Circle of Blood (Forensic Mystery)

was pink, shiny with sweat. The sockets of his eyes had darkened while the veins in his temples visibly throbbed. But it was Dr. Moore’s plastic apron that revealed what kind of work he’d been subjected to before her arrival. The apron was streaked with blood, some in vertical stripes, but most lined in horizontal rows that stretched across his chest and belly, each line dotted with splatters the size of quarters. It looked like a musical score, sprinkled with notes from a song. The music of death.
    “Is there a problem, Miss Mahoney?”
    “I’m sorry. It’s just—there’s so much blood.”
    “A drunk ran a red light and hit a pedestrian head-on a few blocks from here. The drunk, of course, is fine and recovering in Mercy Medical. The decedent is already in the cooler.”
    “That’s so awful,” she breathed.
    “The inequities of death. You have to harden yourself or you’ll never get through.” He looked at her wearily. “You can put your backpack on the desk along with your coat. Suit up so we can get started, although I don’t think you’ll need more than a paper apron and gloves. You’ll be more of an observer today.”
    Cameryn dropped her belongings, then walked to the locker and put on a disposable apron. Silently stripping away his bloody apron, Dr. Moore opened a cabinet and threw the garment into a biohazard container marked for washing. The gloves were tossed into the garbage can. He pulled out fresh gloves and a new, folded plastic apron, which he looped over his head before knotting the waist ties behind his back.
    “Did you see the sketch of Baby Doe in the paper this morning?” he asked. “The artist did a fine job. He worked off a photograph you took. It was a very good likeness.”
    “I didn’t get a chance to see it yet, Dr. Moore.” Suddenly alarmed, she said, “I smell something. Is there a fire?” An acrid odor, like smoke from a campfire, had wafted its way through the autopsy room.
    “No, Ben’s just cleaning up. It’s burn day.” Dr. Moore adjusted the loop around his neck so that the apron fit snugly.
    “Burn day?”
    “Ben’s throwing tissue into the incinerator. We do it once every three months. He’ll be done soon.”
    “You’ve got a crematorium here?”
    “No. We have an incinerator .” He turned to her then, examining her, the lenses of his glasses magnifying his eyes. She could see how bloodshot his eyes were. “At some point we have to dispose of all the parts left in the buckets—heart, brain, lung, liver. After eighteen months, they’re gone. Unless it’s a homicide. Those parts we keep forever.”
    “There’s a lot of smoke. How much are you burning today? ”
    “We’re losing about”—he thought for a minute, staring at the ceiling—“one hundred and twenty pounds of tissue. It’s quite a job. There are regulations on how much we can incinerate at once. Air-quality issues and such.”
    “Oh.”
    “Oh, indeed.”
    Dr. Moore wasn’t playing any music. In the background Cameryn could hear the hum of the refrigerator where they kept the bodies lined up on gurneys in a neat row. She’d been in it before. Unlike the storage room, the cooler was thick with the odor of death, almost strangling. Once inside she always switched to breathing through her mouth, even though, until she walked out, she could almost taste those people.
    “By the way, Miss Mahoney, did you know my friend Jo Ann Whittaker is the dean of forensics at CU?” He looked at her over his half-moon glasses. “It’s very unusual she would reach out to an incoming freshman.”
    “I guess she saw me on television.”
    "Do you know she’s very connected to the police as well?”
    “Yes.”
    “And how do you know that?”
    “Because Jo Ann told me.”
    It was true. Cameryn had been seated at her desk Saturday night when she’d heard the soft ping of her computer. She’d opened her e-mail. The new message had read:
    Dear Ms. Mahoney,
    I was sorry to receive an alert that you have a Jane Doe in Silverton. As a forensic pathologist and dean of the CU College of Forensics, I would like to offer you any help I could provide. I am closely associated with various law-enforcement agencies throughout Colorado. If you have need for assistance in any form, I assure you that whatever information you choose to share with me will be held in the strictest of confidence.
    Jo Ann Whittaker
    Quickly, Cameryn had replied:
    Dear Ms. Whittaker,
    Thank you for your concern. We still