“You come here pretty often?”
“Maybe once a month.”
“You happen to notice anything else unusual?”
Dominic shook his head. “Even if there was, with this weather it’d be long gone anyways.”
Anyways. Didn’t he say that last time too? This stuff made me nuts. “Anyway, Dominic. There’s only one. Right?”
He snickered briefly. Guess I had mentioned it last time.
“Yeah. Anyway, I didn’t see nothin’ out of the norm.”
I wondered if he was smart enough to use the double negative on purpose, just to mess with me, but decided that was probably giving him too much credit. Besides, bad grammar was the least of his deficits. I looked at Bailey, who was suppressing a smile with only partial success.
“Your information still the same?” she asked him.
“Yeah. ’Course.”
Bailey gave the officer next to Dominic the high sign. “You can let him go. And thanks.”
The coroner’s wagon pulled up as Dominic’s bike gave a throaty growl. He steered out to the road and touched two fingers to his forehead in a salute, then roared off. I didn’t recognize the coroner’s investigator who jumped out of the wagon. He was a smallish black man with a neat mustache and goatee.
Bailey and I introduced ourselves as he stood outside the tape and gloved up.
“George Harrison.”
I wanted to say “You’re kidding, right?” but his serious expression gave me the answer. Without another word, he ducked under the tape, and Bailey and I followed him. He immediately turned back and frowned at us.
“I’m going to have to ask you to stay back until I’m done.”
“Mr. Harrison, how long have you been with the coroner’s office?” Bailey asked, her tone on the borderline between irritation and genuine pissitivity.
“With this office, four months. In Seattle for five years, and in New York for ten.” He said it without a hint of self-importance; it was just a statement of fact. That itinerary explained his accent-as in, he had none whatsoever. That was a lot of years on the job for someone who looked like he was in his twenties. Our skepticism must’ve shown, because he added, “Black don’t crack.”
The slang was so out of place in his King’s English voice, I chuckled in spite of myself and I saw that Bailey did too. George gave us a little smile and unwound a bit. “You can watch from over there right now. When I get ready to wrap him up, I’ll let you in for a closer look.”
Bailey and I stood back and watched. George was one hell of a thorough worker-calm, careful, slow, and steady. After what felt like hours, he gestured to us. “Take a look, but stay back.” He left to get the body bag and gurney.
