The Dirty South: A Thriller by John Connolly

Author:John Connolly [Connolly, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Published: 2020-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

3

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned…

—W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

CHAPTER LVI

The Arkansas State Medical Examiner’s Office employed a number of forensic pathologists to carry out autopsy work. Of these, the best by far was Dr. Ruth Temple, who was the only one of the state’s pathologists to be certified by the American Board of Pathology, the others having decided against taking the one-day exam. This was not to say that her colleagues were unqualified—board certification was not compulsory, and many senior practitioners in the field, including some with decades of experience, declined to bother with it—but Temple’s extra year of training gave her an edge. She could have made more money in another medical field, since forensic pathologists traditionally earned less than their medical peers, but she preferred working with the dead. They didn’t complain, didn’t sue, and occasionally one of them would present Temple with a mystery to which she was able to provide a solution.

Temple had risen early that morning to perform the autopsy on Donna Lee Kernigan. She had specifically requested that the task be assigned to her. Temple had been incensed by the rumors that had emerged from Burdon County following the death of Patricia Hartley, and the possibility that a young woman’s murder might have been covered up out of political and financial expediency. Temple knew all about Kovas Industries, and the lifeline the company potentially represented to a largely impoverished county in a state that regularly figured among the poorest in the Union. She regarded the Burdon County coroner as an imbecile, the sheriff as a political timeserver, and the chief investigator, Jurel Cade, as a dangerous throwback to a time when cynicism and brute force trumped any concepts of legality. But Patricia Hartley deserved better than to have her death consigned to the oubliette, and Temple was damned if Donna Lee Kernigan was going to suffer the same fate. This was a view shared by most of those in the ME’s office, who felt a duty to the dead that was as much moral as scientific and judicial, and regarded the handling of the Hartley case as an abrogation of all they held meaningful.

Temple’s conversations with Chief Evander Griffin of the Cargill Police Department—including two in the previous twenty-four hours, as well as two more confirmatory discussions with Tucker McKenzie, one official, one unofficial—had convinced her that Griffin felt the same way, and she had agreed, against established procedure, to provide him with a heads-up on the autopsy results before informing the county coroner or chief investigator. Griffin had also suggested to Temple that she might like to refer any additional inquiries from the county sheriff’s office about Donna Lee Kernigan directly to him, whereupon he would do his utmost to facilitate the provision of the relevant information. Temple had readily assented, even though it would sour the ME’s relations with Jurel Cade still further.

Temple’s preferred assistant, Lara Kiesel, was already waiting for her when she arrived to begin the examination.

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