Always Kiss the Corpse by Sandy Frances Duncan

prefer not to have to come back.”
    â€œNot supposed to get morgue entrance ’cept during the day.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œNobody official there.”
    â€œIsn’t the morgue part of your jurisdiction?”
    The sheriff considered this. “Probably. Just as soon get rid of this one.”
    Philip couldn’t help himself. “Why?”
    â€œBodies complicate things.”
    That they do, Philip thought; alive or dead. “Possible to speak with the coroner?”
    â€œTomorrow.”
    â€œMay I see the report?”
    The sheriff searched through a precarious pile of papers on the table behind him. He handed Philip a thin file.
    Labeled Vasiliadis, Alessandro. Little information. Description of the body, but Philip would do his own exam. Cause of death, respiratory arrest. Puncture marks in left arm, noted as intravenous administration of heroin. Overdose? Found in the blockhouse at the cemetery. Sloppy report. And an embalmed body can’t tell much of a story. He handed the file back to the sheriff.
    Philip followed the sheriff’s truck up two streets to the hospital. The sheriff parked and told the dogs to be good guys.
    The hospital was a neat one-floor facility; sixty-eight beds, in double and single rooms, the sheriff told Philip, and two operating theaters. In the basement, storage. And the morgue, with an attendant, reading a small-format Archie and Veronica comic book, seated near the door. “Billy, you want to show the doctor here the corpse? I got to get back to the office.”
    Philip said, “Only one corpse?”
    â€œCoupeville’s a quiet town.”
    The sheriff left. Billy wheeled a gurney to the far end of the room. Philip followed. Billy opened a small door, slid a slab holding a sheet-covered mass onto the flat bed, unveiled the face.
    Drained, the face suggested what Sandro might have looked like without a beard: narrow cheeks, small chin, full lips. The rest of the face showed some likeness to the Sandro whom Philip had seen over the years at Vasiliadis parties—brow, cheekbones, eye-hollows, nose, ears. “I’m going to examine the body, Billy.”
    Billy shrugged. “Sure.” He returned to his chair and comic book.
    This was Philip’s least favorite medical role. Here was a major cause for his interest in preventive medicine. He should have brought Herb Feverel along. Not only was Herb a fine endocrinologist, it’d be good to react out loud right now. Herb did owe him a couple of favors. Gloved, gowned, and masked, Philip found his mind returning to medical school days when they’d each had their own cadaver. Okay, here goes.
    Face, devoid of facial hair. Dark hair on top of the head, looking black but technically a dark brown, before always short, now long and arranged along the brow, behind the cheeks, along the sides of the neck; Claude Martin’s doing, Philip assumed. He didn’t recognize the chin line, and couldn’t say for certain if the lips were fuller, as a mustache had always drooped there. He reached over and with some difficulty raised one of the eyelids; the pupil was clouded, but dilated. He drew the sheet further down and was struck by the heavy breast tissue. Not huge, a fat man’s breasts. But the corpse was slender. Nipples normal size. A bluish tinge to the skin. No chest hair. He’d never seen Sandro in a bathing suit so had no image to compare. He examined the arms. Again, almost no hair. On the inside of the left upper arm, nine puncture marks, small red spots irregularly placed, tissues surrounding injection sites variously bruised. Had Sandro sold his blood to buy dope? Wrong place. What kind of needle marks? Best guess was heroin tracks, don’t try to force conclusions. He pulled the sheet down to show Sandro’s genitals. Penis normal. Testes enormous, size of a couple of small grapefruit. Strange. Who was Sandro’s physician? Legs normal. Again, very