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“Is that your happy place?” Ruth called after him, but he was already through the door, showing his ID to the orderly who’d stepped forward to stop him.
The coroner looked up. “You didn’t have to come here, Armand. I could’ve called you. But no results yet.” Sharon Harris looked at him more closely. “Are you okay?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You have blood on you.”
He looked down and realized his shirt and slacks were stained from when he’d carried Mongeau to the car.
“Someone else’s. I brought a friend to Emergency.”
“Jesus, looks bad. Hope he’s okay.”
“Head wound. They bleed.”
Dr. Harris glanced at the deep scar by the Chief Inspector’s temple and imagined the blood from that.
“Can you tell me anything at all about Sylvie Mongeau?” Gamache stepped to the other side of the autopsy table where the woman’s body lay.
“Well”—Dr. Harris glanced down—“given the mottling and the dilation in her eyes, I’d say it looks suspicious, but we need to wait for the blood and tissue tests. After that, I would have to do a full autopsy.”
“If I got you DNA samples, can you compare them?”
“Yes, of course. It won’t be official, you’ll need forensics for that, but it will be accurate. For this woman?”
“No. One’s for a Fiona Arsenault. I’ll have those sent over from her files. Another is also on file now. A man named Godin. I’ll have that sent to you too. The other one is here.”
He brought the scraper out of his pocket.
She put on gloves and took the scraper over to her workbench. “You think they might be related, or the same person?”
“Definitely different people, but yes, they might be related.”
“This’s to do with this woman’s death?”
“I think so.” He paused, but the clock was ticking and now was not the time for discretion. Besides, he’d need the coroner’s help. “I’m looking for John Fleming.”
Dr. Harris turned to look at him. “Fleming? The serial killer?”
“Oui.”
“You do know he’s in the SHU, right?” When the Chief Inspector didn’t answer she repeated, her voice strained, “Right?”
“He’s out.”
“Out? Out? Someone let him out? Out?” Her mind was snagged on that word.
“Sharon, were you involved in the case?”
“He’s out?” Her voice was now barely making it through her constricted throat. “How the hell could that happen?”
“Were you on the case?” he repeated.
She took a couple of breaths. “I was in training, so I wasn’t the lead coroner. Never testified. But I saw…”
“Yes.”
“… what…”
