The Devil on Chardonnay by Ed Baldwin Read Free Book Online Page A

more clues.
    Savoring the sheer misery of living with vomit inside his helmet, Boyd coughed and spit to try to clear the air passage and get his lunch to drop down inside the suit itself.  He walked around aimlessly, unable to concentrate, until finally it dried and he could breathe again.  While wandering around, Boyd encountered a marshy area where water had accumulated in a depression in the lava.  It was only a few inches deep and was mostly filled with green slime and a few scraggly cattails clinging to life at the edges.  He took a picture.
    Boyd returned to the monkey house to find Joe tidying up.  He packed the seven specimen jars and the vials of blood into a box and closed the lid, securing it with a seal.  He produced a gallon of diesel fuel from his equipment box and dowsed the dissected remains, now piled unceremoniously in a heap.  The flames shot 10 feet into the air, and black smoke billowed. 
    “Now for our fellow scientists,” Joe said, dragging his equipment back toward the main house.  Boyd rushed over to help.  Soon the labeled jars were at the head of each man and the recorder was turned on.  Blood was drawn in the same fashion as with the monkeys, and Boyd was astonished to see fresh appearing liquid blood flow into the syringe from the charred corpse.
    “The first human is thoroughly charred, the skull is separated from the spine and the extremities are mere stubs …”  Boyd circled the autopsy site, eyes on the Albatross, bobbing in the waves, wishing he were there. 
    “Need you to take some pictures here,” Joe said.  “I’ve got stuff all over my hands.  Get the back of this guy’s head.”  With that, Joe picked up the skull that had separated from the charred body.  The back of the skull was open and the inside was empty.  Joe held it with one hand and pointed with the other.  Retching quietly, Boyd took the pictures, and then walked away, hoping for some fresh air.
    When Boyd heard the electric saw start up again he retreated to the ocean and the rocky outcropping where the first man had communed with the gulls for a week before they’d found him.
    Sitting on the rock, looking out over the Indian Ocean, Boyd thought about the blond man.  When he came here to sit, he must have known he was dying.  The buildings were probably burning, meaning his partner, companion, co-worker, friend, whoever, was already dead.  He may have been angry that their mission, whatever it was, had turned out so badly.  Did they fail?  Had there been someone else here?
    “Nobody would die that way,” Boyd said, standing, looking around his feet at the rocks.  No rational man would just sit there and look out at the sea and die.  He’d have something to say to someone.  He’d write a letter or note.
    “Hey, Boyd!”
    Boyd stood and looked up to see Joe waving.
    “Got something here.  Need you to have a look.”  Joe was pointing down at the bodies. 
    Reluctantly, Boyd returned.  The charred body’s chest had been opened with the saw and the heart and lungs were remarkably fresh appearing.
    “Get the camera.  This guy’s been shot,” Joe said, pointing to the heart, which had a small hole in one side.  “I think the bullet is still in there.”  He knelt back down and was kneading the heart with both hands.  “Can’t feel well enough with these damn gloves.  Need a picture of the hole there, and there’s another one in the spine.”
    Busy with the camera, Boyd’s nausea passed.  He didn’t even mind when Joe cut the lungs from the trachea and lifted them out.  He took additional photos with Joe passing a metal probe through the hole in the heart back to the two holes in the back.
    “One gunshot enters the pleural cavity through the body of T-5, passes beneath the tracheal bifurcation and penetrates the descending aorta and the left ventricle.  The bullet is within the cavity of the ventricle.  The other entrance wound is through the sixth rib, 3 centimeters