Edge of Black. J.T. Ellison

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      “I’m ready. Where is the congressman?”

      “He is separated from the rest. Please, follow me.”

      Nocek led them to a door to the right of the main room. “Let us take a few extra precautions. I would request that you double your masks and wear them at all times. We have set up special ventilation for the room. We are still unsure as to what the situation may be.”

      Sam washed her hands again, thoroughly, even though she could hardly give the dead man her germs. There were levels of prevention based on the situation at hand. Because of the nature of the investigation, she wanted to be as sterile as possible to ward off any hint of cross-contamination and potential problems down the road. She had to wear special protective gear as well, also just in case. Which was fine, but it got in her way.

      Once she was finished and they were all gloved and prepped, they entered what Sam knew to be a decomp suite: every decent-size morgue has a separate room for the decomposed bodies that come in to be posted. For the most part, the natural effluvia of fresh bodies wasn’t terribly offensive to the olfactory system, especially once you grew accustomed to the smells. But decomps were a different story. By isolating them, several things occurred: chain of custody remained intact; special precautions could be taken; evidence collected could be kept separate from the rest of the suite. Blowflies could be isolated; they had a pesky tendency to colonize decomposing bodies. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But before that could happen, the biological chain of command kicked into high gear. Blowflies and maggots and larvae, oh my. Sam knew several forensic entomologists who lived for decomps.

      Sam noticed several desiccated fly husks near the drain, under the table. Hatchlings, with no food to sustain them. Not unusual.

      More interesting was the man lying on top of the stainless tray. Mid-fifties, silvery-gray hair, probably five-ten or so, naked, which was where it got interesting: he was as smooth and hairless as the eight-year-old boy on the other side of the door.

      Sam circled the body, absorbing details. There were classic marks on his chest where someone had tried to revive him. His flesh seemed doughy and dented easily, which led her right to excessive edema. The cavities of his mouth and nose were red and irritated, his throat slightly ulcerated. Petechial hemorrhaging in his blank, bluish eyes gave her even more bits of the story.

      It hadn’t been an easy death, that was for sure.

      She looked closer at his legs, groin and chest, ran her fingers along his calf. The stubble there was no more perceptible than Sam’s was at the end of the day, several hours after she shaved her legs during her morning shower.

      The congressman shaved his legs. And everything else, besides. This took manscaping to a whole new level.

      “He shaved. His whole body. Thoroughly. Regularly. And practiced. Why?”

      Neither man responded, and she started to get a glimmer of why she’d been asked to come in and do the post on the congressman. Discretion was needed. Real discretion.

      “What was he into?” she asked.

      “We don’t know for sure,” Fletcher answered. “There’s been scuttlebutt about him for years, but really subtle stuff. A couple of the girls in town might have mentioned in passing that he enjoyed trying on their clothes. Primarily their underclothes.”

      “Seems harmless enough. He wouldn’t be the first cross-dresser in the government.”

      “And a couple of the boys might have mentioned he liked to have a few cameras around while they did their thing.”

      Sam met Fletcher’s eyes. “A bisexual cross-dresser with film? Anyone ever gotten their hands on it?”

      “I haven’t seen it. And a few of them have said he’s gone a bit too far before.”

      “Too far how?”

      “Choke and revive. People being asked to play dead. That sort of thing.”

      “Sounds like you have more than rumors to go on,” Sam said.

      “Listen, Doc. This guy is a really big deal. Former dove, now an outspoken proponent for the military, looking for funding from every quarter. Served for years, a decorated veteran. He has a kid in Afghanistan. He had a presidential run in mind. His proclivities get out, it’s embarrassing for a whole bunch of people, you know?”

      “He’s just a study in contradictions.”

      “Sam...”

      “That’s fine, I understand. But why all the secrecy around his autopsy?”

      “Because of this. A text that came to the congressman’s phone. His office reported it about an hour ago.”

      Fletcher pulled his notebook from his pocket and read the text verbatim.

      Dear Congressman Pervert,

      You messed with the wrong people.

      Today’s attack is on you, shithead.

      Chapter 6

      Washington, D.C.

      Alexander Whitfield

      Xander didn’t like waiting, even though it was something he was accustomed to doing. In the three years since he’d left the service, he’d been marching to the beat of his own drummer. His background made that an easy choice—his parents had been hippies who lived on a commune, and originally named him, in the trippy-dippy fashion of all their friends, Alexander Moonbeam. He’d taken the necessary steps to reclaim a normal name and was now legally Alexander Roth Whitfield. The Third.

      And instead of Moonbeam, which his parents still preferred, he went by Xander.

      Xander’s grandfather was a hearty son of a bitch who ran a television enterprise. Xander’s dad had told his father to take the money and shove it, and as such, married Xander’s mom, Sunshine, and had two children in quick succession, Xander and his sister Yellow. They moved their burgeoning little family from San Francisco to a mountain farm in Dillon, Colorado, when Xander was a baby. He’d grown up in the woods, homeschooled, self-motivated and a prodigy. His parents were furious when he enlisted instead of attending Julliard. Dedicated pacifists, they didn’t know where they’d gone wrong. They wanted a life of pleasure for him, a life without hatred or fear. Instead, he ran headlong in the other direction.

      When he was eighteen, he didn’t know how to make them understand his point of view. He didn’t want to smoke dope and drop acid and find the universal meanings of life in the shiny swirls of colorful trips. He didn’t want to grow organically or manufacture hemp linens. He wanted to see the world. He wanted to give back to the land who’d given him the freedom to make that choice. Yellow had been a dutiful daughter, opened a metaphysical shop in Modesto, California, carried her parents’ all-natural products. Xander played with guns.

      There was something as soothing about disassembling an assault weapon blindfolded as there was in mastering Chopin for him. He knew he was different. Smart, yes, but there was something more. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. His commanding officers called it courage, intelligence, instinct. The school psychiatrists called it genius. His parents called him gifted.

      He СКАЧАТЬ