“Good to go, Doc?” Rodas asked.

“Bring on the show.”

Rodas inserted gloved fingers under the metal lever securing the lid. Flipped it outward.

The lid lifted easily. But nicks and gouges on its periphery and on the barrel’s rim suggested much more effort had been needed the first time around.

Rodas stepped back, lid held up and away from his body.

Ryan and I moved in.

CHAPTER 22

SLEET HISSED ON the tin overhead.

The generator hummed.

The CSS camera clicked softly.

The corpse was floating just below the surface, head up and tilted sideways, crown pressed to one side of the barrel. Long blond hair wrapped its face, molding the features like a wet suit on a surfer.

No. Not floating. Submerged in thick brown goop.

An image flashed. An exhibit at the Centre des sciences du Montréal. Bodies preserved by replacing the water and fat in the tissues with polymers. Plastination. Not the same process here, but the effect was eerily similar.

Karras spoke first. Brisk and cool. Here to do her job, not make friends. “I’ve made arrangements to take the whole barrel.”

“How long has she been in there?” Rodas asked.

“I’ll know more after I examine the body. And if the victim is male or female.”

“Point taken.”

“I’m happy to help,” I said.

“Our facility is closed to the public.” As though addressing an amateur.

I explained my qualifications.

“Given the state of preservation, an anthropologist shouldn’t be necessary.”

“First looks can be deceiving.”

“Really.”

“I know I’m out of jurisdiction.” Trying to appease for my indelicate comment. And my churlishness earlier. “And I understand—”

“Probably not.”

Easy. “May I at least observe?”

“Dr. Brennan and Detective Ryan are working homicides potentially linked to Nellie Gower.” Rodas intervened on my behalf.

“That what this is about?” Karras tapped the rim of the barrel with one gloved hand.

“Possibly.”

Karras eyed me flatly. “You know your way around an autopsy?”

“I do.”

“Once the body’s out of the syrup, it’ll head south fast.”

“It will.”

“I’ll be working through the night.”

“As would I.” Holding her gaze.

“In Burlington.”

“Take the Jeep,” Ryan said to me. “I’ll stay and help with things on this end.”

And that’s what we did.

Vermont’s chief medical examiner is headquartered in the Fletcher Allen medical complex on the western edge of Burlington. Burlington is on the western edge of Vermont, all the way across the state from St. Johnsbury. Fortunately, it’s a small state.

Nonetheless, the drive was brutal. I was unfamiliar with Ryan’s Jeep. And with dusk, the temperature dropped and the sleet turned to ice, clogging the wipers, reducing visibility, and turning the roads treacherous.

I arrived at 6:40. Karras and the barrel were already there.

The facility was not unlike many others in which I’d worked, including those at the MCME and the LSJML. There were multiple autopsy rooms, each with a tile floor, erasable board, metal and glass cabinets, stainless steel counters and centerpiece table.

Without the outerwear, I could see that Karras was a large woman with thick limbs and pendulous breasts. I doubted she cared. Her demeanor suggested cotton briefs and sensible shoes.

After the normal routine of logging in, the barrel was X-rayed with a Lodox scanner that allowed real-time viewing on video displays. Karras and I observed the body section by section: bones, skull, and teeth white; soft tissues gray; air in the gut and passageways black.

The barrel held a single human corpse, legs flexed at the knees, arms tucked to the belly. Nothing radio-opaque. No belt buckles, zippers, watches, or jewelry. No dental restorations. No bullets. I spotted no obvious skeletal trauma.

X-rays completed, a technician wheeled the barrel by dolly to an autopsy room. He took samples of the syrup while Karras recorded observations concerning the barrel’s particulars and condition.

After shooting a zillion photographs, the tech placed a screen over a floor drain, and together we all laid the barrel on its side. With much effort and considerable swearing, we freed the body and transferred it to the table.

When finished, we were all coated with syrupy sweat. Here and there, we wore leaves that had transferred and pasted to our skin.

As Karras dictated and took more photos, the tech placed additional screens over large stainless steel pots into which the remaining syrup would be transferred for inspection. Perhaps the vegetation, maybe pollen or an insect, might pinpoint the season the individual had died.

Prelims completed, Karras sent the tech home. Hazardous road conditions. Perhaps a vote of confidence in me. She’d noted my comments in radiology. Observed as I’d helped dislodge and maneuver the corpse.

Then Karras and I went to shower and change into fresh scrubs.

By 8:40 we were regoggled, regloved, and re-aproned. Though I’d done a quickie shampoo, my hair felt itchy under the surgical cap holding it back from my face.

The barrel victim was female. She lay on the table, hair glued over her face, syrup dripping from her body with soft little ticks. She was nude and her skin looked oddly bronzed, an effect of the amber liquid in which she’d been stored.

I waited as Karras dictated height, weight, and gender, holding off on age until we could get to the teeth. I watched her search the scalp, displacing what hair she could disengage, clump by clump.

After several minutes. “Look at this.”

I stepped to her side. Sticky with syrup, the blue plastic sheeting protecting the floor pulled at the footies covering my shoes.

The victim’s hair was blond, with a half inch of dark growth at the roots. A bleach job, amateur, probably done at home from a box.

Karras lifted a handful of strands, revealing an oval lesion roughly two inches long by one inch wide. The scalp was gone, and yellowed bone gleamed naked in the egg-shaped defect.

“What is it?”

No response. The woman was definitely not a talker.

“An abrasion due to contact with the barrel?” I suggested.

“Her head was resting on the other side.”

“Rodents?” I didn’t believe it.

“No tooth striations in the bone or tissue. And she was too far below the surface. Besides, how would mice exit the barrel after gnawing on her scalp?”

“Are there other lesions?”

“Two. Hand me the magnifier.”

I did.

“The edges appear mushy, not clean. But that could be an artifact caused by the syrup.”

I ran through possibilities in my mind. “Something external? A burn? Exposure to a caustic chemical?”

“None of the surrounding hair or tissue is affected.”

“Mites? Ticks? Bedbugs? Lice? Brown recluse spiders?”

“I didn’t spot any eggs or excrement. But I suppose areas of infestation could have become infected, eventually necrotic.”

“An autoimmune response? Something like Pemphigus?” I was referring to a group of skin disorders that caused blistering of the skin and mucous membranes.

“Mmm.”

“An infectious process? Leishmaniasis? MRSA?” Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

That drew another noncommittal response.

“Eczema? Pustular psoriasis? Either could lead to skin abscess.”

“We’ll have a better look when I retract the scalp.”

Discussion over.

Karras took measurements, dictated, made notes on a diagram. Then, using her index finger, she tried teasing hair from the face. It held firm.

I withdrew as Karras ran the lens over the neck, shoulders, breasts, belly, and tops of each leg, checking for moles, tattoos, birthmarks, scars, fresh wounds.