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responded cheerfully. “Did you get hit by the reporter brigade on your way in?”
    â€œOf course,” Ben replied. “I thought that I might outsmart them by coming in the back way, but they had their sentries waiting for me.”
    â€œNo doubt, no doubt. They were on me like flies on sh—, like flies at a picnic, you know, as soon as I pulled the wagon into the back parkin’ lot. ‘ Tell us this! Tell us that! ’ Those guys are pretty damn . . .”
    â€œImportunate? Unremitting?” Ben offered.
    â€œPretty damn annoying, if you ask me. Hell, I don’ know the answers to any of those questions. Might as well be askin’ me who’s gonna win the Kentucky Derby. And if I did know, I wouldn’t be tellin’ ’em nothin’ anyway. Just like you said, Dr. S: ‘ No muthafuckin’ comment! ’ Right?”
    â€œI think that was actually you who said that.” Ben glanced at the shape on the examination table, still zipped up inside of the black cadaver bag. “How are we doing?”
    â€œI just got back about ten minutes ago. Fog’s gettin’ thick out there, and the wagon’s front windshield defroster ain’t workin’ so hot. Rainy days—and rainy nights especially—you’ve got to drive slow, or else you might find yourself joinin’ the gentleman in back, if you catch my meaning.”
    His assistant continued to move about the room as he spoke, laying out instruments and checking connections. He was a study in controlled chaos: his light blond hair eternally tussled as if he had just recently climbed out of bed, the tail of his shirt tucked into his pants in some places but left free to fend for itself in others, one shoelace frequently loose and on the brink of coming untied—and yet within the autopsy room he was highly organized and efficient, as if the manner with which he conducted his personal life did not apply here.
    â€œI’ll ask Jim Ducket to take a look at it,” Ben told him. “If you’re having trouble with the wagon, maybe we can get a replacement from the county until we get it fixed.”
    â€œAw, the wagon ain’t no trouble. Just needs a little kick in the nuts every now and then. If you want Jimmy Ducket to take a look at anything, have him check out the radio. Hell, half the stations were set to classic rock when I climbed in it tonight. I take one five-day vacation and the whole place has gone to hell.”
    Ben smiled. Nat had gone on a ski trip to Utah with his father last week, and Ben had been left making the pickups himself, just as he’d done before his assistant had come on board with him full-time several years ago. A few radio station adjustments had been the first order of business on his way out to pick up Kendra Fields, who’d died in her home last week of a ruptured cerebral aneurysm. When Ben arrived at the residence, Kendra’s husband, John, had been waiting for him at the front door. “ Guess she’s gone and done it this time, doc, ” the old man had said matter-of-factly. John was eighty-nine and belonged to the congregation at Ben’s church. Kendra had been three years his elder, and during the course of her life had survived two heart attacks, a serious stroke, breast cancer, and a small plane crash. All things considered, it was time for her to pack up and head for home. Ben had chatted with John for a half hour. Then he’d loaded Kendra’s body into the back of the wagon and had treated her to some Creedence Clearwater Revival on the short ride back to the CO, cranking the volume up enough to turn people’s heads as he drove past. Hell, on top of everything else, Kendra Fields had also been a touch deaf during her final ten years on this earth.
    â€œWell, that’s what you get when you skip town and leave us old farts to drive the wagon,” he advised his young colleague.
    â€œYeah? Well,