Cause of Death Read online

  "The tank's empty," Marino observed.

  "I think he ran out of gas after death."

  "Why?" Roche had walked over to where we were, and he stared intensely at me and the front of my scrubs as if he and I were the only two people in the room. "How do you know he didn't lose track of time down there and run out of gas?"

  "Because even if his air supply quit, he still had plenty of time to get to the surface. He was only thirty feet down," I said.

  "That's a long way if maybe your hose has gotten hung up on something."

  "It would be. But in that scenario, he could have dropped his weight belt."

  "Has the smell gone away?" he asked.

  "No, but it's not as overpowering."

  "What smell?" Marino wanted to know.

  "His blood has a weird odor."

  "You mean like booze?"

  "No, not like that."

  He sniffed several times and shrugged as Roche moved past me, averting his gaze from what was on the table. I could not believe it when he brushed against me again though he had plenty of room and I had given him a warning. Marino was big and balding in a fleece-lined coat, and his eyes followed him.

  "So, who's this?" he asked me.

  "Yes, I guess the two of you haven't met," I said. "Detective Roche of Chesapeake, this is Captain Marino with Richmond."

  Roche was looking closely at the hookah, and the sound of Danny cutting through ribs with shears on the next table was getting to him. His complexion was the shade of milk glass again, his mouth bowed down.

  Marino lit a cigarette and I could tell by the expression on his face that he had made his decision about Roche, and Roche was about to know it.

  "I don't know about you," he said to the detective, "but one thing I discovered early on, is once you come to this joint, you never feel the same about liver. You watch." He tucked the lighter back inside his shirt pocket. "Me, I used to love it smothered in onions." He blew out smoke.

  "Now, on the pain of death you couldn't make me touch it."

  Roche leaned closer to the hookah, almost burying his face in it, as if the smell of rubber and gasoline was the antidote he needed. I resumed work.

  "Hey, Danny," Marino went on, "you ever eat shit like kidneys and gizzards since you started working here?"

  "I've never ate any of that my entire life," he said as we removed the breastplate. "But I know what you mean.

  When I see people order big slabs of liver in restaurants, I almost have to dive for the door. Especially if it's even the slightest bit pink."

  The odor intensified as organs were exposed, and I leaned back.

  "You smelling it?" Danny asked.

  "Oh, yeah," I said.

  Roche retreated to his distant corner, and now that Marino had had his fun, he walked over and stood next to me.

  "So you think he drowned?" Marino quickly asked.

  "At the moment I'm not thinking that. But certainly, I'm going to look for it," I said.

  "What can you do to figure out he didn't drown?"

  Marino was not very familiar with drownings, since people rarely committed murder that way, so he was intensely curious. He wanted to understand everything I was doing.

  "Actually, there are a lot of things I'm doing," I said as I worked. "I've already made a skin pocket on the side of the chest, filled it with water and inserted a blade in the thorax to check for bubbles. I'm going to fill the pericardial sac with water and insert a needle into the heart, again to see if any bubbles form. And I'll check the brain for petechial hemorrhages, and look at the soft tissue of the mediastinum for extraalveolar air."

  "What will all that show?" he asked.

  "Possibly pneumothorax or air embolism, which can occur in less than fifteen feet of water if the diver is breathing inadequately. The problem is that excessive pressure in the lungs can result in small tears of the alveolar walls, causing hemorrhages and air leaks into one or both pleural cavities."

  "And I'm assuming that could kill you," he said.

  "Yes," I said. "That most certainly could."

  "What about when you come up and go down too fast?"

  He had moved to the other side of the table so he could watch.

  "Pressure changes, or barotraurna, associated with descent or ascent aren't very likely in the depth he was diving.

  And as you can see, his tissues aren't spongy as I would expect them to be were he a death by barotraurna. Would you like some protective clothing?"

  "So I can look like I work for Terminex?" Marino looked in Roche's direction.

  "Just hope you don't get AIDS," Roche wanly said from far away.

  Marino put on apron and gloves as I began explaining the pertinent negatives I needed to look for in order to also rule out a death by decompression or the bends, or drowning. It was when I inserted an eighteen-gauge needle into the trachea to obtain a sample of air for cyanide testing that Roche decided to leave. He rapidly walked across the room, paper rattling as he collected his evidence bag from a counter, "so we won't know anything until you do tests," he said from the doorway.

  "That's correct. For now his cause and manner of death are pending." I paused and looked up at him. "You'll get a copy of my report when it's complete. And I'd like to see his personal effects before you leave."

  He would come no closer, and my hands were bloody.

  I looked at Marino. "Would you mind?"

  "It would be my pleasure."

  He went to him, took the bag and gruffly said, "Come on. We'll go through it in the hall so you can get some air. " They walked just beyond the doorway, and as I continued to work, paper rattled some more. I heard Marino drop the magazine from a pistol, open the slide and loudly complain that the gun had not been made safe.

  "I can't believe you're carrying this thing around loaded," Marino's voice boomed. "Jesus Christ! You know, it's not like this is your firiggin' lunch in a bag."

  "It's not been processed for prints yet."

  "Well, then you put on gloves and dump the ammo like I just did. And then you clear the chamber, the way I just did. Where'd you go? The Keystone Police Academy where they also must have taught you your gentlemanly manners?"

  Marino went on, and it was now clear to me why he had taken Roche into the hall, and it wasn't for fresh air. Danny glanced across the table at me and grinned.

  Moments later Marino returned to us shaking his head, and Roche was gone. I was relieved, and it showed.

  "Good God," I said. "What's his story?"

  "He thinks with the head God gave him," Marino said.

  "The one between his legs."

  "Like I said," Danny replied, "he's been down here a couple of times before, bothering Dr. Mant about things.

  But what I didn't tell you is he always talked to him upstairs. He never would come down to the morgue."

  "I'm shocked," Marino drolly said.

  "I heard that when he was in the police academy he called in sick the day they were supposed to come down here for the demo autopsy," Danny went on. "Plus, he just got transferred over from juvenile. So he's been a homicide detective for only about two months."

  "Oh, now that's good," Marino said. "Just the kind of person we want working something like this." I asked him, "Can you smell the cyanide?"

  "Nope. Right now all I smell is my cigarette, which is exactly how I want it."

  "Danny?"

  "No, ma'am." He sounded disappointed.

  "So far I'm seeing no evidence that this is a diving death. No bubbles in the heart or thorax. No subcutaneous emphysema. No water in the stomach or lungs. I can't tell if he's congested." I cut another section of heart. "Well, he does have congestion of the heart, but is it due to the left heart failing the right-just due to dying, in other words? And he does have some reddening of the stomach wall, which is consistent with cyanide."

  "Doc," Marino said, "how well did you know him?"

  "Personally, really not at all."

  "Well, I'm going to tell
you what was in the bag because Roche didn't know what he was looking at and I didn't want to tell him."

  He at last slipped out of his coat and looked for a safe place to hang it, deciding on the back of a chair. He lit another cigarette.

  "Damn, these floors kill my feet," he said as he went to the table where hookah and hose were piled, and leaned against the edge. "It must kill your knee," he said to Danny.

  "Totally kills it."

  "Eddings' got a Browning nine-millimeter pistol with a Birdsong desert brown finish," Marino said.

  . "What's Birdsong?" Danny placed the spleen in a hanging scale.

  "The Rembrandt of pistol finishes. Mr. Birdsong's the guy you send your weapon to if you want it waterproofed and painted to blend with the environment," Marino answered. "What he does, basically, is strip it, sandblast it and then spray it with Teflon, which is baked on. All of HRT's pistols have a Birdsong finish."

  HRT was the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. I felt sure that given the number of stories Eddings had done on law enforcement, he would have been exposed to the FBI Academy at Quantico and its finest trained agents.

  "Sounds like something Navy SEALs would have, too," Danny suggested.

  "Them, SWAT teams, counterterrorist, guys like me."

  Marino was looking again at the hookah's fuel line and intake valves. "And most of us have Novak sights like he's got, too. But what we don't have is KTW metal-piercing ammo, also known as cop killers."

  "He's got Teflon-coated ammo?" I glanced up.

  "Seventeen rounds, one in the chamber. All with red lacquer around the primer for waterproofing."

  "Well, he didn't get armor-piercing ammo here. At least not legally, because it's been outlawed in Virginia for years. And as for the finish on his pistol, are you certain it's Birdsong, the same company the Bureau uses?"

  "Looks like Birdsong's magic touch to me," Marino replied. . "Course, there are other outfits that do similar work."

  I opened the stomach as Marino continued to close like a fist. Eddings had seemed such a fan of law enforcement. I had heard he used to ride along with the police, and go to their picnics and their balls. He had never struck me as gung-ho about weapons, and I was stunned that he would have loaded a pistol with illegal ammunition notorious for being used to murder and maim the very people who were his sources and perhaps his friends.

  "Gastric contents are just a small amount of brownish fluid," I continued. "He didn't eat near the time of death, not that I would have expected him to if he planned to dive."

  "Any chance fuel exhaust could have gotten to him, say if the wind blew just right?" Marino continued studying the hookah. "Couldn't that also make him pink?"

  "Certainly, we'll test for carbon monoxide. But that doesn't explain what I'm smelling."

  "And you're sure?"

  "I know what I'm smelling," I said.

  "You think he's a homicide, don't you," Danny said to me.

  "No one should be talking about this." I pulled a cord down from an overhead reel and plugged in the Stryker saw. "Not to the Chesapeake police. Not to anyone. Not until all tests are concluded and I make an official release.

  I don't know what's going on here. I don't know what was going on at the scene. So we must exercise even more caution than usual."

  Marino was looking at Danny. "How long you been working in this joint?" he asked.

  "Eight months."

  "You heard what the doc just said, right?"

  Danny looked up, surprised by Marino's change in tone.

  "You know how to keep your mouth shut, right?" Marino went on. "That means no bragging to the boys, no trying to impress your family or your girlfriend. You got that?"

  Danny held in his anger as he made an incision low around the back of the head, ear to ear.

  "See, if anything leaks, me and the doc here are going to know where it came from." Marino continued an attack that seemed completely unprovoked.

  Danny reflected back the scalp. He pulled it forward over the eyes to expose the skull, and Eddings' face collapsed, sad and slack, as if he knew what was happening and was grieving. I turned on the saw, and the room was filled with the high whine of blade cutting bone.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE SUN HAD DIPPED LOW BEHIND Ika veil of gray, and snow was several inches deep and hung like smoke in the air. Marino and I followed Danny's footsteps across the parking lot, for the young man had already gone, and I felt bad for him.

  "Marino," I said, "you just can't talk to people like that.

  My staff knows about discretion. Danny did nothing to merit your treating him so rudely, and I don't appreciate it."

  "He's a kid," he said. "You raise him right and he'll take good care of you. Thing is, you got to believe in discipline."

  "It is not your job to discipline my staff. And I have never had a problem with him."

  "Yeah? And maybe this is one time when you don't need a problem with him," he replied.

  "I really would appreciate it if you wouldn't try to run my office."

  I was tired and out of sorts, and Lucy still was not answering the phone at Mant's house. Marino had parked next to me, and I unlocked my driver's door.

  "So, what's Lucy doing for the New Year?" he asked as if he knew my concerns.

  "Hopefully, spending it with me. But I haven't heard from her." I got into the car.

  "The snow started up north, so Quantico got hit first," he said. "Maybe she got caught. You know how 95 can be."

  "She's got a car phone. Besides, she's driving from Charlottesville," I said.

  "How come?"

  "The Academy's decided to send her back to UVA for another graduate course."

  "In what? Advanced Rocket Science?"

  "Apparently, she's doing a special study in virtual reality."

  "So maybe she got stuck somewhere between here and Charlottesville." He did not want me to leave.

  "She could have left a message."

  He stared around the parking lot. It was empty save for the dark-blue morgue wagon, which was covered with snow. Flakes clung to his wispy hair and must have been cold on his balding head, but he did not seem to mind.

  "Do you have New Year plans?" I started the engine, then the wipers to plow snow off the windshield.

  "A couple of us guys are supposed to play poker and eat chili."

  "That sounds like fun." I looked up at his big, flushed face as he continued staring off.

  "Doc. I went through Eddings' apartment back in Richmond and didn't want to get into it in front of Danny. I think you're going to want to go through it, too."

  Marino wanted to talk. He did not want to be with the guys or alone. He wanted to be with me, but he would never admit that. In all the years I had known him, his feelings for me were a confession he could not make, no matter how obvious they might be.

  "I can't compete with a poker game," I said to him as I fastened my shoulder harness, "but I was going to make lasagne tonight. And it doesn't look like Lucy's going to get in. So if-"

  "It don't look like driving back after midnight would be a smart thing," he cut me off as snow swirled across the tarmac in small white storms.

  "I've got a guest room," I went on.

  He looked at his watch, and decided it was a good time to smoke.

  "In fact, driving back now isn't even a good idea," I stated. "And it looks like we need to talk."

  "Yeah, well, you're probably right," he said.

  What neither of us counted on as he slowly followed me to Sandbridge was that when we arrived, smoke would be drifting up from the chimney. Lucy's vintage green Suburban was parked in the drive and blanketed with snow, so I knew she had been here for a while.

  "I don't understand," I said to Marino as we slammed car doors shut. "I called three times."

  "Maybe I'd better leave." He stood by his Ford, not sure what to do.

  "That's ridiculous. Come on. We'll figure out something. There is a couch. Besides, Lucy will be thrilled to see yo
u.

  "You got your diving shit?" he said.