The cameraman shrugged and hefted his minicam onto his shoulder while Tammy chewed her red lower lip and said, "It's too much of a coincidence."
"What is?"
"That the hit man would be wearing a Hornets cap on the same site where bees were swarming."
"We don't know those bees were here yesterday."
"We don't know they weren't. And there's nobody here to say different."
The film shot, Tammy rushed the cameraman back into the van. She got her news director on the cell phone.
"Nice linking," Clyde said.
"Is it a story?" asked Tammy.
"Check out the medical examiner."
"Does this mean face time?"
"Get a shot of the eyeless dead guy, and I guarantee it," Tammy was promised.
As the van lumbered through crosstown traffic, Tammy was musing, "Do bees eat things?"
"Everything eats things."
"No, I mean like meat."
"Depends on the meat if they do."
"I wonder if bees could eat a man's eyes out."
"That kind of meat I don't think so. And weren't you raised on a farm?"
"I didn't pay too much attention to farm stuff. I was too busy trying to get out of the flatlands."
"I've heard of dragonflies sewing people's mouths shut, but not bees who eat eyes."
"Who cares about bugs anyway?"
"I don't know. Sounds like a Fox story to me-killer bees eat man's eyeballs."
Tammy snapped her fingers. "Killer bees. Wasn't that a big story about ten years ago?"
"Sure."
"Killer bees. They were down in Texas or something. Whatever happened to them?"
The cameraman made a nonchalant face. "Search me. I guess they died out."
"Well, they're back and if my theory is on the money, they're going to be the story of the century."
"What theory?"
"Mind your driving. I'm still working on it."
Chapter 7
"Tamara Terrill. Fox News. I'm here to see the medical examiner."
"He's conducting an important autopsy right now," the desk guard said, looking up at the electric sight of the blond newswoman towering over him, her chest puffed out to its greatest expanse. It was a noteworthy chest.
"Great. Stiffs make wonderful TV. C'mon, Fred."
"It's 'Bob,'" the cameraman said.
"Hey, you can't-"
"Shoot us, and we'll shoot back," the cameraman said, turning the harsh glare of his minicam light on the guard.
That was enough to get them into the building.
It was a maze of bone-colored brick, with toe-tagged bodies on rolling carts and formaldehyde aroma. The cameraman happily shot every hanging ice-cold hand and blue tagged-toe he could.
"We don't need that stuff," Tammy snapped.
"If we don't, I can sell it as stock footage to the 'X-Files' people."
The M.E. was bent over a dead man lying inert on a white porcelain autopsy table. It looked as if it had been hosting corpses since before the days of Prohibition. The M.E. didn't look up.
"I am busy here."
"You the medical examiner?" Tammy asked.
"Please douse that light."
Tammy snapped her fingers. The light went off.
"Tamara Terrill. Fox News. I'd like to talk to you about the dead man you autopsied yesterday."
"I autopsied many dead men yesterday. This is New York, after all."
"This dead man had his eyes eaten out of his sockets," Tammy explained.
"Yes, I am familiar with that case."
"In your expert medical opinion, could killer bees have done that?"