Page 17 of The Bone Code

Anne knocked back the remains in her glass, set it overly carefully on the table, and stood.

“Tomorrow I get to rounding up workers to sort out this mess,”she said, twirling an upraised hand to take in the house and yard. “And you get to slapping names on those bodies.”

In the year 2021 CE, the state of South Carolina still relies on a coroner system to oversee death within its boundaries. And on elections to determine who that overseer will be.

To run for office, a candidate must be at least twenty-one years old, a U.S. citizen, a county resident, a registered voter, a high-school graduate, and free of any felony convictions. Hot damn. That excludes Ted Bundy and the kid on that cereal commercial.

A medical examiner, on the other hand, is usually appointed and must be a forensic pathologist, a pathologist, or, minimally, an MD. While some coroners are very good at what they do, their roles are limited and never involve scalpels or Y incisions.

Charleston County has an additional requirement for coroner, met either by experience in death investigation or by varying educational achievements. One qualifying credential is a BS degree in nursing. Thus, Ebony Herrin, RN.

Though Herrin’s office is located out in the burbs, most autopsies are performed at the Medical University of South Carolina’s main hospital, a bland, multistory building in a complex of bland, multistory buildings situated a respectful hair outside Charleston’s most privileged hood, “South of Broad” on the “Peninsula.” Think cobbled streets, brick Georgians, walled gardens, carriage houses.

By nine thirty in the morning, I’d navigated the same sort of debris field as I had in Charlotte. Lots of tree branches and Spanish moss lying on the ground. A downed power line here and there. Trash bins and lawn furniture dropped or washed up in odd places. The occasional street blockage due to standing water. Already much of the wreckage lay stacked or in large tangles along the curbs.

After parking as directed by Herrin, I made my way to Ashley Avenue and went in through the hospital’s main entrance, havingpassed an armada of brightly colored food trucks along the way.Promise to self: an empanada is in your future. Maybe a roti.

Thanks to backup generators, the hospital was in full operation. After presenting ID at the desk, I requested directions to the morgue. The receptionist, an elderly black woman wearing an ill-fitting wig, asked me to wait. Then, moving at sloth speed, she dialed an extension and connected with someone somewhere, probably Cambodia.

Ten minutes later, a young man approached, bony arms dangling from the sleeves of scrubs at least one size too large. His skin was blotchy, his hair so thin it made the wig lady’s arrangement look good.

“Dr. Brennan?” His name tag said Brian.

“Yes.”

“Follow me. I’ll take you to the second floor.”

I did. He did.

“Ladies change in there.” Hooking a thumb at one of several doors along the hall. “Scrubs are on shelves to the left.” More thumb. “Autopsies there.”

Thanking Brian, obviously a man of few words, I entered a small room with lockers lining the walls and forming rows in the middle. A metal bench ran down the center of each subdivided area.

The scrubs were located as promised. I found a set in size small, changed from my street clothes, and headed out.

Passing what I assumed were staff offices, I entered where Brian had indicated and found myself in the heart of the operation. Surrounding me were an elevator for direct access to the morgue one floor down, a viewing area, a main autopsy room, and a smaller autopsy room, possibly for decomp and other malodorous cases.

Stepping into the viewing area, I assessed the space in which I’d be working. Noted stainless-steel tables, roll carts, countertops, sinks, and hanging scales. Multidrawered cabinetry. Adjustable high-intensity lights. Painted concrete flooring generously outfitted with drains. The same setup I’d seen dozens of times.

In addition to Brian, two people were present, one of each gender. The woman, dressed in navy blazer, white polo, and khaki chinos,stood off by herself, thumbs hooking her belt, eyes roving the room. Roughly six feet tall, with mahogany skin and sage-green eyes, she looked like she’d emerged from preschool a cop.

The man was hunched down, observing something on a computer screen. With elephant ears, a beak nose, and bulging Adam’s apple, he resembled the cartoon version of Ichabod Crane, only older, taller, and thinner.

A prebreakfast cyber search had revealed that MUSC has five pathologists on faculty, among them one Walter Carl Klopp. I assumed Ichabod was Dr. Klopp.

Klopp’s scrubs suggested he’d already been cutting. Blood smeared the right half of his chest, and a kumquat-shaped splotch darkened one sleeve.

Each of the two tables held a body bag. The contents on the left looked considerably more substantial than those on the right.

Deep breath.

Odor carried outward as I pushed through the swinging stainless-steel door, an acrid-sweet mix of refrigerated flesh, putrefaction, and disinfectant. And a touch of something else. Something briny and pungent that triggered images of the sea.

Three heads swiveled my way. Klopp smiled. The cop did not.

“Dr. Brennan, I presume.” Klopp’s mask was off and bunched in one hand. “Herrin says we’re to treat you like royalty.”

“I hope I can be of use,” I said.