Jennifer laughed and suddenly felt a lot better.
“So what’s the verdict?”
“First impressions? He died of acute CO poisoning. I need to finish off the examination of the other organs to be sure, but the lips and the fingernails are a giveaway.”
“So you’re saying there was no head injury?” She didn’t even try to pretend she wasn’t disappointed.
“Quite the opposite. If the fumes hadn’t killed him, the head trauma would have. He’s got a massive comminuted fracture.”
“Caused by?”
“A baseball bat, an iron bar… something blunt and heavy because the skin isn’t broken.” Finch shrugged his shoulders. “Somebody left-handed, in any case.”
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, it’s an old forensic trick. Right-handed people tend to strike down on the right side of their victim’s head. Otherwise, it’s awkward and they can’t get any real force into the blow. Short’s skull has been crushed on the left-hand side. It’s a guess, but it’s an educated one.” She stored that piece of information away, although she knew it would hardly narrow the search for Short’s attackers.
“So are you saying the suicide was faked?”
“You want my professional opinion? There’s no way he could have even climbed into the car in that state. He was knocked out and put there and the exhaust fumes just finished him off. It was just window dressing. He was already a dead man.”
“You’re sure that he was hit before the fumes got to him? There’s no way that he could have got those injuries after he died?”
“No way.” Finch shook his head firmly. “The cerebral vessels had bled into the brain causing a massive subdural hematoma. That could only have happened prior to death while he still had a pulse.”
Jennifer nodded. So it was murder. This would have Corbett bouncing off the walls. She felt herself smiling and guiltily tried to suppress it.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“Not at all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and finish up.” He shook her hand, his skin cold and rubbery from the gloves.
“Doctor,” Jennifer called after him, trying to sound as casual as she could. “At this stage, I think it would be better if you don’t release the autopsy results to the family. You know how it is. Until we are sure exactly what happened, I don’t want people jumping to the wrong conclusions.”
Finch shrugged his shoulders.
“Sure. No problem.”
He helped himself to a fresh set of gloves and then strode back into the autopsy room, leaving Jennifer staring pensively at the tiled floor. This opened up a whole new angle on the Fort Knox theft — an angle she was determined to pursue.
Finch suddenly stepped back into the room, his gloves half on, and interrupted her thoughts.
“By the way, Agent Browne, you did say Short had a kid, didn’t you?”
“Yes, three of them. Why?”
“It’s just that one reason you might put someone in the backseat is that you can’t open the rear doors from the inside if the child-lock is turned on.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Liberty Street in the optimistically named Louisville suburb of Prospect had been given a particularly vicious dose of anonymity by the local planners. Cookie-cutter clapboard houses, caged off from their neighbors by galvanized wire fence, lined a wide road that spooled drearily into the distance. Cedar trees struggled awkwardly from the ragged sidewalk at municipally specified intervals, gaps visible every so often where they had finally given up their struggle to eke out an existence from the thin soil. Trash cans were chained to gateposts; cars sagged mournfully on concrete driveways.
In the distance a large water tower, supported by four improbably spindly steel legs, reared into the sky like a huge insect. It had once been painted red, although the paint had long since blistered and peeled, rust now chewing into every joint and rivet. A single name, ECKLEBERG, painted in three-feet-high white letters, circled the tank, an early advertising gimmick whose purpose had long since been forgotten. Down the road, a few kids were practicing skateboard tricks.
Jennifer stood outside the house and waited, fanning her face with her FBI badge as the sun’s rays ricocheted off the ground. To understand why Short had been killed, she had to try and understand him; who he was, where he lived. According to Short’s file, he’d joined the Mint Police after five years with the NYPD. He’d been an exemplary officer, winning the medal of honor when responding to a reported break-in at an Upper West Side pharmacy. His partner had been shot and while trying to save him, Short had returned fire, killing one suspect and wounding another. He’d been set for big things, maybe even captain one day, some had said. But apparently this incident and the unpredictable hours required of New York’s finest had finally taken their toll on Mrs. Short, who had demanded that he either find a new job, or a new wife.
Her brother was already in the Mint Police and had arranged the interviews. With his record, Short had sailed through the selection process, although it had been noted that he had been heard to complain to some of his colleagues that he was being made to swap his gun for a nightstick. He’d been given a choice of postings and had chosen Fort Knox so they’d be near his wife’s family. That was pretty much it.
She could see from the outside that the Shorts had done their best with the little they had. The symmetrical window frames had been painted light blue, to match the mailbox at the end of the driveway, the wood bubbling now with age in a few places. The porch had been recently swept, while round the side she could make out a toy-strewn backyard.
The front yard was neat and low maintenance. No trash. The curbstone had been painted with the house number, yellow against the gray concrete — 1026. The garage stood to the left, a separate building with a pitched roofline and white wooden walls to match the main house. She remembered with a half smile that she had played in a very similar yard of a very similar house with her sister, Rachel, when she was a kid. There was love here amid the ugliness.
A white patrol car with a blue stripe emblazoned down its side pulled up onto the curb and a short uniformed man with wiry ginger hair got out and nodded at her.
“Agent Browne?” he asked uncertainly, leaning over the roof, one leg still in the foot well of the car. Jennifer didn’t answer, instead just flipping her ID open and waving it at him impatiently.
“You’re late.”
“Yes, ma’am. My apologies.” He walked up to her, his hand extended, a concerned look on his freckled face. “I was way over on the other side of town when they told me that—”
“That’s okay, Officer…?” Jennifer looked down to his name badge as she was shaking his hand. “… Seeley. You’re here now.”
“Bill Seeley. Louisville Metro Police Department,” he said earnestly, his large blue eyes widening, thin lips flattening across uneven teeth, ears like a car that’s had both its doors left open.
Jennifer smiled, his fresh-faced eagerness making her feel suddenly old. She knew the type. Diligent, conscientious, and kind but unlikely ever to set the world on fire. For this part of the world, ideal. She looked up at the house behind her.
“So this is it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How long had Short lived here?”
“These past five years. Nice kids and wife. Real friendly with me and the other boys. He was an ex-cop himself, you see. Used to speak about it all the time. I reckon he missed the big city.”
“Tell me again what happened.” Jennifer’s eyes were drawn to the garage and she had to force herself to snatch them away and concentrate on Seeley’s voice.