Cereal Killer

had received obscene phone calls with more appeal.
    He glanced over at the glowering Dirk and whispered, “I just got some new black satin sheets. You oughta come check them out.”
    “Trust me, Bates,” she said, fixing him with blue lasers. “I ain’t your type. I’m not inflatable.”
    As she and Dirk walked away, Bates called after them, “One of these days, girl, I’m gonna tell the captain that you come in here with Coulter. He’d take exception to that, I bet. You and him never did get along. People around here say that’s why you got fired.”
    Dirk spun on his heel and in less than a heartbeat had reached across the divider and grabbed Bates by the front of his too-tight shirt. He yanked him halfway over the counter, where he held him until Bates’s face went from red to purple.
    “The day”—Dirk began with deadly emphasis on each word—“the day that you cause any trouble for Savannah or for me is the day that you suffer, Bates. You got that? And we’re talking more hurt than you’ve ever felt in your long, miserable life. Do you understand me?”
    Kenny Bates nodded, gulped, choked, and then nodded again.
    Dirk dropped him so abruptly that he smacked his chin on the counter.
    Savannah couldn’t help giggling as they walked away from him and down the hall toward the back of the building. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” she said.
    “Eh, numb-nuts like Bates are used to having to explain away suspicious bruises,” he replied. “He had a cast on his arm and a black eye when I was in here last month. Rumor had it that he tangled with some big Samoan chick that came in here to identify her old man’s body.”
    “Oh, yes, I heard about her. Didn’t they figure out that she was the one who’d hacked him up with the machete?”
    “Yep.”
    “So Kenny boy got off easy.”
    ‘Yeah, but his luck’s bound to run out one of these days.”
    “I’d like to be there when it happens.”
    Dirk grinned his nastiest grin. “Maybe that could be arranged.”
    “One can always dream.”
    They rounded the corner and saw that the double swinging doors leading to the autopsy suite were wide open. Savannah was relieved to see that the only activity inside consisted of a janitor who was mopping the floor. The strong disinfectant smell of his cleaning fluid filled the hallway, but the odor of bleach was highly preferable to some of the other things she had smelled in there.
    “County Medical Examiner” had never been high on Savannah’s list of things she wanted to be when she grew up. It was one of those jobs she was infinitely thankful that somebody did. But being a cop and a private investigator had required her to witness more than a few autopsies.
    Viewing was as close to the reality as she ever wanted to get. And she didn’t even like that when she had known the person.
    And while she hadn’t actually known Cait Connor personally, she was happy to be spared the experience of seeing her stretched out on Dr. Liu’s stainless steel table.
    “She must be done with Connor,” Dirk said, echoing Savannah’s thoughts. “Good. Maybe she’ll have some results for us.”
    “She’s probably in her office, doing the report,” Savannah replied as they turned down the hall to their right, heading toward the half dozen offices in that wing of the building.
    The door was open to the last office at the end of the hall, and as predicted, they found Dr. Liu sitting at her desk, dictating into a small microphone.
    She stopped what she was doing the moment she saw them and motioned them in, a smile on her face.
    For years, Dr. Jennifer Liu had been one of Savannah’s favorite people. Tall, slender, and outrageously sexy, she looked more like a lingerie model than a coroner. In her autopsy suite, Jennifer wore her surgical scrubs, a disposable tissue cap over her long black hair, and paper booties over her shoes.
    But once she had left the suite, tossed her scrubs into the laundry and the disposables into the biohazard trash can, she looked like she was ready for the local dance club.
    She stood, walked around the side of her desk, and embraced Savannah with air kisses to both cheeks.
    Out of the corner of her eye, Savannah saw Dirk do a quick once-over, taking in the ME’s black leather miniskirt, red cashmere sweater, and mile-long shapely legs.
    Savannah couldn’t blame him. Dr. Liu was an eyeful.
    On the other hand, Dr. Jen didn’t give Dirk much more than a curt nod in the way of a