Everybody was always talking about the pure and unstained beauty of Alaska — Russell had seen all the brochures and ads and commercials the state tourist bureau put out — but as far as he could see, it was a load of crap. The place was cold and wet and dark and the rotting leaves he was sitting on stank. He took another slug of the beer. Without alcohol, and pussy, there’d be no reason to go on living.
And pot. He shouldn’t forget the value of grade-A weed, which was never more plentiful than when he was behind bars at Spring Creek.
He hadn’t been sitting on the stump for very long — the can of beer still had a few drops left in it — when he thought he heard something.
Quickly, he swiped the hood back off his head, and listened hard.
Was that a voice, or just the wind sighing in the boughs?
He stood up, gulped the last of the beer, and tossed the can into the bushes.
Yes, it was. It was a voice, talking in some weird accent. Russian. For a second he thought, It’s the ghost of one of those dead settlers. The legends about the island are all true! Then he got hold of himself, and before he knew it, his feet were carrying him back onto the trail, and through the woods, past the lighting poles, between the carved gateposts of the graveyard. Harley and Eddie were wandering around like they still hadn’t picked a target yet, but he knew he couldn’t shout at them. Instead, he ran among the graves, waving his arms like a lunatic, until they saw him and grabbed up their gear and took off in all directions. Russell tripped over a hole in the ground — shit, was this the grave they’d already opened? — and by the time he got up again they were gone.
He could hear another voice, too, now, carried on the wind and coming up the trail, and he ran helter-skelter out of the graveyard and into the surrounding woods. The branches tore at his sleeves and the thicket was almost impenetrable but he just kept running. The breath was hot in his throat, and he realized, not for the first time, just how out of shape he was. Two years in the penitentiary can do that to you. So it was a miracle when he stumbled into a tiny glade where an ancient hut still stood. All that was left of the place was a few boards holding the walls in place and a door made out of wooden staves, but right now it looked better than the Yardarm to him.
He banged through the brittle door, closed what was left of it behind him, then bent over double, gasping for breath. The beer came up in a rush of hot vomit, splashing onto his boots. The wind rattled the sticks of the door. He saw a table, and an old, empty dynamite crate drawn up to it like a stool. He leaned one hand on the side of the table. An old leather book was on it, with the frozen nub of a candle in a pewter dish. His head was pounding so hard he thought he was going to stroke out on the spot. Get a grip, he told himself. You haven’t even done anything wrong yet. It was Harley who broke open the grave. I’m just along for the ride.
He sat down with a thump on the dynamite box, which groaned but remained intact.
All he’d done, he reminded himself, was trespass — and maybe on government property. What could the penalty be for that, anyway? It couldn’t be that bad, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was still on parole, it wouldn’t have even been worth worrying about. But he was on parole, and if he ever had to go back into that cramped cell in Spring Creek — where the walls had pressed in tighter every day — he’d kill himself.
First, however, he’d kill Harley Vane for getting him into this mess.
Chapter 34
“What’s that mean again?” Dr. Lantos asked, as she extended the masking tape.
Slater finished writing on the cardboard—“Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae”—before slapping the sign on the outside of the thick plastic walls separating the autopsy chamber from the rest of the lab tent. “It means, ‘This is the place where death rejoices to help the living.’ At the AFIP, we always kept the sign up to remind us why we were there. To help the living.”
“I hope the deacon feels the same way.”
“He was a man of God, wasn’t he?”
Lantos snorted. “You must have a higher regard for organized religion than I do.”
Slater had been brought up without any religion at all. And though he sometimes envied those who were able to find solace in their faith — his ex had still attended church on a regular basis — he was convinced that if the seed of belief weren’t planted early, it could never really thrive.
Both he and Dr. Lantos were already garbed from head to toe in hazmat suits, and now that they were ready to enter the autopsy chamber, they put on their face masks with plastic goggles. They took a few extra seconds to adjust them and make sure they felt secure, since once they were inside it couldn’t be done again without running the risk of breaking the seal. Satisfied, Slater held open the heavy-duty plastic flaps of the chamber, and in a muffled voice, said, “After you.”
Lantos, whose hood was raised an inch or two by the frizz of her hair, ducked inside, and Slater followed, turning to seal the long Velcro strips that held the flaps closed. In here, even the rubber floor had a heavy plastic sheath beneath it; that way, when the work on St. Peter’s Island was done, the entire autopsy compartment could be rolled up like an enormous sheet of cellophane and incinerated. To Slater, it felt as if he’d stepped inside a jellyfish, with shimmering translucent walls all around, above, and below him.
The body of the deacon, still in his long black cassock with the red lining, lay on the autopsy table staring at the ceiling.
Lantos, poking at the corpse with one gloved finger, said, “They always take longer to thaw than you expect.” It was as if she were talking about a Thanksgiving turkey, and though an ordinary person might have been put off by her tone, Slater recognized it for what it was. This was how medical professionals — epidemiologists included — often spoke to each other. The casual banter was meant to dispel the doubts and fears and just plain moral confusion that confronted anyone about to desecrate and dismember human flesh. Otherwise, it was all too easy to see yourself instead lying on that table, a hunk of mortal ruins swiftly on its way to decay.
“Do you want to wait a while,” Lantos asked, “or start removing the clothes?”
Slater squeezed the deacon’s shoulder, pressed the abdomen, flexed a booted foot, and said, “We can go ahead. The clothing may be stiffer than the skin.”
“Then pail and scalpels it is.”
Everything they would need for the autopsy was already in the room, from surgical instruments to disposal bins, and in the small freezer in the corner they had already stored the in situ specimens from the graveyard; these would remain the cleanest and purest samples of all, transported back to the AFIP untouched.
“You’ll have to be careful with that paper,” Lantos said, touching the prayer of absolution that the corpse still held in one hand. “It could disintegrate.”
Slater knew she was right, and when he separated the scroll from the dead flesh that held it, he gently laid it aside on one of the metal trays arrayed on the counter behind him. As if it were a living creature, hiding from a predator, the paper curled even more tightly in on itself.
Lantos went about removing the icon clutched in the deacon’s other hand, but even that was dicey. “He doesn’t seem to want to let go,” she said, giving it another tug and finally freeing it. Glancing at it through her goggles, she said, “And now I can see why.”
She turned it over for Slater to see. It was a picture of the Virgin and Child, preserved enough to show a faint red in her veil and pale blue in the gown she wore. It was Byzantine in appearance, the two figures lacking all perspective, but on the forehead and shoulders of the Virgin there were three diamonds sparkling in the light of the overhead lamp. “We’re rich,” Lantos joked as Slater admired the brilliance of the stones.