Livia looked up from the pages.

“Time to roll, Doc,” Kent said. “Call came in overnight, we’ve gotta hit the road.”

Throughout the year of training, each fellow was required to participate in two weeks of ride-alongs with the morgue investigators, formally termed Medicolegal Investigators, where they would observe scene-investigation techniques as well as the process of body sequestration. It was a week away from the morgue, strategically placed throughout fellowship to avoid burnout. During the course of autopsying 250 bodies in twelve months, every fellow needed a break. Livia was up first, and after Friday’s dismal performance in the cage, the timing couldn’t have been better.

Livia shuffled papers on her desk, gathered them and dumped them—along with Megan’s book—into the bottom drawer as Jen Tilly and Tim Schultz came into the office. She stood up and, wearing jeans and a blouse in lieu of scrubs, grabbed her black windbreaker that held OCME in yellow lettering on the breast and MEDICAL EXAMINER across the back.

“See you guys,” Livia said.

“Good luck,” Jen said.

“Don’t kill anyone,” Tim said.

“Funny, Tim. Hope your stomach’s okay this week.”

Livia waved and was gone.

“Heard Colt opened fire on you in the cage last week,” Kent said as they walked the hallway.

“Good news travels fast.”

Kent laughed. “People are calling it a massacre.”

“You’ve got to be famous for something, I guess,” Livia said.

“Good timing for ride-alongs. Looks like I’m your savior.”

“That’s for sure. Get me out of here before Dr. Colt sees me.”

They walked through the back door of the morgue and out into the sunny fall morning. Kent opened the sliding door to the morgue van and Livia climbed into the backseat. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but the intimate quarters she found inside the van were not it. Although the past three months saw her face-to-face with corpses, she expected some separation from them here, a partition of some sort, but there was none. Directly behind the two captain’s seats, the rear of the van held an empty gurney waiting to be filled with a body that would ride next to her for as long as it took to get back to the office.

“Good morning, Dr. Cutty,” Sanj Rashi said from the driver’s seat as Livia climbed into the van. Another investigator, Sanj was of Indian decent with dark skin, black hair, thick eyebrows, and a perfectly Brooklyn accent. He was born and raised in New York, and came to the North Carolina OCME after college at Rutgers—New Brunswick.

“Morning, Sanj,” Livia said as Kent slid closed the door and climbed into the passenger seat.

“You’re late,” Sanj said to Kent.

“Yes, I am. And here’s your coffee as my punishment.” Kent placed a Starbucks coffee into the cup holder of the console.

“Sugar, no cream?”

Kent gave his partner an ugly look. “It’s not the first time I’m late.”

“Let me guess. A fight with the wife sent you to Tinder Valley for the night?”

“Traffic sucks when you’re coming from the sticks.”

“When the shit hits the fan at home, you can always stay at my place.”

“Thanks, partner. But when I need to get away, I want my solitude.”

Kent punched information into the GPS and shuffled papers on a metal clipboard. “First stop this week, Anthony Davis. Fifty-five-year-old male found dead by his landlord after NCFO.”

Sanj started the van and the investigators buckled their seat belts.

Livia pulled the belt across her chest. “NCFO?” she asked.

Sanj put the van into gear and turned to Livia. “Neighbors Complained of Foul Odor. You didn’t think we’d break you in with anything fresh, did you?”

The van lurched forward as Sanj and Kent laughed. It was going to be an interesting week, but at least she’d be away from Dr. Colt and the cage.

*

The apartment complex was on the border of Montgomery County. They parked in the lot and surveyed the three-story brown brick building that held twelve units. A small crowd had gathered near the front entrance and all eyes were trained on the morgue van as they pulled up. Kent and Sanj climbed out and opened the back doors to retrieve the gurney, on top of which rested a canvas bag containing everything they might need once inside. Livia followed them as they pushed the gurney past the police cars, whose lights were flashing, and climbed the stairs to enter the building.

An officer from the sheriff’s department met them just inside the doors.

“This is the owner of the building,” the officer said. “He’ll escort you.”

The man introduced himself. Sanj shook hands.

“Sanj Rashi.” He pointed at Kent and Livia. “Kent Chapple, investigator with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. And Dr. Livia Cutty, Medical Examiner.” He pointed down the hallway. “Where’re we at?”

“Second floor,” the owner said, and everyone packed into the elevator with the ominously empty stretcher.

When the elevator doors opened a moment later, Sanj inhaled deeply as if walking into a fresh spring morning. “And, there it is,” he said.

The owner pulled out his handkerchief and put it over his nose. “Yeah. Neighbors called two days ago to report the smell. I was finally able to get over here this morning. Opened the door and nearly lost it. Entire complex stinks now.”

The owner led them down the hallway to unit 204, pushed open the door, and shook his head. “You need me for anything? Otherwise, I’m outta here.”

“Go,” Sanj said. “If we need anything, we’ll come down.”

“That smell ever go away?”

“So goes the body, so goes the smell. When we’re gone, boil some coffee and a pot of vinegar. That’ll eat it up pretty good.”

The landlord hustled down the hall and into the elevator. Sanj looked at Livia, whose eyes were watering. “Welcome to ride-along week.”

The apartment was a one-bedroom with a living room and a kitchen. Sitting on the couch was a very overweight and very dead Anthony Davis, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, no socks, no shoes. Livia walked around the couch to get a better view while Sanj and Kent gathered what they needed from their canvas bag and took preliminary scene photos.

When Sanj stopped clicking his camera, Livia snapped on a pair of gloves and approached Anthony Davis. His skin was a pallid gray, his lips nearly white, and his eyelids slivered open to expose a hint of blue iris, the corneas long since dried and desiccated. Getting closer to the body, Livia greatly appreciated the overhead ventilation system at the morgue. It pulled more foul air than she understood until she found herself in a closed apartment with a rotting body. She put her hand to her mouth momentarily as if she might vomit.

“Here,” Kent said, handing her a tub of Vicks VapoRub. “I can’t stand to watch you anymore. Schultz? We’ll let him suffer all week. For you, Dr. Cutty, we’ll help you out. Smear some under your nose.”

Livia took the jar and stuck her gloved finger into the petroleum, placed a small amount on her upper lip and inside her nostrils. The lemony-menthol odor immediately overwhelmed her, which was a much better alternative to the wet rot of Anthony Davis.

Sanj and Kent, donned now in gloves and protective eyewear, approached the body and began their investigation. Livia stood back and observed, which was how this week was meant to go.

“Moderate stage of putrefaction,” Kent said. “I’d say five to seven days. Rigor is spent and the body is in a state of secondary laxity.” He felt Anthony Davis’s swollen legs. “Blood is fixed. Definitely a week.”

Sanj took notes and more pictures, snapping shots of the body and the apartment from every angle as Kent moved around the body. “Definitely a heart attack risk.”

“Or stroke,” Kent said. “He died on the couch and never moved. Lividity in the butt and legs.”

After they gathered everything of relevance and found nothing else to photograph, they managed Anthony Davis carefully into a black vinyl body bag and placed him onto the gurney. As they were securing the body, Livia took note of the couch and coffee table. A half-eaten pizza remained on the grease-stained box it was delivered in, and a Styrofoam container next to it sat suspiciously undisturbed. Livia carefully lifted the lid with her pen to find the dried, brittle bones of eaten chicken wings. A soda can was on its side on the floor, having stained the carpeting from where the syrupy liquid spilled.

She looked back to the gurney. “Can I check him?”

Sanj looked up from his clipboard. “The body? Be my guest.”

Livia unzipped the bag to expose Anthony Davis’s face, then used her penlight to illuminate his mouth. Sticking her gloved fingers between his lips, she pressed down on his lower teeth and caused Anthony Davis’s mouth to gape open. She put the penlight closer to his mouth to get a better look, the VapoRub losing some of its effectiveness this close to the rot.

“Got anything, Doc?” Sanj asked.

“Yeah,” Livia said, staring down Mr. Davis’s throat. “He choked on a chicken wing. I see the bones in the back of his throat.”