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One of the reasons humans tended toward insanity was the weight of fear they carried. The blessings of storytelling, the handing down of knowledge and warnings, had a flip side. People carried the collective fears of their history, the biases of those long dead, the paranoias of other ages.
A
She shrugged off that same feeling now and concentrated on the necropsy.
Ridley cut through the thin wall muscles covering the abdomen and exposed the internal organs. Since the wolf was fresh, the organs were identified and preserved for histological work. When an animal was partially decomposed, the organs turned to mush and the thin tissue samples required were unusable. Ridley lifted out the intestines and stomach. Small pieces of the liver and spleen were taken for DNA work.
A
“The pluck,” Ridley said, the business of dismemberment apparently cleansing him of residual heebie-jeebies from the initial wound discovery. Reaching up under the ribs, he plucked out lungs and heart as a single unit.
Other than the bite on the throat, they found no other cause of death.
They completed the necropsy: salvaging bones, chopping off paws to preserve the small tarsals and metatarsals, breaking the rib cage to wrestle it free of the cavity. Bones would be macerated by boiling or, the preferred method, because it didn’t dry the bones out, buried in soil in screen envelopes for slow decomposition of tissue.
This scientific butchering was grim work and A
Ridley excised the muscle mass with the puncture marks. “Usually we don’t need to do this,” he said as he handed A
A
“Bite patterns, tracks, fur – just like CSI,” Ridley said.
But without criminals. However vicious an animal attack, it was neither a sin nor a crime, to A
“A married man,” Bob said. “Any kids?”
“Not yet,” Ridley said.
“Maybe when you stick closer to the den in winter she’ll pop out a litter every spring. More fun than cutting up wolves.” Bob gri
“Fuck!” Ridley jerked his hands out of the wolf and held his left cupped in his right, the knife trapped between them. The palm of his rubber glove was filling with bright, new arterial blood.
“I’m an EMT. Can I help?” A
Ridley kept his head down, his eyes on the blood welling in his glove.
Face averted in the growing dimness, hidden behind beard and mustache, he could have been thinking of anything from killing to Captain Kangaroo and A
He nodded without looking up and held out his hand. The gesture put A
A
Having spent the afternoon elbow-deep in flesh and bone, A
Frozen meat, A
Whatever was communicated with that stare was over in a heartbeat. Bob was all amiability again; Katherine’s head was bent industriously over her collection equipment. Jonah started a long involved joke about the Sisters of St. Regis’s Convent and House of Prostitution. A
“May I?” she said and carefully took the German knife from Ridley’s hand. Despite the wound, he’d not let it fall. Using it, she cut his glove away. He’d gashed his palm, a bad cut, but blood had welled into the gash and she couldn’t tell how bad; she couldn’t see clearly.
The way she felt when the optometrist put bellado
The room hadn’t filled with fog; it was four o’clock and the sun was almost down. The white that had blinded the window when they arrived had turned to gray. The work light over the table created more shadows than illumination.
“We need to go inside,” she said. “I need more light.”
“We’re about done anyway.” Ridley finally raised his head. His skin wasn’t pale but flushed, and, rather than having the vague alarm of shock, his eyes were so alive he looked feverish or half mad.
“Jonah, would you help Katherine finish up?” he asked. The control in his voice was so at odds with the heat in his eyes that A
“What are you doing!” he demanded as he pulled away from her.
“Checking your skin temp,” she said. “Ready to go?”
As they left, they could hear Jonah: “Fakes an injury to get out of mopping up the really disgusting parts. I thought I’d taught that boy better…”
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