Grave Doubts by John Moss Page B

her posture stiffened and, avoiding Morgan’s gaze, she too looked out the windows into the middle distance, perhaps observing the lost possibilities of a research grant and easy tenure.
    Morgan felt strangely elated, vindicated somehow, although he had been as beguiled by the simulations of antiquity as the experts. The case was now under his jurisdiction; a case and not just a case study. But he also felt oppressed: what had appeared to be a quirky historical windfall was now a genuine tragedy. This was no longer about death — it was about dying.
    “Oh, my God,” said Joleen Chau, standing between the cadavers, “I’ve never seen a real dead person before!”

chapter four
Isabelle Street
    Miranda was luxuriating in the warmth of her overheated apartment, lying in on a leisurely Saturday off work. She rolled over languidly, shifting the flannel sheet off and away, and stretched until her muscles tingled through every part of her body. She arched against the bed, feeling wonderfully lithe and sexual, emotionally vague, intellectually drifting, like she had been making love for hours.
    Damn it, she thought. I wish I could remember my dreams.
    Suddenly, a loud thumping on the door wrenched her out of her reverie. My God, she thought. What’s Morgan doing here at a time like this?
    It had to be him. The building superintendent would have knocked deferentially, and the few people she knew in neighbouring apartments would telephone first. He must have slipped past the security door. She looked around for a robe. In movies there is always a dressing gown within hand’s reach of the bed.
    The hell with it, she mumbled to herself. I pay the heating bills, I’ll wear what I want. By the time she got to the door, she was having second thoughts. What if it’s Girl Guides selling cookies, or Jehovah’s Witnesses? She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and nothing else. She looked good. If it’s a couple of fresh-faced Mormons, I might let them in.
    It was Morgan.
    Through the peephole he looked grotesquely distorted. He was leaning so close, all she could see was the smile. His version of the Cheshire Cat; he had done it before, with full explanation. She opened the door. His face become solemn, then shy.
    “I love your outfit,” he said.
    “Come in, Morgan.”
    She turned and walked barefoot into the living room as if she were wearing heels.
    “What on earth are you doing here,” she asked. “It’s the middle of the night, my time, and I was having lovely dreams.”
    He plunked himself down on the sofa, admiring the full length of her legs before her lower half disappeared behind the kitchen counter. He had kicked off his snow-drenched shoes in the hall but he was still wearing his sheepskin coat.
    “It’s two in the afternoon,” he announced.
    “It’s not.”
    She put on the coffee and came back around the counter, still feeling a little flirtatious, even though it was only Morgan. She walked across to her bedroom door, swaying her hips just enough to set the lower edge of her T-shirt astir. He peered into the fluttering shadows and immediately glanced away.
    “Why don’t you take your coat off and get comfortable,” she murmured in a sultry voice as she turned to face him.
    “No hurry.” He seemed to be searching for something to say. “I was with you when you bought that T-shirt.”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “Yeah,” he said, giving her his most inscrutable smile. Not out of Alice in Wonderland , she thought. It’s his Buddha smile. No, his post-coital Mona Lisa smile. No, his Jesus smile — endearing and infinitely dangerous.
    He smiled so seldom, but when he did he had a range she found thrilling.
    Still in the doorway, standing in opaque silhouette with the daylight from the bedroom behind her, she asked, “What are you doing here, anyway? It’s too early for a gentleman caller — or too late.”
    They both smiled.
    “It must be business, except you