The Unspoken

2

More than eighteen thousand deaths were reported to the Cook County office of the medical examiner yearly. Of those, some six thousand received an autopsy.

The office handled investigations for a large part of the state; in January 2011, there’d been such a backup due to the number of bodies and the holidays, they were stacked one on top of the other. The morgue had been overcrowded due to what the press had dubbed “the killing season,” when gang violence had erupted on the South Side.

Kat knew these things because she’d done nothing but read since she’d boarded her plane for Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Cook County wasn’t different from any other large metropolitan area. People died. Thankfully most of them died naturally.

But some did not. Some died because of gang violence, and sometimes they died in police custody or in jail. Some died because of domestic violence, and some were simply and pathetically in the wrong place at the wrong time—victims of random crime. Some died “suspiciously” or without apparent explanation.

Despite the fact that she wasn’t in Chicago because she wanted to be, she wasn’t disturbed by her particular assignment here. While many people feared a medical examiner’s office as a frightening and gruesome place, Kat had always found that an autopsy—though invasive—was a service that man had come to do for man. It was an effort to let the dead speak for themselves, to seek justice, find a killer or, conversely, prove accidental death when no other human was at fault. Autopsy helped the living, too; some medical advances would have never come about without autopsies determining the cause of death. In medical school, she hadn’t started out feeling that she’d rather work with the dead than the living. It had been during her residency that she’d discovered she had a penchant for unspoken truths…and that, even when silent, the dead could sometimes tell their tales.

The Texas Krewe—her unit of their section within the FBI—was supposed to investigate whatever couldn’t be answered by the evidence. Usually it wasn’t because of incompetence or because leads weren’t followed by the local police. They were called in when the leads themselves were unusual. Some people described those leads as paranormal.

But in this instance…

A diver had jumped the gun. He’d jumped the gun on an incredible discovery mainly because he was the scientist who’d been determined to find the wreck of the Jerry McGuen. He’d been looking for ancient Egyptian treasures lost along with the ship.

And those treasures included a mummy.

It just had to be a mummy! she thought, wincing as she conjured up an image of Brendan Fraser and his hit movie. And of course there was the mummy in The Unholy—the recent Hollywood remake of a 1940s film noir—had been that of an evil Egyptian priest who’d turned out to be real.

“Sad beginning to this whole thing, huh?”

Startled, Katya looked over at Dr. Alex McFarland, the M.E. who walked her down the corridors and past offices, vaults and autopsy rooms. He seemed a decent enough sort, cordial and receptive. Bald as a billiard ball and wearing spectacles, he reminded her of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew of Jim Henson’s Muppets fame, the epitome of what the general public expected a doctor or scientist to look like.

“Very sad,” she agreed. The victim had been in his thirties, an expert on Egyptology and an expert diver. A young man with his life stretching out before him.

And now that life was cut short.

McFarland rolled his eyes. “Tragic…and almost no one’s talking about the boy’s death. Of course, the disappearance of the Jerry McGuen has been one of the great mysteries of Lake Michigan since she went down in the late-nineteenth century. There’s more coverage given to the discovery than to the poor boy’s death. And God help us all—the curse! But, then again, although Chicago is hardly considered to be one of the world’s great dive spots, the lakes hold a lot of wrecks where divers frequently go. I don’t dive myself, but we have many professional and recreational divers in the area. Many of them say he was being careless, that he took chances in his excitement and shouldn’t have been diving at seventy-five, eighty feet on his own.”

“You should always dive with a buddy,” Kat said. “Sadly it’s often the divers—even expert divers—who go out on their own who wind up in autopsy. There are no guarantees in the deep.”

“You dive?”

“Yes,” she told him.

“Well, then, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this. Like I said, the Great Lakes are filled with shipwrecks. I find the lakes and wrecks fascinating. I’ve studied them all my life—to the point of obsession, I’m afraid. Many are known, but many are not. Lake Michigan has a surface area of 22,400 square miles and its average depth is 279 feet with its greatest depth being about 923 feet,” McFarland said. “It’s the largest lake completely contained in one country in the world, and ranked fifth largest on the globe.”

McFarland obviously loved Chicago. He sounded very proud of the lake.

But then he sighed. “Lots and lots of room for tragedy over the years, and lots of room for ships to disappear. Sure, finding wrecks in the deep, frigid waters of the North Atlantic is a challenge, but if you’ve ever looked out at the lake, you might as well be staring at an ocean, it’s so immense.”

She glanced over at him; McFarland knew the power of water, and he seemed well up on his history of the area. He was as fascinated as everyone else by the discovery of the sunken ship.

“The exploration is still going on,” she said.

“So I understand. The world doesn’t stop spinning because one person has died.” McFarland shrugged. “You have heard that everyone’s talking about a curse, right?”

“Yes,” she said. That’s why I’m here.

Normally, of course, they would never have been called in because of an accidental death that occurred while a man was scuba diving. Such deaths would be handled by the medical examiner’s office, but there usually wasn’t any hint of paranormal activity, so no reason for their unit to be brought in.

“You can’t stop the wheels of progress when there’s been a great discovery, I guess,” McFarland said.

“Every day is money,” she murmured. “Someone’s livelihood. In this case, many livelihoods.”

That was true. Kat didn’t know nearly as much about film as Sean Cameron or a few of the others who belonged to one of the “Krewe” teams, but from their time in California she’d learned how much money could be involved. In the file Logan had given her she’d read that production prep had already begun; crew and talent had been hired. Of course, Alan King was, according to Forbes, a billionaire, so if he lost money on the enterprise, he’d probably be just fine. But making the documentary meant much more to the struggling historians running a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the past.

Sean would arrive soon. He’d taken a short holiday with Madison Darvil after their last case. When they got back from Hawaii, Madison would resume her work in California, and Sean would come here.

She smiled just thinking about it. She loved Sean; they were old Texas friends. She felt sure that he and Madison would be able to keep up with their demanding jobs—he with the unit, she with her work at a special effects company—and maintain a relationship.

Kat returned her attention to Dr. McFarland and the situation. At the moment, however, that didn’t seem to help. Whatever had happened to Brady Laurie was still confusing.

But in every case, someone needed to speak for the dead….

“Well, from what I understand, Alan King doesn’t care if he loses money on a film as long as he produces a documentary that makes him proud,” Kat said to McFarland. “King already has his director and shipboard cameraman—who are two men my team and I actually know. They’re from San Antonio. I understand that King also has underwater videographers on-site, ready to detail every single step of the ship’s recovery…and that they were there when members of the Preservation Center found Mr. Laurie.”

“That’s the information I have, too,” McFarland said. “I wasn’t at the site. The body was brought here. And I swear that man hadn’t been out of the water for more than two seconds before the curse hysteria started.”

She didn’t believe in curses; she did believe in the way a curse could be used to prey on people’s minds. She’d seen people die because of what they were convinced was true, hearts that had stopped beating because of fear.

“I don’t think there’s an Egyptian tomb that doesn’t come with a curse—or at least a rumored curse,” Kat said.

McFarland grinned. “I see you’ve read up on all this. The man who discovered Amun Mopat’s tomb, Gregory Hudson, was aboard the Jerry McGuen when she sank, which, of course, gave rise to the belief that the curse is real. To tell you the truth, the only curse I see is the wicked Chicago weather. But you’ve probably heard our old saying. ‘If it weren’t for the weather, everyone would want to live here!’”

“The Jerry McGuen carried the mortal remains and effects of the New Kingdom, nineteenth dynasty priest—or sorcerer—Amun Mopat, beloved of

Ramses II,” Kat said. “He had his own burial crypt and chamber built before his death. He’d filled it with treasures and—in his own hand, the story goes—chiseled a curse into his tombstone, damning anyone who disturbed his eternal life. Or disturbed the place where his body rested while he joined with the pharaohs and gods. He was apparently quite taken with himself. He wanted to be a god like the pharaohs.” She smiled. “According to some of the research a colleague pulled for me, he had blood ties to Ramses II. He felt he should have been seen as a god all his life.”

“Yes, very good. You seem very well informed.” McFarland shrugged. “But I don’t understand why they’ve called the FBI in on this, except that…curses and ghosts are your specialty, right?”

“I assure you, I’m qualified to be here, Dr. McFarland,” Kat told him. “I received my doctorates in medicine and forensic pathology from Johns Hopkins.”

“Yes, I heard you were well qualified, Dr. Sokolov—and I’m sure you’ll understand what we’re dealing with better than the fellow who’s already here.”

“Agent Chan is here now?” she asked. She wished she’d had a chance to meet with him earlier. Introductions over a corpse were always a bit awkward, even if she was a medical examiner and far too familiar with morgues.

“Yes, he arrived about ten minutes ago. He said you were informed that you’d be meeting him. He’s not a doctor,” McFarland said, his tone irritated and more than a little condescending.

“But he is an agent,” Kat reminded him.

McFarland opened the door to the autopsy room; they were both gowned and gloved.

Kat usually noted the corpse first.

But this time she noted the man who belonged to the original Krewe.

He greeted her as she entered, with words rather than a gloved hand. “Hello, Dr. Sokolov, I’m Will Chan. I believe you were expecting to meet me here?”

“Yes, of course. Logan told me you were already in the city,” Kat said.

She didn’t mean to stare at him in obvious assessment.

But she did. She probably would’ve been tempted to stare at him anywhere. He wasn’t just an appealing, attractive or handsome man, he was different, and not merely because of his striking appearance. There was an aura about him, an energy that immediately caught and held her attention.

She had to look up at him, but she was only five-four, so it seemed that she looked up at most of the world. Somehow, with him, it was…disconcerting. Or maybe it was the circumstances that were disconcerting. We don’t know each other, except for what we know about each other. And yet…

She’d been given so many files to read on the plane, she had to mentally put what she knew about Will in order. He’d become an agent with the original Krewe of Hunters when they’d solved a case at a historic mansion in New Orleans. Before that, he’d performed as a magician and an illusionist. He was also astute with video, film and discerning what was really just smoke and mirrors, recognizing what lay beneath the surface. Will had gone through the academy and passed with flying colors. He was a talented agent.

And, of course, he’d happened to be in the city.

She cleared her throat, not wanting to seem gauche. “Logan gave me an extensive file,” she said. “You’re a film expert, as well?”

“I know a few things about it,” he said, lowering his head with a quick smile. “I come from a long line of illusionists.”

He was tall with intriguing features. His background was Trinidadian and he’d spoken with a slight accent that made her think of the Caribbean island. His hair was dark. His eyes, just as dark, were slightly almond-shaped. His features suggested Asian and perhaps Indian antecedents, and then again, there was something classic about them. His face seemed to be sculpted in the mold of a Roman statue, but with the rugged chin of an American cowboy. She found herself studying him—and almost forgetting that he was standing beside a corpse.

“Yes, and I’m one of Jackson Crow’s team, and most important, I was in Chicago when this happened,” he said.

“Right.” Kat nodded. “And so…what have you learned?”

“He hasn’t learned anything yet,” McFarland said. “I haven’t gone over the autopsy report with him,” he added. “We knew you were on your way.”

Kat nodded again, but looked at Will Chan.

McFarland had no idea just what this man—a Krewe member who could speak with the dead—might have learned.

She glanced away from Will Chan with determination, unable to still the curiosity stirring within her. As part of Jackson Crow’s team, he’d been specifically chosen for his position.

Because of a special talent.

McFarland drew out his report and frowned as he studied it. “As we all know, Mr. Laurie was a white adult male, thirty-six years old. No alcohol in the system, no drugs. His body was found drifting in the hold of the Jerry McGuen, at a depth of eighty feet in Lake Michigan, Chicago jurisdiction. Autopsy revealed no sign of violence and showed that Mr. Laurie was in perfect health at the time of his death. The lungs were filled with salt water, so I’m planning to officially sign off on this report as death by drowning, accidental.”

Kat gazed at the corpse. When it came to their unofficial role with the Krewe of Hunters, she was always glad of her medical degree and her specialization in pathology.

People didn’t think she was crazy when she touched the dead.

She moved forward, inspecting the dead man and then touching his arm.

She waited, hoping for something. A sense that he was still there, and that she could communicate with the remnants of his life, spirit or soul.