He pulled the films from the board and tossed them carelessly on a nearby table and went back to his work. Doctor Strickland pulled an overhead light closer and leaned over his subject with a scalpel, and without further conversation or consideration, he carved a Y across the front of Mr. Ho Nguyen by making two long, deep cuts from the shoulders to the sternum, and then one long cut from where those two intersected all the way down to the pubis.
Josie’s eyes showed intensity, but not fear or loathing or excitement; the look seemed to be that of morbid curiosity. I leaned toward her. “It’s not like surgery, or what you see on TV.”
She glanced up and gave me a slight shake of her head.
“Wait till they remove the breast plate.”
As I said it, Doctor Strickland retrieved the tool they use to cut through ribs, which is nothing more than small pruning shears. I watched Josie’s eyes widen with anticipation. She glanced at me and I smiled, though I have no idea if she knew it. The doctor began cutting the breast plate away by clipping through the ribs at the far sides of the cage until the entire section could be removed as one piece. The snapping, popping sounds of the tool defeating each rib are similar to the sound of pruning branches that are on the edge of being too large to prune. It is a barbaric display never to be forgotten, and all too often recalled.
“It changes your appetite for ribs, too.”
Josie lifted her mask. “Really, there’s no other way to do this?”
There is, and I debated telling her at this time. Maybe it would be a conversation during our drive to the lab afterwards, or on a long night working the desk on Early Mornings, graveyard barrel duty. I was thinking about an autopsy of a deputy sheriff, the first of several I had attended. They were all similarly conducted, but the first is the one that made the greatest impression. It was the difference in reverence for which I am eternally grateful. All stages and aspects of the examination were careful, considerate, delicately performed. As if it were surgery, perhaps while a loved one watched. There were no other autopsies at the time of the deputy’s; it had been scheduled for the afternoon in order to have a private room. Murdered cop posts are attended by a large and solemn audience, and all efforts to remove the usual horror house butcher shop atmosphere are made. When the breast plate was removed, each rib was carefully cut with a scalpel. The pruning sheers never appeared. All of the care and respect that could possibly be presented during such an awful procedure were enacted.
Josie leaned forward and stretched her neck to see inside what I call the canoe. It is a sight to see the first time, and then one to overlook thereafter. Doctor Strickland removed organs one at a time, carefully examining each for damage and evidence before weighing and recording the results of these observations onto his notes. Some doctors dictated, and others just called it out and a tech would write it on his notes. Doctor Strickland seemed to be more of a hands-on, orderly, and set-in-his-ways type. When an organ was found to be perforated, he would take his time to go back to the x-ray board and compare the image to the organ. This would assure him of where he might expect to find evidence, and how many items of evidence might exist, before the dissecting would begin.
The remainder of the body examination focused much on the recovery of projectile evidence. With each bullet or fragment thereof, careful notes were taken as to the location of the recovery and path of its travel. Sometimes this would require organs to be replaced and the use of rods to connect entries and exits and paths thereof.
“This is one of the reasons we attend autopsies,” I told Josie. “There have been times when they get it wrong because they have no idea what happened out there. Our job is to fill in the blanks and provide clarity when needed. Sometimes, something as simple as knowing from evidence at the scene or a witness that a particular wound could have only happened one way, can eliminate excess prodding and mistaken assessments.”
Josie nodded without taking her eyes off of the action.
Doctor Strickland had now stepped back to the cart where his notes and tools sat with an assortment of envelopes that were stained with body fluids transferred from soiled gloves. He thumbed through the envelopes and examined the contents of each to make certain the proper notations accompanied the evidence and corresponded with his notes. After a few minutes of doing so, he looked up and pulled the respirator from his mouth. “Are you taking the evidence?”
He saw my nod, but likely only heard the response through my mask as “Mmehn hmpf.”
Doctor Strickland asked his technician to summon the evidence custodian to our table. I knew from experience—as clearly did he—that this could take some time, which is likely why he called for it before concluding his examination. The x-rays had clearly shown a projectile fragment in the victim’s head, which had not yet been examined. Just as I reconciled the thought, Doctor Strickland called out to the back of his technician: “Tell him to give me fifteen minutes.”
With that came the grand finale. I bumped Josie’s elbow with mine and took a couple steps backward. She followed my lead. The doctor took only a moment to peel the victim’s scalp by making a small incision and then skinning it back. The front was pulled forward and left covering his face. The back fell loosely against the block that held his head high off of the table. Once the top and back of his head were fully exposed, the sound of an electric saw buzzing through his skull crackled through the room. I had no doubt Josie could see the fine spray of flesh and bone matter misting beyond the safe zone of the examination, which truly didn’t exist. She would likely be thankful that we had repositioned. Once the cutting was finished, a chisel and hammer aided in the removal of the skull cap, which was another procedure that had been handled quite differently during the deputy’s examination. The brain was removed, and as with the organs, it was weighed and examined and then dissected until the evidence was recovered.
It had been nearly two hours since we had arrived. Some autopsies took longer than others. I had once attended a three-day autopsy, each day consisting of about four to five hours of examination. The decedent had been killed in a police-involved shooting that involved four agencies and two dozen shooters. I had left after the third session with 128 envelopes of firearms-related evidence. Two hours seemed long and I was looking forward to leaving, but I often reflected on the three-day autopsy to put all others in perspective.
Josie followed my lead on the way out, tearing away the protective paper clothing. She wadded it up and stuffed it, hard, into a nearby trash can that already overflowed with more of the same. It reminded me of a case to which one of my former partners and I had been assigned. I shared it with Josie as we walked to my car. Floyd and I had had an assist to El Monte PD. Our department investigates their homicide cases for them, as we do for many of the smaller agencies within our county, at their request. Some agencies will assign one of their detectives to act as a liaison of sorts. A female, new to detectives, was assigned to us and came along to the autopsy. It was her first. On the way out the door, she not only discarded the paper clothing, she also threw away her department-issued respirator. Grinning, I told her she might need that for her next case. I couldn’t tell if it was more fear or revulsion on her face, but she spat, “I am never coming back to this fucking place.”
When I finished telling Josie the story, I looked over at her from behind the wheel with a wide grin on my face. She said, “Yeah, well, that’s some weak-ass shit.”
I smiled. The Outlaw Josie Sanchez.
13
Floyd looked up from a magazine as I walked into the office carrying two 6x9 envelopes stuffed full of 4x6 photographs. Josie peeled off, turning down Team Five’s row of desks, headed toward her seat. I continued toward my old desk on Team Two, now occupied by Mongo. When I got there, I pulled a chair from an empty desk and rolled it to a position between Mongo and Floyd, neither of whom looked up. Floyd had his nose in a magazine.
“What are you reading?”
He tossed the magazine onto Mongo’s desk and said
, “Bullshit.”
Mongo chuckled, and his chest and belly shook. Floyd was shaking his head when he turned to me and said, “This dipshit seems to take pleasure in seeing how bad he can piss me off.”
“Yeah? Let me see.”
Mongo handed me the magazine and it didn’t take any time to see what Floyd had been reading. There was a story on Bruce Lee featured on the front cover. The article was easily found inside by a creased page where the story began. Floyd had always admired Lee for his martial arts skills, and there was little doubt this story would be less than glorifying, given Floyd’s reaction. I figured it was probably a hit piece on the martial arts legend.
It started with Lee’s childhood, reporting that the young Bruce Lee had, at one point, formed a gang of sorts among his peers. Taking to the life of crime, he reportedly pulled a knife on his PE teacher. It went on to allege that Lee had forced a boy to pull down his pants and then painted the boy’s genitals with red paint he had stolen from a construction site. Police had considered the boy Lee a delinquent, according to the story. Then, as a man, Lee was said to be a philandering playboy who cheated on his wife and had “cut a wide swath” through the female production of actresses, groupies, housewives, and hatcheck girls. It is said he underwent circumcision to be more like an American, and that many described Lee as vain and arrogant. There were reports that he had had issues with his temper and a craving for control, traits that were played out in his treatment of women. Martial Artist-turned-movie star Bruce Lee, the man who introduced the western world to his Taoist philosophy and had opened the door to martial arts in the west, who had been a kung fu instructor to the Hollywood elites such as James Coburn and Steve McQueen, was said to have died of heat stroke at 32 years of age.
I returned the rag to Mongo as Floyd watched me carefully, no doubt interested in my take on the report.
“Well?” I said.
“He didn’t die of no fucking heat stroke.”
Mongo snickered again.
What could I say? I didn’t know if any parts of the story were true, and how he died seemed to be the least contentious part of it. But not for Floyd. I handed him the envelopes with his name on them. “These are from the lab. Gentry asked me to drop them off to you, said you had put a rush on them and that he had come in early to get them done.”
Floyd took the two envelopes and thanked me. “He’s a good man.”
I agreed.
“But do you believe this shit with Mongo? This asshole is going to bring this blasphemous bullshit in here and present it like it’s the truth about Bruce Lee. I ought to kick him in the head and show him the truth about Lee, the dumb bastard.”
Mongo had turned back to his desk and his head was down, but his shoulders were shaking, and I thought I heard a snort. I was grinning widely myself at this point.
Floyd tossed the envelopes of photos onto his desk, staring at the back of Mongo’s head. “Do you hear me, Mongo? Hey, asshole . . . Fucking heat stroke.”
Mongo turned to reveal a red puckered face with tears coming out of his eyes. I began laughing too, and Mongo turned away. Floyd stood up from his chair and walked away, mumbling something about kicking both of our asses. He hadn’t smiled once during the conversation, and it occurred to me this had been a serious affront to him.
“I guess he was serious,” I said. But Mongo couldn’t talk. He never talked anyway, but this time he actually couldn’t say a word as he fought to contain his laughter. I had nothing left to say, so I rose from my chair and left Mongo there snorting.
“ ‘He passed away peacefully.’ Words I’m sure will escape any eulogy of mine.”
I set the Star News down on my desk with other mail I had carried back from the front desk. Josie looked up. “Obits in the department rag,” I clarified. She nodded and went back to reading from a stack of reports on her desk.
“What’s that?”
She didn’t look up. “Oh, just some robberies.”
I pulled up my chair. “What robberies? What do you have going on?”
She stopped and swiveled her chair to face me. “Friday night before leaving the office, I called the crime analyst from Compton Gangs, Loretta. I asked if she could go back six months and pull all of the liquor store and market armed robbery cases in a thirty-mile radius from Ho’s that involved two suspects. There aren’t as many as you would think, to be honest, because I didn’t have her put any other qualifiers on the search. I figured it would be best to have a big pile to wade through rather than taking a chance of missing something. After all, we don’t know anything about our killers, even their race.”
“Not bad, Detective.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“So your premise would be that there has been an escalation, that there would be straight robberies preceding those accompanied by killing.”
“Yeah, I think it’s a possibility.”
I nodded. “I think it’s brilliant. Have you found anything interesting yet?”
“I just started. She must have dropped them off this morning on her way to the office while we were at the autopsy.”
“Speaking of, I’m getting sort of hungry.” I glanced at my watch and saw it was nearing noon. My internal clock was right on track. “What about you?”
She stuck her tongue out. “I think I’ll be losing weight around here, if I have to keep going to that awful place.”
“Well, you do have to continue going, if you’re going to stick around. But you won’t lose any weight from the autopsies. You’ll actually get used to them, believe it or not. There’s just certain types of food I avoid when I leave there, like ribs. Maybe spaghetti too.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing people carved up. I pray to God I don’t.”
I chuckled. “Let me know what you come up with from those reports. I’m going to see if my sister has powered through her hormonal imbalance and is ready for lunch.”
Josie’s brows narrowed. “Your sister?”
“Floyd.”
She smiled. “Oh, gotcha. Mr. Pretty Boy.”
It was almost noon when Travis walked into the living room, barefoot and shirtless with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and sleep in his eyes. His long brown hair was disheveled and his beard resembled a rat’s nest. He wore the standard issue black tactical pants with a belt. The butt of a gun protruded from the waistline, pushing into his belly fat. Tina averted her eyes and focused on the book on her lap, a John Grisham novel about lawyers and murder. She heard him shuffle off, and glanced up to see his sagging drawers. The man had no ass, and a hairy back.
From the kitchen he called out to her. “Where’s that little shithead brother of yours?”
She drew a deep breath and paused, careful not to react to his words. “He’s out.”
Travis Hollingsworth stuck his head around the corner to glare at her. “I know he’s out, I can smell that much. Where the hell is he?”
Tina again broke eye contact as she answered. “He had errands.”
“Well that’s special. Why don’t you call him or text him or whatever and tell him to bring back something to eat. There ain’t nothing here to eat in this goddamn place, except beans and tortillas.”
“He’s casing some places. I’m not going to call him while he’s working.”
Travis had walked back into the living room. He stood rubbing his hairy belly and grinning until she glanced up again. “Well, then send him a text. Tell beaner-boy I need some fucking food, or I’m about to get downright unpleasant, and his big sister’s going to pay the price.”
Tina thought about killing him. It hadn’t been the first time she considered it, and it wouldn't be the last. In fact, she realized it would be her only way out, an exit plan she might need to implement sooner rather than later, before it was too late. But the time and place had to be just right, and she hadn’t worked out the details. She did know it would be imperative that his body was never found. His discovery would confirm her status
as alive and well, and AWOL from the United States Army. She didn’t want to have to flee to Mexico, so she would need to be careful in her planning. And she would have to get Carlos on board, but first she’d need to see that he could handle killing. She proffered a placating smile and said, “I’ll make you a couple burritos while you shower.”
Mongo didn’t join us for lunch. Floyd, still pissed, said, “That jackwad started working out at a kickboxing gym a month ago—”
“Who, Mongo?”
“Yeah, dickhead, Mongo. He’s trying to lose weight, and now all of a sudden, the guy is kung fu fuckin’ panda. A roly-poly, J.D.-drinking, snoring-while-he’s wide-awake, expert in the martial arts. Even though he can’t kick higher than your knee. Then, he has a good laugh over badmouthing the godfather of martial arts. I swear sometimes I think God hates me.”
“Josie’s turning out okay, so far. You might’ve been right about her.”
“Of course I was right, Dickie. Shit, just look at her. You’re riding around with Jennifer Lopez and I’ve got kung fu panda taking up two-thirds of my front seat. You just let me know if you want to trade, pal.”
“Jennifer Lopez?”
“J-Lo.”
I guess I had never known her real name. Had I thought that was her name, J-Lo? I didn’t know.
“She’s a good cop, has good investigative instinct.”
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