"Uh-uhn," she said to me as she approached. Her voice is higher than one would imagine for a woman her size, and it has a nasal cast to it, with just the faintest suggestion of a lisp. "What do you want? I'm almost afraid to ask."
She was wearing a regulation uniform, a navy-blue skirt and a white short-sleeved blouse that looked very stark and clean against the tobacco brown of her arms. The patch on her sleeve said Santa Teresa Police Department, but she's actually a civilian clerk.
"Hello, Emerald. How are you?"
"Busy. You better cut right down to what you want," she said.
"I need you to look something up for me."
"Again? I'm gonna get myself fired one of these days because of you. What is it?" Her tone was offset by a sly smile that touched off dimples in her cheeks.
"A suicide, two years back," I said. "The guy's name was Hugh Case."
She stared at me.
Uh-oh, I thought. "You know who I'm talking about?"
"Sure, I know. I'm surprised you don't."
"What's the deal? I assume it wasn't routine."
She laughed at that. "Oh, honey, no way. No way. Uh-un. Lieutenant Dolan still gets mad when he hears the name."
"How come?"
"How come? Because the evidence disappeared, that's how come. I know two people at St. Terry's got fired over that."
Santa Teresa Hospital, St. Terry's, is where the hospi-tal morgue is located.
"What evidence came up missing?" I asked.
"Blood, urine, tissue samples, the works. His weren't the only specimens disappeared. The courier picked 'em up that day and took 'em out to County and that's the last anybody ever saw of the whole business."
"Jesus. What about the body? Why couldn't they just redo the work?"
Emerald shook her head. "Mr. Case'd been cremated by the time they found out the specimens were missing. Mrs. Case had the ashes what-do-you-call-'em… scat-tered at sea."
"Oh, shit, you're kidding."
"No ma'am. Autopsy'd been done and Dr. Yee already released the body to the mortuary. Mrs. Case didn't want any kind of funeral, so she gave the order to have him cremated. He was gone. People had a fit. Dr. Yee turned St. Terry's upside down. Nothing ever did show. Lieutenant Dolan was beside himself. Now I hear they got this whole new policy. Security's real tight."
"But what was the assumption? Was it an actual theft?"
"Don't ask me. Like I said, lot of other stuff disap-peared at the same time so the hospital couldn't say what went on. It could have been a mistake. Somebody might have thrown all that stuff out by accident and then didn't want to admit it."
"Why was Dolan involved? I thought it was a suicide."
"You know nobody will make a determination on the manner and cause of death until the reports come back."
"Well, yeah," I said. "I just wondered if the lieutenant had any initial doubts."
"Lieutenant always has doubts. He'll have some more he catches you sniffin' around. Now I got work to do. And don't you tell nobody I told you this stuff."
I drove over to the Pathology Department at St. Terry's, where I had a quick chat with one of the lab techs I'd dealt with before. She confirmed what Emerald had told me, adding a few details about the mechanics of the epi-sode. From what she said, a courier from the coroner's office did a daily run in a blood-transport vehicle, making a sweep of labs and law-enforcement agencies. Specimens to be picked up were sealed, labeled and placed in insulated cold packs, like picnic supplies. The "hamper" itself was stored in the lab refrigerator until the driver showed up. The lab tech would fetch the hamper. The courier would sign for the evidence and away he'd go. The Hugh Case "material," as she so fastidiously referred to it, was never seen again once it left the hospital lab. Whether it disap-peared en route or after it was delivered to the coroner's lab, no one ever knew. The clerk at St. Terry's swore she gave it to the driver and she had a signed receipt to show for it. She assumed the hamper reached its destination as it had every day for years. The courier remembered putting it in the vehicle and assumed it was among the items deliv-ered at the end of his run. It was only after some days had passed and Dr. Yee began to press for lab results on the toxicological tests that the disappearance came to light. By then, of course, as Emerald had indicated, Hugh Case's remains had been reduced to ashes and flung to the far winds.