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Chapter Four
Chicago has a bitchin&039; ue" anymore because it&039;s the Forensic Institute now It isn&039;t run by a "coroner" either, because now it&039;s a medical examiner It&039;s on West Harrison Street, which is located in a fairly swanky industrial park,in various biotech industries It&039;s pretty There are wide green lawns, carefully kept and trimmed, complete with sculpted trees and bushes, a fantastic view of the city&039;s skyline, and quick access to the freeway
It&039;s upscale, sure But it&039;s also very quiet Despite the gorgeous landscaping and athe dead to be poked and prodded
I parked the Blue Beetle in the visitor&039;s parking lot-of the coe security, and I didn&039;t want to advertise rabbed my bribe from the backseat and headed for the front door of the Office of the Medical Exaot from the police that makes me look like an official policelike person The door buzzed, and I went in, nodding to a coazine behind a nondescript desk to one side of the entry area
"Phil," I said
"Evening, Dresden," he said "Official?"
I held up the wooden box packed with McAnally&039;s microbrew "Unofficial"
"Hosannah," drawled Phil "I like unofficial better" He put his feet back up on the desk and opened up his ain I left the beer on the floor next to the desk, where it would be out of sight from the door "How come I never heard of this bar?"
"Just a little local tavern," I said I didn&039;t add, that caters to the supernatural community and doesn&039;t exactly try to attract the attention of locals
"I&039;ll have to get you to take me by sometime"
"Sure," I said "Is he here?"
"Back in the slabs," he said, reaching down for one of the ales Phil opened the lid with a thuain "Ahhhhh," he said, his tone philosophical "You know, if anyone had co before so"
"Gone," I said, and hurried back into the hallways behind the entry area
There were several slabs-I ue-that is, in the Forensic Institute But I knew that the guy I was looking for would be in the smallest, crummiest room, the one farthest away fro the extre born to parents with little to no ability to bestow a manly name upon their son, had also been cursed with a sense of honesty, a e to make him act on thes I&039;d burned mostly to briquettes, he&039;d pronounced them "humanlike, but definitely nonhuh description of the remains of a bunch of batlike Red Court vas as "humanlike nonhumans," and the remains were obviously human corpses that had been horribly twisted by intense heat, Butters wound up sitting in a psych ward for ninety days for observation After that, he had been forced to wage a legal battle just to keep his job His superiors didn&039;t want him around, and they handed him the worst parts of the job they could come up with, but Butters stuck it out He ht shift and weekends
It had the happy side effect of producing an ME who regarded the establishment with the saed in Which was damned handy when, for example, one needed a bullet re upon the law enforcement community&039;s busy schedule
The doctor was in I heard polka h the hall as I approached the room But the music was off, somehow Butters norotten used to hearing the elite perfor now sounded adetic, but lumpy and uneven There were odd jerks and breaks in theon the rhythle bass drum On the whole, it made the music happy, lively, and soarded the source of the Quasiuy,wet He was dressed in blue hospital scrubs and hiking boots He had a shock of wiry black hair that gave him a perpetual look of surprise that stopped just short of being a perpetual look of recent electrocution He earing Tolasses and had transformed himself into Polkastein
A bass drum was strapped to his back, and a couple of wires ran to his ankles from a pair of beaters mounted on the fraenuine tuba hung fros attached to his elbohich moved back and forth in time to "oom" and "pah" respectively He held an accordion in his hands, strapped to the harness on his chest A clarinet had been clamped to the accordion so that the end was near his mouth, and there was, I swear to God, a cymbal on a frame held to his head
Buttersas he thumped and oo, because while I have seen a lot of weird things, I hadn&039;t ever seen that Butters wrapped up the polka and energetically banged his head against the tuba, producing a deafening clash froht me into his peripheral vision and he jumped in surprise
The motion overbalanced him and he fell amidst a clatter of cymbal, a honk of tuba, a fitful stutter of drum, and then lay on the floor while his accordion wheezed out
"Butters," I said
"Harry," he panted from the pile of polka "Cool pants"
"I can see you&039;re busy"
He et set Oktoberfest Battle of the Bands to to enter after last year"
"Hah," Butters said, sneering defiantly "I&039;h at er How much polka can be in their souls?"
"I have no freaking clue," I answered truthfully
Butters flashed et them this year"
I couldn&039;t help it: I started s out of there?"
"Nah, I got it," he said brightly, and started unstrapping himself "Surprised to see you Your checkup isn&039;t until next week Hand bothering you?"
"Not really," I said "Wanted to talk to you about-"
"Oh!" he said He hopped up from the stuff and left it on the floor so that he could scaet started, I found so"
"Butters," I said, "I&039;d like to chat,hurry"
He paused, crestfallen "Really?"
"Yeah It&039;s a case, and I need to find out if you know anything that could help me"
"Oh," he said "Well, you have cases all the ti a lot of research since you started seeing me about your hand, and the conclusions I&039;ve been able to extrapolate froe hurry Five words or less, okay?"
He leaned his hands on his desk and regarded"I knoizards live forever" He paused for a thoughtful second and then said, "Wait, that&039;s six words Never mind, then What did you want to talk about?"
My lared at hirinned "I told you it was important"
"Wizards don&039;t live forever," I said "Just a really long ti out file folders He flicked on a backlight for reading X-ray fil theht "Hey, I&039;ic thing But from what you&039;ve told e human That&039;s closer to forever than anyone I know And what I&039;ve seento it Co at the X-rays "Hey Aren&039;t these mine?"
"Yep," Butters confirot about fifteen percent of them to come out," he said "And there are three or four froed to survive whatever it is about you that screws up X-rays"
"Ugh This is that gunshot wound I got in Michigan," I said, pointing at the first It showed a number of fracture lines in my hip bone, where a small-caliber bullet had hit me I had barely avoided a shattered pelvis and probable death "They got this one after they got the cast off"
"Right," Butters said "And here, this is one froo" He pointed at a second shot "See the fracture lines? They&039;re brighter, where the bone re-fused Leaves that signature"
"Right," I said "So?"
"So," Butters said "Look at this one" He flipped up a third X-ray It was ht or dark lines He flicked it with a finger and looked at me, eyes wide
"What?" I asked
He blinked, slowly Then he said, "Harry This is an X-ray I took two "
"So?" I asked "It healed, right?"
He made an exasperated sound "Harry, you are dense Bones don&039;t do that You carry marks where they re-fused for the rest of your life Or rather, I would You don&039;t"
I frowned "What&039;s that got to do izard life span?"
Butters waved his hand impatiently "Here, here are some more" He slapped up more X-rays "This is a partial stress fracture to the arot it in that fall frohts after we met," he said "It was just a crack You didn&039;t even know you had it, and it was h that it just needed a splint for a few days It was off before you were ambulatory"
"What&039;s so odd about that?"
"Nothing," Butters said "But look, here it is again There&039;s a fuse one Your arm is back to normal"
"Maybe I just drink too ," I said
Butters snorted "Harry, look You&039;re a tough guy You&039;ve been injured a lot" He pulled out runt of effort Granted, there are phone books s to bet you&039;ve had plenty of boo-boos you never saw a doctor about"
"Sure," I said
"You&039;re at least as battered as a professional athlete," Butters said "I mean, like a hockey player or football player Maybe as et battered?" I asked