Cause of Death Read online

  "You're on the hose?" It was Jerod who spoke this time.

  "I've got my hands on it now." It seemed oddly taut, and I was careful to disturb it as little as possible.

  "Keep following it down. Maybe thirty feet. He should be floating right above the bottom."

  I began my descent, pausing at intervals to equalize the pressure in my ears as I tried not to panic. I could not see.

  My heart was pounding as I tried to will myself to relax and take deep breaths. For a moment I stopped and floated as I shut my eyes and slowly breathed. I resumed following the hose down and panic seized me again when a thick rusting cable suddenly materialized in front of me.

  I tried to get under it, but I could not see where it was coming from or going to, and I was really more buoyant than I wanted to be and could have used more weight in my belt or the pockets of my BC. The cable got me from the rear, clipping my K-valve hard. I felt my regulator tug as if someone were grabbing it from behind, and the loosened tank began to slide down my back, pulling me with it. Ripping open the Velcro straps of my BC, I quickly worked my way out of it as I tried to block out everything except the procedure I had been trained to do.

  "Everything ten-four?" Ki Soo's voice sounded in my mask.

  "Technical problem," I said.

  I maneuvered the tank between my legs so I could float on it as if I were riding a rocket in cold, murky space. I readjusted straps and fought off fear.

  "Need help?"

  "Negative. Watch for cables," I said.

  "You gotta watch for anything," his voice came back.

  It entered my mind that there were many ways to die down here as I slipped my arms inside the BC. Rolling over on my back, I snugly strapped myself in.

  "Everything ten-four?" Ki Soo's voice sounded again.

  "Ten-four. You're breaking up."

  "Too much interference. All these big tubs. We're coming down behind you. Do you want us closer?"

  "Not yet," I said.

  They were maintaining a prudent distance because they knew I wanted to see the body without distraction or interference. We did not need to get in each other's way.

  Slowly, I dropped deeper, and closer to the bottom, I realized the hose must be snagged, explaining why it was so taut. I was not sure which way to move, and tried going several feet to my left, where something brushed against me. I turned and met the dead man face to face, his body bumping and nudging as I involuntarily jerked away. Languidly, he twisted and drifted on the end of his tether, rubber-sheathed arms out like a sleepwalker's as my motion pulled him after me.

  I let him drift close, and he nudged and bumped some more, but now I was not afraid because I was no longer surprised. It was as if he were trying to get my attention or wanted to dance with me through the hellish darkness of the river that had claimed him. I maintained neutral buoyancy, barely moving my fins for I did not want to stir up the bottom or cut myself on rusting shipyard debris.

  "I've got him. Or maybe I should say he got me." I depressed the push-to-talk button. "Can you copy?"

  "Barely. We're maybe ten feet above you. Holding."

  "Hold a few minutes more. Then we'll get him out."

  I tried my flashlight one last time, just in case, but it still proved useless, and I realized I would have to see this scene with my hands. Tucking the light back in my BC, I held my computer console almost against my mask. I could barely make out that my depth was almost thirty feet and I had more than half a tank of air. I began to hover in the dead man's face, and through the murkiness could make out only the vague shape of features and hair that had floated free of his hood.

  Gripping his shoulders, I carefully felt around his chest, tracing the hose. It was threaded through his weight belt and I began following it toward whatever it was caught on.

  In less than ten feet, a huge rusty screw blossomed before my eyes. I touched the barnacle-covered metal of a ship's side, steadying myself so I did not float any closer. I did not want to drift under a vessel the size of a playing field and have to blindly feel my way out before I ran out of air.

  The hose was tangled and I felt along it to see if it might be folded or compressed in a way that might have cut off the flow of air, but I could find no evidence of that. In fact, when I tried to free it from the screw, I found this was not hard to do. I saw no reason why the diver could not have freed himself, and I was suspicious his hose had gotten snagged after death.

  "His air hose was caught." I got on the radio again. "On one of the ships. I don't know which."

  "Need some help?" It was Jerod who spoke.

  "No. I've got him. You can start pulling."

  I felt the hose move.

  "Okay. I'm going to guide him up," I said. "You keep pulling. Very slowly."

  I locked my arms under the body from behind and began kicking with my ankles and knees instead of my hips because movement was restricted.

  "Easy," I warned into the microphone, for my ascent could be no more than one foot a second. "Slowly.

  Slowly."

  Periodically, I looked up but could not see where I was until we broke the surface. Then suddenly the sky was painted with slate-gray clouds, and the rescue boat was rocking nearby. Inflating the dead man's BC and mine, I turned him on his belly and released his weight belt, almost dropping it because it seemed so heavy. But I managed to hand it up to rescuers who were wearing wet suits and seemed to know what they were doing in their old flat bottomed boat.

  Jerod, Ki Soo and I had to leave our masks on because we still had to swim back to the platform. So we were talking by buddy phone and breathing from our tanks as we maneuvered the body inside a chicken-wire basket. We swam it flush against the boat, then helped the rescuers lift it in as water poured everywhere.

  "We need to take his mask off," I said, and I motioned to the rescuers.

  They seemed confused, and wherever the transducer was, it clearly wasn't with them. They couldn't hear a word we said.

  "You need some help getting your mask off?" one of them shouted as he reached toward me.

  I waved him off and shook my head. Grabbing the side of the boat, I hoisted myself up enough to reach the basket.

  I pulled off the dead man's mask, emptied it of water, and laid it next to his hooded head with its straying long wet hair. It was then I knew him, despite the deep oval impression etched around his eyes. I knew the straight nose and dark mustache framing his full mouth. I recognized the reporter who had always been so fair with me.

  "Okay?" One of the rescuers shrugged.

  I gave them an okay, although I could tell they did not understand the importance of what I had just done. My reason was cosmetic, for the longer the mask caused pressure against skin fast losing elasticity, the slighter the chance that the indentation would fade. This was an unimportant concern to investigators and paramedics, but not to loved ones who would want to see Ted Eddings' face.

  "Am I transmitting?" I then asked Ki Soo and Jerod as we bobbed in the water.

  "You're fine. What do you want done with all this hose?" Jerod asked.

  "Cut it about eight feet from the body and clamp off the end," I said. "Seal that and his regulator in a plastic bag."

  "I got a salvage bag in my BC,- Ki Soo volunteered.

  "Sure. That will work."

  After we had done what we could, we rested for a moment, floating and looking across muddy water to the johnboat and the hookah. As I surveyed where we had been, I realized that the screw Eddings' hose had snagged on belonged to the Exploiter. The submarine looked post-World War II, maybe around the time of the Korean War, and I wondered if it had been stripped of its finer parts and was on its way to being sold for scrap. I wondered if Eddings had been diving around it for a reason, or if after death, he had drifted there.

  The rescue boat was halfway to the landing on the other side of the river where an ambulance waited to take the body to the morgue. Jerod gave me the okay sign and I returned it, although everything did not fe
el okay at all. Air rushed as we deflated our BCs, and we dipped back under water the color of old pennies.

  There was a ladder leading from the river to the dive platform, and then another to the pier. My legs trembled as I climbed, for I was not as strong as Jerod and Ki Soo, who moved in all their gear as if it weighed the same as skin.

  But I got out of my BC and tank myself and did not ask for help. A police cruiser rumbled near my car, and someone was towing Eddings' johnboat across the river to the landing. Identity would have to be verified, but I had no doubt.

  "So what do you think?" a voice overhead suddenly asked.

  I looked up to find Captain Green standing next to a tall, slender man on the pier. Green was apparently now feeling charitable, and reached down to help. "Here," he said.

  "Hand me your tank."

  "I won't know a thing until I examine him," I said as I lifted it up, then the other gear. "Thanks. The johnboat with the hose and everything else should go straight to the morgue," I added.

  "Really? What are you going to do with it?" he asked.

  "The hookah gets an autopsy, too."

  "You're going to want to rinse your stuff really good," the slender man said to me as if he knew more than Jacques Cousteau, and his voice was familiar. "There's a lot of oil and rust in there."

  "There certainly is," I agreed, climbing up to the pier.

  "I'm Detective Roche," he then said, and he was oddly dressed in jeans and an old letter jacket. "I heard you say his hose was caught on something?"

  "I did, and I'm wondering when you heard me say that."

  I was on the pier now and not at all looking forward to carrying my dirty, wet gear back to my car.

  "Of course, we monitored the recovery of the body." It was Green who spoke. "Detective Roche and I were listening inside the building."

  I remembered Ki Soo's warning to me and I glanced at the platform below where he and Jerod were working on their own gear.

  "The hose was snagged," I answered. "But I can't tell you when that happened. Maybe before his death, maybe after."

  Roche didn't seem all that interested as he continued to stare at me in a manner that made me self-aware. He was very young and almost pretty, with delicate features, generous lips and short curly dark hair. But I did not like his eyes, and thought they were invasive and smug. I pulled off my hood and ran my fingers through my slippery hair, and he watched as I unzipped my wet suit and pulled the top of it down to my hips. The last layer was my dive skin, and water trapped between it and my flesh was chilling quickly. Soon I would be unbearably cold. Already, my fingernails were blue.

  "One of the rescuers tells me his face looks really red," the captain said as I tied the wet suit's sleeves around my waist. "I'm wondering if that means anything."

  "Cold livor," I replied.

  He looked expectantly at me.

  "Bodies exposed to the cold get bright pink," I said as I began to shiver.

  "I see. So it doesn't-"

  "No," I cut him off, because I was too uncomfortable to listen to them. "It doesn't necessarily mean anything".

  Look, is there a ladies' room so I can get out of these wet things?" I cast about and saw nothing promising.

  "Over there." Green pointed at a small trailer near the administration building. "Would you like Detective Roche to accompany you and show you where everything is?"

  "That's not necessary."

  "Hopefully, it's not locked," Green added.

  That would be my luck, I thought. But it wasn't, and it was awful, with only toilet and sink, and nothing seemed to have been cleaned in recent history. A door leading to the men's room on the other side was secured by a two by-four with padlock and chain, as if one gender or the other were very worried about privacy.

  There was no heat. I stripped, only to discover there was no hot water. Cleaning up as best I could, I hurried into a sweat suit, after-ski boots and cap. By now it was one-thirty and Lucy was probably at Mant's house. I hadn't even noted the tomato sauce yet. Exhausted, I was desperate for a long hot shower or bath.

  Because I could not get rid of him, Green walked me to my car and helped place my dive gear into the trunk. By now the johnboat had been loaded on a trailer and should have been enroute to my office in Norfolk. I did not see Jerod or Ki Soo and was sorry I could not say good-bye to them.

  "When will you do the autopsy?" Green asked me.

  I looked at him, and he was so typical of weak people with power or rank. He had done his best to scare me off, and when that had accomplished nothing he had decided we would be friends.

  "I will do it now." I started the car and turned the heat up high.

  He looked surprised. "Your office is open today?"

  "I just opened it," I said.

  I had not shut the door, and he propped his arms on top of the frame and stared down at me. He was so close, I could see broken blood vessels along his cheekbones and the wings of his nose, and changes in pigmentation from the sun.

  "You will call me with your report?"

  "When I determine cause and manner of death, certainly I will discuss them with you," I said.

  "Manner?" He frowned. "You mean there's some question that he's an accidental death?"

  "There can and will always be questions, Captain Green.

  It is my job to question."

  "Well, if you find a knife or bullet in his back, I hope you'll call me first," he said with quiet irony as he gave me one of his cards.

  I drove away looking up the number for Mant morgue assistant and hoping I would find him home. I did.

  "Danny, it's Dr. Scarpetta," I said.

  "Oh, yes, ma'am," he said, surprised.

  Christmas music sounded in the background and I heard the voices of people arguing. Danny Webster was in his early twenties and still lived with his family.

  "I'm so sorry to bother you on New Year's Eve," I said, "but we've got a case I need to autopsy without delay. I'm on my way to the office now."

  "You need me?" He sounded quite open to the idea.

  "If you could help me, I can't tell you how much I would appreciate it. There's a johnboat and a body headed to I the office as we speak."

  "No problem, Dr. Scarpetta," he cheerfully said. "I'll be right there."

  I tried my house, but Lucy did not pick up, so I entered a code to check the answering machine's messages. There were two, both left by friends of Mant, expressing their sympathy. Snow had begun drifting down from a leaden sky, the interstate busy with people driving faster than was safe. I wondered if my niece had gotten delayed and why she hadn't called. Lucy was twenty-three and barely graduated from the FBI Academy. I still worried about her as if she needed my protection.

  My Tidewater District Office was located in a small, crowded annex on the grounds of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. We shared the building with the Department of Health, which unfortunately included the office of Shell Fish Sanitation. So between the stench of decomposing bodies and decaying fish, the parking lot was not a good place to be, no matter the time of year or day. Danny's ancient Toyota was already there, and when I unlocked the bay I was pleased to find the johnboat waiting.

  I lowered the door behind me and walked around, looking. The long low-pressure hose had been neatly coiled, an d as I had requested one severed end and the regulator it was attached to were sealed inside plastic. The other end was still connected to the small compressor strapped to the inner tube. Nearby were a gallon of gasoline and the expected miscellaneous assortment of dive and boat equipment, including extra weights, a tank containing three thousand pounds per square inch of air, a paddle, life preserver, flashlight, blanket and flare gun.

  Eddings also had attached an extra five-horsepower trolling engine that he clearly had used to enter the restricted area where he had died. The main thirty-five-horsepower engine was pulled back and locked, so its propeller would have been out of the water, and I remembered this was the position it was in when I saw the johnboat
at the scene.

  But what interested me more than any of this was a hard plastic carrying case open on the floor. Nestled in its foam lining were various camera attachments and boxes of Kodak 100 ASA film. But I saw no camera or strobe, and I imagined they were forever lost on the bottom of the Elizabeth River.

  I walked up a ramp and unlocked another door, and inside the white-tiled corridor, Ted Eddings was zipped inside a pouch on top of a gurney parked near the X-ray room.

  His stiff arms pushed against black vinyl as if he were trying to fight his way free, and water slowly dripped on the floor. I was about to look for Danny when he limped around a corner, carrying a stack of towels, his right knee in a bright red sports brace from a soccer injury that had necessitated a reconstruction of his anterior cruciate ligament.