Although he was dead, he appeared quite comfortable sitting on the floor of the deep freeze room. His knees were flexed and he rested against the metal casing of the refrigerator motor on the back wall glaring angrily at the dim bulkhead lamp. The deep gash in his throat echoed the rictus grin of his mouth, caused partly by rigor and partly by the contraction of muscles as his freezing corpse solidified.

One of his hands was at his side holding a heavy bladed knife with a patterned black plastic handle.

The moisture in the tissues was forming long needle-like ice crystals penetrating the muscles and viscera so that defrosting would make his corpse pulpy and unnaturally soft. At present, it had a rocky solidity and would remain so until someone found it necessary to go into the deep freeze room. The muscles had frozen and the joints had locked solid. The room was silent, protected by heavy insulation from any noise from outside, but when the refrigerator motor cut in, the corpse vibrated with it.

~ 2003 EPPIE NOMINEE ~
for Best Mystery Novel

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