Harm's Way by Stephen White

Author:Stephen White [White, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Viking, c1996.
Published: 2011-08-30T18:39:46+00:00

28

THE ATMOSPHERE IN THE OPERA HOUSE WAS BOTH charged and oddly serene.

The crime-scene investigators seemed to pop out of the otherwise slow-motion crowd because they were busy, occupied with the impersonal details of the crime, its victim, and its perpetrator. Investigators from Gilpin County and Central City were busy, too, interviewing people and taking notes. But almost everyone else milled about the large room listlessly, speaking quietly in pairs or gathering in small groups, their roles in this tragedy in temporary abeyance as they awaited their turns inside the perimeter marked off at the proscenium.

When a tall, thin women entered from the wing, stage left, wearing cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a heavy Swarthmore sweatshirt, the people milling around stopped what they were doing and attended to the developments on the stage as though Beverly Sills had just returned to Central City for a long-anticipated encore.

The woman paced across the stage with confident strides and snapped open a yellow canvas bag with CORONER stenciled on it in black letters. She unfolded a disposable jumpsuit and stepped into it as gracefully as a model dressing in an evening gown. She stretched paper booties over her cowboy boots and latex examination gloves over her hands. A few seconds passed while she stared at the corpse; then she screened her face with a pale-blue mask, tying it above the knot of a dark bun at the back of her head.

“That’s Carmen Roja,” Lauren said. “She’s from DG.”

I looked from Lauren to Sam. His face was adorned with a wry smile. He liked theatre. This was good theatre.

Dr. Roja, from Denver’s coroner’s office, was present, I assumed, because she was a forensic pathologist and the elected Gilpin County coroner was not. The Gilpin coroner—who I later learned was actually a slot-machine mechanic for one of the Central City casinos—had probably shown up on the scene, taken one look at this brutalized murder victim, and immediately called for backup from the closest forensic specialist he could find.

Dr. Roja went to work with a camera, and I decided not to watch.

“Let’s move closer,” Sam suggested, already in motion. Lauren stayed with him, step for step.

I edged back instead, and sat softly on a hickory chair outside the tape perimeter. “I think I’ll stay here,” I said. Sitting was a tremendous relief.

Sam stopped and turned. “You okay?”

“What do you think? I’m fine. You two go ahead. I need to get a feel for all what’s happening; I’m not as used to all this as the two of you. I’ll get the details later.” I gestured at the victim.

Those details.

Concerned, Sam and Lauren eyed me for a few seconds, then proceeded down the incline toward the stage.

I called out, “Wait. Sam?”

He turned. “What?”

“The victim? Is it a man or a woman?”

“It’s a guy,” he said after a brief pause. “A page, an usher. He was part of the company. He just graduated from a little college in Missouri, came here for the summer, like an intern. Everybody in the company liked him.

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