"His lips," Boldt repeated, wanting Dixon to translate the purple bruise that surrounded Chen's mouth.
"Michael, one of my best assistants, overlooked two items. The lividity is inconsistent with the suspected cause of death." Dixon drew Boldt's attention to the clown's face of discoloration around the man's mouth. Then he unzipped the rest of the body bag, snapped on a pair of disposable gloves, and lifted the corpse at the waist. "Notice the buttocks?"
Boldt observed a purplish, orange-black doughnut of discoloration on the dead man's left buttock. "Lividity."
"Exactly."
"Buttocks and lips?" Boldt asked.
"That's the point. One is either sunny-side up or over easy when one dies. We can't be both. This lividity," he said, returning
Boldt's attention to the dead man's buttocks, "probably occurred while he lay waiting to be found. Not after he was bagged. Not while he awaited his turn on the slab. Long before all that."
Boldt remained confused, and said so.
Dixon explained, "A head trauma drowning means that Chen took a blunt object to the head-an I-beam, a slab of cement probably as a result of the huge volume of water down there. He's either dulled or unconscious. The lungs fill with water. He coughs and vomits. At this point he's unconscious for sure. The heart stops pumping, the blood settles to the lowest spots and coagulates. In this case, his heels and buttocks." He hoisted the cadaver's stiff left leg. The bottom of the man's heel showed a similar discolored circle.
Boldt prompted him, "Which brings us to the lips."
"The discoloring around the mouth is not lividity, but more likely a hematoma."
"Asphyxiated?"
"His lungs contained only a few cc's of water. Enough to kill him, to be sure, but not the lungfuls we'd associate with accidental drowning."
"Resuscitation?"
"The EMT report doesn't indicate resuscitation, no. Chen was flat-lined when they found him down that hole. No vital signs. They never got far enough along with him to attempt ventilation. The patient was unresponsive to their initial attempts at CPR."
"Maybe they left something out of the report," Boldt said.
"Any of the various procedures would have showed up indirectly with inventoried equipment charges. We're not seeing that on Mr. Chen. Check, if you want to check."
"I'll check," Boldt agreed.
"Ask them about oxygen at the same time."
"Oxygen?"
"Michael missed this as well. He read the accident report, the EMT report, and he saw what he expected to see. What he missed was an elevated oxygen level in Mr. Chen's venous blood gases. We expect to see levels at right around seventy five percent. Mr. Chen's venous oxygen level was eighty-eight."
"He's in shape? A runner?"
"No way. Supplemental oxygen is the only explanation for levels like that."
"We're going around in circles. So you're saying it was the EMTs. They did attempt resuscitation."
"No, not according to their report they didn't. What I'm telling you is we've got inconclusive evidence to support a clear cut method of death. It's entirely possible that Mr. Chen was caught from behind," Dixon said. "Whoever it is, he's pretty strong. Chen struggles, winning the hematoma surrounding the lips. His assailant manages to drop him. Chen encounters the blunt object. He's unconscious and he's about to drown, and don't ask me how, but the air around him is spiked with O. I'd check to see if anyone was welding down there. Oxyacetylene. Something that might explain it."
"A sloppy EMT report explains it."
"We work closely with these people. I'm not going to mud sling
"Help me out here, Dixie. I've got a pair of missing women."
"With that sinkhole raining down around them, the EMTs could have hurried him out of there, and then later covered it up when it came report time, because they realized the guy died in their care. Improper care. You never know."
Boldt wasn't sure that helped him. He had no desire to prosecute a couple EMTs.
Dixon suggested, "A fireman would have supplemental oxygen.
Who responded to that cave-in?"
"A fireman killed Chen," Boldt said in total disbelief.
"I know it doesn't make any sense."
"Not unless it was someone who didn't want to be found."
"Then why apply the oxygen?" Dixon asked, as frustrated as Boldt.
"That's what we need to answer."
"We?"
"You'd better write it up, Dixie. I may have to stick it to those EMTs."
The Gift
"Lieutenant, we got a delivery at the Third Avenue entrance for you."
Matthews, who wasn't expecting anything, said, "Just sign for it and send it up, would you, Pete?"
"Can't do that anymore, Lieutenant, sorry. New regs."
She'd read that memo at some point. What a pain in the neck. "Well, at least sign for it, then. I'll be down to get it."
"Guy says he won't leave it for anyone but you."
"Then he's going to have to wait."
"He's been waiting, Lieutenant. This is my third call up there."
She'd been in meetings and hadn't checked her messages. It seemed possible. "Ask him what it is, who it's from."
She heard the inquiry through the receiver. Then Pete said he was going to put the guy on the line.
"Hey, Lieutenant."
She knew the voice, but it took her a moment to identify it. "Mr. Walker?"
"I told you I could help."
She suffered a chill like a small shudder rippling through her. The image that filled her imagination was that of the family dog leaving a dead squirrel on the doorstep. "We discussed this."
"You had to say those things. I understand that... I understand the way things work."
"I'm not sure you do. What's in the package, Mr. Walker?" She took a wild guess. What would the adoring student bring the teacher? "Some fish? Fresh fish?"
"Fish? It's hers" he said sadly. "Proof that sack of shit is lying if he says he didn't do anything to Mary-Ann."
"Mr. Walker... Ferrell, it's illegal to involve yourself in an active investigation. We went over all this." Another chill swept through her. This wasn't the first time a bereaved relative had attached him- or herself to a case, but she'd never personally experienced it. Instead of celebrating the cooperation, she felt boxed in.
"You've got snitches, right? So, I'm a snitch. Don't knock it 'til you check it out."
"If you leave the package for me, Mr. Walker, I'll pick it up later."
"No way. I get to see you, or I take it with me. What's wrong with you? You want to get this guy or not?"
"You have to leave the package, Mr. Walker. There's nothing I can do about it. They X-ray them, electronically sniff them there all sorts of security now that I can't do anything about. It takes a couple of hours. I'll look at it and I'll call you."
"No way. I'm waiting."
"What happened to your double shift?"
"New arrangements."
"Mr. Walker-"
"I'm waiting, like it or not."
She could hear the phone being passed back to Pete.
"Lieutenant?" the gruff voice inquired.
"Tell him I'm on my way down. Go ahead and start it through security, okay, Pete?" In fact, such security took only a matter of minutes. She wondered if it was stupid to show Walker she'd exaggerated the situation. To hell with it: She'd accept the package, get Walker out of there, and warn him not to try it again.
A few minutes later she passed the lobby coffee stand and approached the busy security checkpoint at the building's main entrance on Third Avenue. Ferrell Walker stood waiting-there were no chairs-just on the other side of the twin metal detectors, to the left of the lumbering X-ray machine. He wore the same sweatshirt and blue jeans that she'd seen him in earlier the same day. She could imagine that smell even at a distance.