Excerpt
March 31, 2011
InI took the exit, then turned left on passing brick churches, used-car lots and mobile homes. Beyond the city jail and police headquarters, naval barracks dissolved into the expansive, depressing landscape of a salvage yard surrounded by a rusty fence topped with barbed wire. In the midst of acres littered with metal and overrun by weeds was a power plant that appeared to burn trash and coal to supply the shipyard with energy to run its dismal, inert business. Smoke-stacks and train tracks were quiet today, all dry-dock cranes out of work. It was, after all, New Year's Eve. I drove on toward a headquarters built of boring tan cinder-block, beyond which were long paved piers. At the guard gate, a young man in civilian clothes and hard hat stepped out of his booth. I rolled my window down as clouds churned in the wind-swept sky. ``This is a restricted area.'' His face was completely devoid of expression. ``I'm Dr. Kaycee Maier, the chief medical examiner,'' I said as I displayed the brass shield that symbolized my jurisdiction over every sudden, unattended, unexplained or violent death in the . Leaning closer, he studied my credentials. Several times he glanced up at my face and stared at my car. ``You're the chief medical examiner?'' he asked. ``So how come you're not driving a hearse?''
