Being a man of science, he could hardly argue with my logic. But he was pouting as he led me back into the big reception area and through the noisy, pushing-and-shoving crowd, where at his nod the cop let us down the steps into the basement. We moved past and cut through a single line of curiosity seekers that extended down the corridor. Culhane led me through a door into a larger room, where the smell of formaldehyde sliced through the air and made me nostalgic for the body odor upstairs. The smell was so overpowering you didn’t notice at first that the room was refrigerated. Or that along the walls were rows of corpses, in open vaults, one atop the other. Most of the tenants—running to old folks and down-and-outers—had died of the heat; hell of a way to get into an air-conditioned room.
Culhane led me into a small adjacent chamber off the main room and there, with four men and a woman crowded around him, was the dead man, propped up at a forty-five-degree angle on the slab, his body partially covered with a sheet, his face completely covered by a damp white mass. The man applying the damp white mass, a heavyset brown-haired man about forty, wearing a towel like a bib, looked up nervously and said, “We’re from Northwestern University, officer. We got permission to do this.”
The other four, including the rather pretty girl, who had a cute brunette bob, were young, in their early twenties; they looked at me apprehensively.
“I’m not a cop,” I said, and Culhane whispered to me, “They’re making a death mask for the Northwestern Museum of Crime.”
I’d never heard of any such museum, but couldn’t have cared less.
“I need a look at him,” I said to the heavyset man, presumably the professor to these apparent students.
“Oh, but we can’t remove the moulage yet,” he said, still nervous.
“I don’t need to see his face,” I said. “I’ve seen his face.”
I lifted the sheet back. Glanced at the body; noted various scars. I had company: through a glass panel just a few feet away from me, the openmouthed spectators were slowly filing by, pointing fingers, taking pictures. Their jabbering was faintly audible through the heavy plate glass; it sounded like swarming insects.
Before I left, I looked at the heavyset man and said, “If you’re from Northwestern, why does your towel say Worsham College on it?”
He glanced down at the bib and swallowed. “We—we, uh, frequently exchange ideas with the Worsham faculty.”
“And towels?”
He swallowed again, and I pulled a confused-looking Culhane by the arm out into the larger room, where stacked stiffs seemed to eavesdrop as I said, “Worsham’s a trade school for morticians. Those people in there are having a little practice session at your expense.”
“Oh my…”
“Better clear ’em out. Letting somebody from Northwestern play footsie with your prize corpse isn’t going to get you in trouble; but some yo-yos from an embalming society using him to make practice death masks, that could lose you your job.”
He nodded gravely, and I followed him out into the hall, away from the formaldehyde smell and the cool air, and up the stairs into body-odor heaven. He found a spare cop, told him to evict the embalming students and their prof, and the cop went off to do so. Then Culhane turned and looked at me, with some irritation, his little mustache twitching over a puckered mouth.
“Are you still here?” he said. It wasn’t a question that wanted an answer.
“Least you could do is say thanks.”
“Thank you. You’ve had your ten dollars’ worth. Now go away. Shoo.”
I put my arm around his shoulder and walked him toward that private corridor; he pouted, but seemed to like it.
“Mr. Culhane,” I said, “I have another request. I also have another ten dollars. As a matter of fact, I have twenty dollars.”
He began nodding. His puckered lips smiled.
I removed my arm from around his shoulder; enough’s enough. I said, “I’d like a look at the autopsy report.”
He thought that over. Then he said, “Why?”
“Why not?”
He thought some more. “Who are you? A reporter?”
“I’m a guy with twenty dollars.”
He held out an open palm. “If you want it, it’ll cost a lot more. There’s only two carbons, you know.”
I put a sawbuck in the open palm. “I don’t want a copy. I won’t even make notes. I just want to look at it, for a couple minutes.”
He thought again, but not for long; closed his hand tight over the sawbuck, touched my sleeve with his free hand and said, “Don’t move from this spot.”
I didn’t, and soon he was back with three sheets of paper. Handed them to me.
It was a carbon copy of the coroner’s protocol, two pages of which were a form, the final page of which was a separate typed sheet, elaborating on the wounds and condition of the dead man’s organs. Fairly detailed, it took me five minutes to read and absorb, while Culhane stood there like a skinny stone. Then I handed it back to him, gave him the other sawbuck and walked ahead of him out into the reception area, pushing through the noisy, smelly crowd.
