But the other item of business remained. And the more he thought about it, the less it seemed to matter if he asked Jackman's permission first. He needed an answer and needed it now. His client was still in big trouble. And he wasn't really going behind anybody's back by asking John Strout. If the medical examiner found anything as a result of Hardy's request, he would report it to Glitsky and Jackman anyway.
Hardy wasn't hiding anything-his motives or his actions. Or so he told himself.
He walked out the back door of the hall along the covered outdoor corridor that led to the jail on the left and the morgue on the right. The air smelled faintly of salt water, but he also caught the scent of flowers from the huge commercial market around the corner. He was feeling as though he'd accomplished quite a bit during the day. When he was done with Strout, he'd try to remember to buy a bouquet for his wife, even his daughter. It was Friday evening. The weekend loomed long and inviting, and maybe he and his family could fashion some quality time together if they worked at it.
It turned out that Strout was cutting up someone in the cold room at the moment, but the receptionist told Hardy he shouldn't be too long. Did he want to wait? He told her he thought he would.
The medical examiner's regular office-as opposed to the morgue-was a veritable museum of ancient and modern weapons and instruments of torture. Always an interesting place to visit, the room made no concession to safety. All of Strout's bizarre stuff was out in the open to admire and hold and, if you were foolhardy enough, to try out. If one of his city-worker assistants ever became disgruntled, Hardy thought, he could have a field day going postal here-stab a few folks with switchblades or bowie knives, blow up others with hand grenades, shoot up the rest with any number of automatic weapons from the arsenal.
Hardy sat on the bench at the garrote-red silk kerchief and all-considering his victory upstairs and pondering both the wisdom and the odds for success of his next move. The important thing, he reminded himself again, was to keep his client out of jail. He knew that between Glitsky's constant press, Marlene's handling of the grand jury, and Kensing's difficult and unpredictable behavior, the thirty days Jackman had promised him could evaporate like the morning fog. Hardy had to have something more, in spite of the risk that what he was about to suggest might in fact strengthen the case against his client.
He realized that it came down to a gamble, and this made him uncomfortable. But he didn't feel he had a choice. The noose was tightening around his client's neck. His guts told him that it was worth the risk. But if he was wrong…
"You want, I can get that snot rag around your throat and tighten it down just a little bit. I'm told it's quite effective for the libido." Strout was referring to the garrote, and even more grimly to erotic asphyxia, the heightened orgasm which occurred during hanging and some other forms of strangulation. "Seems to be all the rage these past few years, 'tho my own feelin' is that it just plain ain't worth the trouble. But maybe I'm wrong. Lots of folks seem to give it a try. Anyway, how y'all doing?"
The two men made small talk for a couple of minutes while Strout shuffled his messages. After he'd gotten behind his desk, and Hardy had moved to a different chair, they got down to it.
When Hardy finished, Strout scratched around his neck. "Let me get this straight," he said at last. "You're comin' in here as a private citizen askin' me to autopsy another Portola patient who died the same day as Mr. Markham?"
"If you haven't already done it."
"What's the subject's name?"
"James Lector."
Strout shook his head. "Nope, haven't done it. But they do an automatic PM at the hospital. You know that?"
"And they never miss anything, do they?"
This was a good point, and Strout acknowledged it with a small wave. "How close was the time of death to Markham's?"
"Within a few minutes, actually."
"If I take a look, what exactly would I be lookin' for?"
"That I don't know."
Strout took off his horn-rims, blew on them, put them back on. The medical examiner had a mobile, elastic face, and it seemed to stretch in several directions at once. "Maybe I don't see what you're gettin' at. If you're sayin' Glitsky thinks your client killed Mr. Markham, then how's it s'posed to help your client if another body turns up with potassium in it on the same day?"
"It won't," Hardy agreed. "I'm hoping it's not potassium." What he did hope was that James Lector was unexplained death number twelve. It wouldn't clear Kensing, but it might take some of the onus off his client for Markham's death. "Either way," he continued, "isn't it better if we know for sure what Lector died of?"
"Always," Strout agreed. He thought another moment. "And why would I want to order this autopsy again?"
Hardy shrugged. "You decided that Lector was a suspicious death, dying as he did within minutes of another homicide in the same room at the same hospital."
The medical examiner's head bobbed up and down once or twice. He pulled a hand grenade that he used as a paperweight over and spun it thoughtfully a few times on his blotter. Hardy watched the deadly sphere spin and tried not to think about what might happen if the pin came out by mistake.
Finally, Strout put his hand on the grenade, stopping it midspin. His eyes skewered Hardy over his glasses. "You're leavin' somethin' out," he said.
"Not on purpose. Really."
"If I'm doin' this-which I'm not promisin' yet, mind you-then I want to know what you're lookin' for, and why."
Hardy spread his hands, hiding nothing. "I think there's some small but real chance that James Lector is the latest in a series of homicides at Portola." This made Strout sit up, and Hardy went on. "So Lector's death may or may not have been natural, and may or may not have been related to Tim Markham's," he concluded. "But certainly if Lector was murdered and died from a different drug than Markham, then there's a lot more going on at Portola than meets the eye at this stage."
"But again, it wouldn't do much for your client."
"Maybe not, John, but I need to find some evidence of other foul play where I can make an argument that my client wasn't involved. And don't tell me-I realize that doesn't prove he didn't kill Markham. At least it's somewhere to start, and I need something."
Strout was considering it all very carefully. "You got the Lector family's permission?" he asked. "When's the funeral scheduled?"
"No and I don't know. If you ordered an autopsy, we wouldn't need the family to…" This wasn't flying and he stopped talking. "What?"
"I believe I mentioned that there's already been a PM. If they got a cause of death they're happy with and I say I want another look at the body, it's goin' to ruffle feathers, both at the hospital and with the family. 'Specially if like the funeral's tomorrow or, say, this mornin' and we got to dig him back up." But something about the idea obviously had caught Strout's interest. If somebody was getting away with multiple homicides in a San Francisco hospital, it was his business to know about it. "What I'm sayin' is o' course we could do it without anybody's permission if I got a good enough reason, which I'm not sure I do. But any way we do it, it'd be cleaner if we asked nice and got an okay from the family."
"I'll talk to them," Hardy said.
"Then I'll make a gentlemen's deal with you, Diz. If it gets so it doesn't make anybody too unhappy, we'll do this. But if the family makes a stink, you're gonna have to go to court and convince a judge to sign an order. I'm not gonna do it on my own."
Hardy figured this was as good as it was going to get. He didn't hesitate for an instant. "Done," he said. "You'll be glad you did this, John. Ten to one you're going to find something."
Strout's expression grew shrewd. "Ten to one, eh? How much you puttin' up?"
Hardy gave it some thought. "I'll go a yard," he said.