Noah bent near the trunk and sniffed. He tapped the metal hood, listening to the hollow sound it made.
"No dead body," he said. "It passed the rap an' whiff."
The older man studied Noah quizzically, then gave up, returning his attention to the laborious process of getting into his gloves. Noah grinned at Frank, delighted with himself. Frank shook her head and watched Grummond load cartridges into his Super Glue gun. When he was finished he walked all around the car, completing his circuit near the right rear bumper. Aiming his wand like a magician he released a mist of fumes and dye over the trunk's surface area. Prints popped up like acne on a teenager.
While the tech held the light, Grummond started shooting them with his 1-to-l, methodically setting up each photograph.
"Jesus Christ," Noah griped in Frank's ear. "This isn't Yosemite and he isn't Ansel fucking Adams."
Frank lifted her shoulders but made no move to rush the tech. Noah sighed and went back to toeing the leaves around the car. His impatience amused Frank. They'd always been a good team. Still were. Frank's conservatism tempered Noah's enthusiastic tendency to trample details while he rushed headlong into a case. In turn, Noah gave Frank the push she needed when she mired in too much caution and deliberation. The traits they carried into their professional roles applied to the personal as well. Noah was a good mirror for Frank. Because he had earned her elusive and implicit trust, he was able to tell her things that would have landed anyone else flat on their ass.
Frank rolled up her sleeves, enjoying the dry heat. The sun on her skin brought an unbidden image of Kennedy and the sensation of their bodies touching. Frank blinked the memory back to its hiding place, glad for the distraction of her pager. Glancing at the number, she returned the call in the privacy of the unmarked. A secretary put her on hold, then Frank said, "Hey. What's up, doc?"
She winced, realizing she sounded like a cartoon character. Either Gail was used to it or didn't notice, because she answered matter-of-factly, "I think I've got someone here you might be interested in."
While searching for the mountain lion that had mauled the young girl in Topanga, a park ranger had literally stumbled over a body about a quarter mile from where Luis Estrella's car had been found. The Sheriffs office was called and after the coroner investigated, the decomposing body was hauled out of the canyon amid curses and insults to the dead man's mother. Gail had been checking the daily roster when the stinker had been brought in, and she thought Frank might want to check out his tattoos.
After Grummond popped the trunk, confirming there wasn't a body inside, Frank had the Bonneville towed to the print shed, then she and Noah fought through traffic to the USC medical complex. After badging their way into the coroner's office, they were met by Homicide Deputies from the Sheriffs office. They had jurisdiction over the body and Frank recognized them with dismay. They were old-school deputies, with fully evolved contempt for women, non-Anglos, the LAPD, and all outside investigative authorities — not necessarily in that order. Cooperation was going to be a bitch.
Frank patiently explained the LAPD's involvement. One of the LASD dicks told her to cry him a river. The upshot was she'd have to subpoena the case file from them. Frank hadn't expected any less. She and Noah stood apart from the deputies as they waited for Gail. She'd been paged, but it was another twenty minutes before she arrived, flushed and breathless. A handful of pathology students trailed behind her like ducklings.
"Sorry," she gasped, "I'm going to get into some scrubs and be right back."
Frank followed, speaking to her for a short minute. When she rejoined Noah, he breathed, "Ahhhh," as he watched the docs skirted legs disappear.
"Did you ask her for a date?"
"Don't start," Frank warned, gowning up.
When Gail returned she ushered everyone into Room C, the small, air-tight room within the main autopsy suite. Frank hated C autopsies because it meant the corpse either carried an infectious diseases or, more frequently, was decomposing nastily. This time it was the latter, and as Frank filed in she clenched her teeth against the stench. The men bitched and swore, and the students struggled vainly for nonchalance.
"We already x-rayed his teeth so maybe we can get a dental ID, but these should do for now, " Gail said, referring to a number of tattoos on the deceased. They squeezed against each other in the fetid room and as the deputies feigned disinterest, Noah produced a color copy of a photograph. The picture tattoos corresponded perfectly to the tats on the body. It looked like they'd found Luis Estrella.
The eye sockets were vacant, and jays and small mammals had stripped much of the facial tissue down to the bone. A print ID was impossible because they'd also gnawed away at his fingers. Estrella was as fat and swollen as a steamed bratwurst. The bacteria digesting him from the inside out gave off the malodorous gasses that caused his limbs and abdomen to swell. The swelling, plus a green discoloration spreading from his belly around a network of darkly rotting veins suggested he'd been dead at least a couple of days. That and the occasional maggot that continued to fall out of his head onto the steel table.
Gail innocently asked the deputies if they had the case file with them and they grudgingly handed it over. Noah tried to look over her shoulder but Frank gave him a quick, surreptitious shake of her head. He looked puzzled until Gail asked, "Mind if I make a copy?"
She passed the folder to her tech and the smaller of the two men protested, "What for?"
"New protocol," she sighed. "You should've gotten the memo already. Admin wants us to have copies of the initial investigation in all questionable deaths, in case the techs have missed something."
"Shit," the other dick breathed. "I'm already buried in fucking paperwork and they keep piling more on."
"Tell me about it," Gail commiserated. She and a new tech cataloged Estrella's bloody shoes, sweatshirt, and the rest of his personal effects, including three baggies of heroin. After weighing and measuring the body, Gail started the exterior exam.
"Autolysis is well advanced," Gail noted into her microphone. "What would you say the average daytime high's been the last few days?"
"Hot," one of the deputies offered uselessly, but a student said, "It was 88 yesterday and its felt like that most of the week."
Gail nodded, "And it looked like he was found in a pretty sunny area, so I'm guessing he probably hasn't been dead more than three or four days."
Frank quickly counted backward. That would have put his time of death at Monday or Tuesday. Plenty of time to ace his family, score some dope, wander up to Malibu and fix on a remote turnout. . . then what? Get out of his car to take a leak and fall down the hillside?
Gail was studying various lacerations, scabs and contusions, and as if reading Frank's mind, Noah asked, "Any of those consistent with a tumble down a canyon?"
"Not really," Gail said, pointing. "The coloring on these bruises indicates he probably incurred them before death. The lacerations are scabbed, except for this one." She indicated a fresh two-inch tear on his upper forearm that corresponded to a tear in his sweatshirt.
"That doesn't look like it bled much," one of the deputies said.
"So he was dead when he was cut?" Noah added.
"Possible," Gail murmured, "but given where he was found there could be any number of postmortem explanations."
Continuing into the mike, she spoke about bilateral needle marks on the arms and a fresh hemorrhage in the ante-cubital fossa of the left arm. She catalogued old scars and tattoos, noting lividity and lack of rigor. He'd already gone in and out of the latter and the former was consistent with the position his body was found in.
Having finished the external portion, Gail sharpened a knife and gave her students time to ask questions and form opinions. As she made the "Y' cut she apologized for not having any half-face masks available, and Frank breathed through her mouth. One of the students fled the room, followed by a second. The men swore some more, as if that would help lessen the smell issuing from Estrella's rotting body, but the fact was they'd all carry the thick, gagging smell with them for the rest of the day.