wouldn’t be so quick to rule out foul play, lad.”
“Lad?” Gulo replied. “You’re not much older than me.”
“It’s slang,” Annette broke in. “Like man or dude. He doesn’t think you’re a child.”
That earned her glares from both men, possibly for the—uh—well, mansplaining was a thing. What could this be? Slangsplaining? Scotsplaining?
Gulo had folded his arms across his chest and took a step closer. “Are you suggesting that someone murdered her on the way to that field? And then fled the scene?”
“I’m suggesting that some shithead messed with my plane, which pisses me off to no small extent,” Magnus replied. “And I’ve no idea why, which pisses me off even more.”
Gulo shrugged again. “That’s not my purview, obviously. I’ll be submitting my report when the labs are back.”
“And when will that be?” Magnus asked.
“When the labs are back.”
“Thank you for your time, Doctor,” Annette put in hastily. She’d been so quiet, Oz had almost forgotten she was there. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or anxious that she meant what she said: it was his case; her role was strictly advisory. “We’ll leave you to it, if that’s okay with Oz.”
Was it? Yeah, that actually worked. There wasn’t much more to be learned here, and he wanted to put his idea in motion. Oz cleared his throat. “D’you have a card, Dr. Gulo?”
“Fresh out.”
Oz took one last look around the morgue, then followed Magnus and Annette back out to the sitting area, where Nadia and David were waiting.
Oz had been surprised yet again at how unlike the movies it was. There was no dramatic reveal, no whipping away the sheet to suddenly reveal a corpse. There wasn’t a sheet at all. And they wouldn’t have been in the morgue proper in the first place—a crisis counselor had met them in a small, comfortable, almost parlor-like room, with discreet photos of what was left of Sue Smalls—if Annette hadn’t pulled a little weight. So David