"Who the fuck are you?" he asked, his eyes dilated.
"I'm your way out of this mess. We are-the sergeant and I. You want out of this, don't you, Lanny?"
LaMoia dragged his palms across his pants. The jangle was in the air like the smell before a thunderstorm.
She said, "I want you thinking about the lab tests. When that nasty bruising occurred. When she broke those bones-before or after she died. What? You didn't think we knew that yet? Seventeen broken bones, Lanny. What? You thought we'd think her hitting the water did that? And speaking of water, what about when the water went into her lungs? Before or after death? You've got to consider the jury and how this could turn out for you, because this meeting, right here, right now, this is a good chance for you to help yourself. We don't deal in stories. We process the facts and let them tell the story. And that's the story the jury believes. The one and only story. The more you bend it around, the worse your chances of cutting a deal with us."
Matthews stood up and made a point of smoothing the wrinkles in her shirt, as if she'd picked up some of his filth by sitting a little too closely. Lanny Neal remained fairly composed, maintaining an air of self-importance that he wore on his face along with the good looks he didn't deserve.
Interrogations were as much about timing as the questions asked. She and LaMoia exchanged looks and LaMoia cut Neal loose, asking that he "stay close to home." No travel outside the city without notifying the police.
"Impressive," LaMoia said after Neal was gone, "if a little unorthodox."
"What'd you think of him?" Matthews asked.
"Mixed review," LaMoia said.
She felt disappointment seep through her. She wanted so badly for this to be over, to wrap it up and put Mary-Ann Walker to rest. But her review was mixed as well-Neal seemed something of a contradiction. "We wait for the lab results. Both SID's and Dixon's. Maybe that'll clear it up for us."
Wishful thinking, and they both knew it.
A Drowning Is a Drowning, a Fall, a Fall
The signature combination of antibacterials and preservatives never failed to remind Boldt of death, images of bruised and bloated corpses indelibly stamped in his consciousness from the 134 autopsies he had attended. He never lost count.
This was a place where the soles of feet bore identification codes in black marker, where nakedness reigned and was never attractive. Floor-to-ceiling stainless-steel refrigerated drawers with sliding trays capable of supporting four hundred pounds and six-foot-two frames. He hoped beyond measure that it was a place Susan Hebringer would never visit. But he had his doubts.
Although state law required investigators to attend autopsies of any death of questionable or suspicious causes, it was not any such requirement that brought Boldt here. That requirement had already been fulfilled by Detective Chas Mimer. Instead, it was because it was here, at the ME's, that the dead whispered their last words through their translator, Doc Dixon. He of the large head, wide eyes, and soft smile.
Boldt said, "I hear things got a little western earlier." "We all handle grief differently. That kid is wound pretty tight."
"Daphne's not convinced she should have let him go." "She cooled him off. I think he'll be all right."
"It's the other guy I'm worried about," Boldt said, "this Langford Neal."
Dixon nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean."
None of this was Dixie's problem. Boldt and Dixon discussed a re-release of a Chet Baker compilation on CD, Boldt describing the man's singing voice as "cream and honey." Dixon leaned toward Baker's horn playing, being a trumpet fan himself.
"Since when are you into vocalists?" Dixon asked.
"Liz is trying to convert me to opera."
"Sounds like she's trying to cure your insomnia."
"Same thing."
The cadaver in question was that of Mama Lu's "cousin," Billy Chen. Dixon double-checked the address, swung open the square stainless-steel refrigerator door, and slid out the tray containing
Chen on silent rollers.
"Let me ask you this," Dixon said. "Since when do you show interest in what went down in the books as an accidental drowning?"
"It's a favor to a friend."
Dixon answered by lowering his head and giving Boldt a look over the top of his reading glasses.
Boldt explained, hoping Dixon would see the connection. "This guy was found within a block of where Hebringer was last seen."
"There was a water main break."
"Caused by what?" Boldt asked.
"In other words, you're letting Hebringer get to you."
"Is that from Liz or Matthews?"
"I can understand how a disappearance is harder than a homicide.
The lack of closure."
"Two disappearances."
"Even harder."
"Susan Hebringer's husband calls Liz about every other day. She's stopped telling me about it, but I know it's continuing. Their daughter and Sarah are in the same ballet class."
"You're a lieutenant. What the hell are you doing in the field?"
Boldt answered, "The captain cut me some slack. She smelled a task force coming and wanted to avoid that. She untied my leash on this one. So what?"
"It should be your sergeant's case, not yours."
"You've never taken an autopsy away from one of your assistants?"
Boldt asked. That seemed to sting Dixon, but Boldt wasn't sorry. He enjoyed the freedom of the past weeks and didn't want it ending just yet. An exception had been made for him and he wasn't about to challenge it.
" "You lose perspective, you lose focus." Isn't that a Boldtism?"
"There are no Boldtisms," Boldt said. "There are two missing women and an experienced street worker who drowned in a couple feet of water. Add to that an area of unexplored Underground."
"That part of town?"
"That's what I'm told."
"So that makes things more interesting."
"Sure does. But tell me Chen was an accident, and I'm out of here."
"I wish I could." Dixon unzipped the body bag to the neck. Chen's face was the color of an athletic sock that gets washed with the wrong load of laundry, a faint purplish yellow. His lips were circled in a brown blue.
Boldt's chest tightened. Oddly, he needed complications, he needed unexplainables, he needed Billy Chen to point him somewhere. And yet he didn't want it. If Susan Hebringer walked into Sarah's ballet class tomorrow, Billy Chen went back into cold storage. Boldt was feeding off the dead, using Chen's death as a possible stepping-stone, and the thought of this repulsed him.
"His lips?"
"Believe me, I'd rather not admit this office made a mistake."
That word from Dixon's mouth electrified Boldt. "The source of this mistake?"
"My guess is that it resulted from this coming in as an accidental death. Head trauma. "Suffocation due to immersion of the nostrils and mouth in a liquid." There are no pathonomic findings for drowning. We put head trauma way up our list. Chen suffered head trauma, ergo, the drowning fit. We sometimes look for what we're told to see. It happens. Someone has a lunch date, he goes through the motions and lets his expectations determine his findings. We see a fine white froth or foam in the air passage, evidence of vomiting-a drowning is a drowning. A fall, a fall."