by G. M. Ford
She answered on the second ring. "Herald.''
I was only halfway through telling her what I wanted when she interrupted me. "Oh," she said. "That's way before my time. You'd need Mr. Bastyens to help you with that. He's our editor. He's been here since the ice receded. He knows absolutely everything about Raymond and the Willapa Valley. You couldn't possibly find a better source than Mr. Bastyens."
"Well, thanks a lot. Could I speak to Mr. Bastyens?"
"He's not in right now."
Arrrrgh. I left my name and number and then hung up.
I limped into the office and riffled the Rolodex until I came up with Tim Miller's E-mail address: sleuth znet.com. My old LCIH gave a soft eep as it hummed to life, sending a familiar series of colored icons dancing merrily across the bottom of the screen. I had, during these past months of inactivity, become addicted to surfing the World Wide Web, spending entire days exploring odd topics, decoding pictures of dubious moral merit, and conversing about absolutely nothing with other similarly disposed idlers from all over the globe. I was a hopeless case now. A shambling ruin of a man. The Internet and I were stuck with each other in perpetuity.
I clicked open my mail software, pasted in the address, and typed Tim everything I had on Karen Mendolson. Send. I watched, mesmerized, as the bar filled the little box and the message went through. Good thing I'd discovered the Web a long way past my five-joints-a-day period, or I would surely have been found in some dank cellar, gaunt and wasted, staring moronically at some particularly galling dialogue box.
That little task completed, I shut down and dialed Rebecca at the King County medical examiner's office, where she toiled as a forensic pathologist.
"Howzabout lunch?" I said when she hit the line.
"Do I know you?"
Strife was to be expected. I hadn't called in a couple of days. Somewhere along the way it had been decided, by a process to which I had for some reason not been privy, that anytime the lines of communication failed in any way and for any reason, I would unfailingly be to blame. We had, after all, if you deducted the three-plus years I'd been married to Annette, only been dating regularly for nineteen years.
We've known each other since grammar school. She is the sole issue of a shore-leave relationship between her mom, Letha, and an alcoholic merchant marine who to this day remains nameless. Throughout grammar school, Rebecca had always been the tall girl who knew the answers to everything. Her mother had worked three jobs to get Rebecca through medical school. As if in penance, Rebecca had pledged to see her mother through old age. We had long ago forged an unspoken understanding that whenever Letha went to her eternal reward, we would sit down and decide what to do next about our relationship. Letha, for her part, was taking full advantage of the fealty. Current indications suggested that, like certain heavy water isotopes, she could be expected to have a half-life of slightly over twelve thousand years.
"Someplace nice," I offered.
"Now I'm sure I don't know you."
"Swear to God I'll change."
"Ah," she said. "It must be that Leo."
"I called last evening and made us a res at Palomino," I said, naming her favorite room.
"You are the sly one, aren't you?"
"I know the way to your heart."
"Straight through the sternum with a number-seven saw." I could actually hear her smiling.
"By the by," I said, "who did the autopsy on Lukkas Terry?"
"Tommy. Why?"
"Something I've been working on," I mumbled.
"Working. You mean Mr. Moneybags has been working again? Your ass is officially healed, then?"
I quickly changed the subject."Could you ask Tommy--''
"No way," she said firmly.
"Come on," I wailed.
"No way," she repeated. "I will not be duplicitous with a colleague. There's no way I can ask him anything like that without him knowing I'm asking for you. I won't do that. If you want information from Tommy, you'll have to ask him yourself. Besides that, you know how he likes to torture you, Leo. It's one of his few remaining joys in life."
No shit. Nothing old Tommy Matsukawa liked better than getting me locked in a room full of heaped, piled, burned, bullet-riddled, head-through-the-windshield, eye balls-hangin'-down dead bodies. I'm no more squeamish than the next guy; hell, I've seen considerably more than my share of gore, and don't for a minute think I don't understand that people who work with the dead can pretty much be expected to develop a sense of humor that's a tad out of the mainstream. Even with all of that, though, old Tommy was a bit much. No sooner did I set foot in the building than he would go out of his way to share with me the choice parts of whatever grisly carcass he was working on at the moment. At first I thought he was just being friendly in a macabre sort of way. Like he wanted to share his work and all that. After all, truth be told, it does take a certain savoir faire to fully appreciate the finer points of a good abscess. Later, I came to realize that what he really had always wanted was to bowl in Rebecca's pagoda, and he quite rightly saw me as a serious impediment to that end. Rebecca, for her part, remained wildly amused.
"I'll be down in half an hour," I said sourly. "Meet me out at the corner. I'd rather talk to Tommy on a full stomach."
"Chicken," she sang.
11
Don't forget there's no parking in the lot because of the construction," Rebecca said as we crested Ninth Avenue.
"Still?"
"It's so bad I've been taking the bus."
"That's bad," I sympathized.
"It's even worse over in my neighborhood. The whole north side off of Fifty-fifth is closed. Some big gas company project. If you live there you have to park out on Fifty-fifth and walk in. They've dug a trench all the way across the top of the hill. I have to drive all the way up to Thirty-fifth Avenue and then come around the back."
Harborview Hospital loomed ahead. The King County medical examiner's office occupies the southernmost dungeon hi the Harborview Medical Center complex on lower Ninth Avenue, hard by what in Seattle passes for the ghetto, a hodgepodge of apartments and duplexes rolling down the south and west faces of the hill toward Pioneer Square and South Seattle. They're all named Something Terrace. Yes ler Terrace. Harborview Terrace. In Seattlese "terrace" means "projects," as in the public housing variety. The medical examiner's office was the last outpost on the frontier of justice. Fort Hematoma.
I turned the Fiat east on Alder and back again to the left on Terry.
"There, in front of the apartment building," Rebecca said, pointing with a long, manicured finger.
I sprinted past, U-turned in a driveway, and slipped the Fiat to the curb on the west side of the street. Neat as could be.
"Thank goodness," Rebecca said as I helped her from the car. "I can't believe you still haven't had this car fixed."
"It is fixed."
"I must be overly sensitive. Traveling at a thirty-degree angle was beginning to unsettle that wonderful lunch we had."
She took my arm as we marched our way down to Jefferson and turned left back toward Ninth Avenue, where we emerged from the shadows into brilliant sunshine. To the south, Mount Rainier stuck up like a salacious silver tongue. To the north, the green dome of Saint James Cathedral rose above the utility lines.
"Did you tell Tommy I was coming?" I asked as we strolled along.
"Of course."
"Thanks a bunch."
"Anytime."
"He's probably been rummaging through the freezers thawing out particularly luscious tidbits for me."
"Probably," she agreed.
"You just feel guilty."
"Who?"
"You."
"Guilty about what?"
"For kicking his ass in the sixth grade." Tommy Matsukawa, Rebecca, and I had all served our middle school sentences together at Denny Middle School.
She released my arm and inspected the treetops. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."
"I can still see y
ou sitting on his chest, holding him by the ears, banging his head off the blacktop."
"You do truly have a fevered imagination, Leo." She wagged a finger at me. "Sixties flashbacks, I suspect. That's probably why you've come to no good." When I didn't object, she continued. "Besides, if any such thing had actually happened, it could only have been because he made fun of my height."
"Ah " I started.
"Hypothetically speaking, of course," she added.
"You still feel bad; that's how come you tolerate him. That's also how come you recommended him for the job."
"I don't know what you're talking about. Tommy's a first-class pathologist. You must be "
"That and the fact that he's warm for your form."
She punched me hard in the arm. "Really, Leo, you're supposed to have outgrown your genital stage by now."
"He's had a boner for you since grammar school."
She started to object. I blustered her off. "And that's not even the scary part."
"Pray tell."
"The scary thing is, I think he liked you kicking his ass."
"You are such a pervert."
"Thank you," I said.
She reannexed my arm. "Speaking of that "
"Do tell."
"Mom and Rhetta left on their cruise yesterday," she said.
"How long?"
"Two weeks bobbing about among the icebergs."
"Really," I said. "Two weeks? Aren't they usually at one another's throats on about the fourth day?"?
"They're getting better. I think old age is mellowing them."
"That's a frightening thought," I said.
"Oh no. For a frightening thought, consider the fact that fj lately they've been talking about moving in together."
I mulled this over as we walked. "Where does that leave you?" I asked casually.
"I think that would leave us about at that discussion we've always been promising to have."
"I suppose a full-fledged sprint back to my car would be considered poor form about now."
"Extremely," she confirmed. "Not only that, but I've always been faster than you."
I kept my chin high and my step steady. "I should probably start acting more agreeable, then."
"Probably," she agreed.
We strolled on, turning down the little fractured femur of Alder Street that ran along the south side of Harborview. Dug in like a bad toenail, 850 Alder was nearly buried by a latticed superstructure of steel scaffolding, wooden catwalks, and concrete forms. I'd asked everyone, but nobody knew what it was they were building. We went down the stairs. The reception desk was empty. A little red clock. Smiley face. Be back at 1:00. It was 1:20.
Rebecca removed her coat and looked up at the assignment board.
"Tommy's working in three. Second door on the left."
"I don't suppose "
"I've got a meeting and then a logjam of lab work. Call me later. Or" she started down the hall, smiling back over her shoulder "you can neglect me for another couple of days and then just make another reservation at Palomino. Ta-ta."
I watched until she turned right into her office and then took a deep breath. I was a man with a plan. I was ready. I'd been training for a moment such as this, and now the moment was at hand. During my recent sabbatical, I had filled some of the time when I wasn't surfing the Net with movies. Three or four a week. Sometimes more. I'd seen everything. The Academy Awards committee should be so wise as to seek my counsel. Somewhere along the way, after the zillionth frame of Hollywood gore, I'd developed the ability to see the carnage as merely interestingly constructed plastic creations. I no longer averted my eyes at the sight of mock internal organs. Instead, I now tried to figure out how they had gone about constructing this thing that looked so convincingly like a recently severed arm, its veins and arteries still quivering, fingers easing open for the last time. I had willfully suspended my willful suspension of disbelief. That's what I was going to do today. It's just a plastic model. Just a plastic model. Just. . .
Three was what I presumed to be a typical autopsy room. On the right, a series of large stainless steel drawers provided temporary shelter for the stiffs. Except for massive overhead lights and the big drain in the middle of the floor, the rest of the room could have passed for a high school science lab.
I pulled open the door. Tommy Maksukawa's head popped up from behind the green-covered atrocity that lay heaped on the table in front of him.
"Hey, Tommy," I said.
"Good to see you, Leo." His eyes crinkled above the surgical mask. "Come on in. Take a look at this."
As I started across the room, I began my internal dialogue. It's just a plastic model. Just a plastic model. Must have taken them weeks to get the feet that purple color. Interesting. I wonder how they--"
"Rebecca says you did the postmortem on that Lukkas Terry kid."
"That was my unfortunate honor," he confirmed.
I stopped on the near side of the table, with the stiff between us. Huge. A floater. Looked like somebody put an air hose up his ass. All puffed up and ready to burst like a bad souffle. Oh, Jesus, it's got no face. No. No. Deep breath. They just haven't put the face on yet. That's it. Amazing how they just left the holes so the artist could work out the face itself later. A lot of different people probably work on a big model like this. Specialization is the key.
"Just your run-of-the-mill drug overdose?" I asked.
"Had enough pure smack in his system to kill a rhino. Come over on this side. Take a look at this."
I kept smiling as I walked around. It's amazing what they can do with these new plastics. Look how lifelike those sawed-off rib ends are where he's cut that big window in the thing's chest cavity. Got him a little door now, like an old-time speakeasy. Just needs a knob. Joe sent me.
"Pure smack. You mean, like, untouched, nobody had stepped on it at all?"
"Pure as the driven snow. Best stuff I've analyzed in years. China White. Stopped his clock in two seconds flat."
"Where the hell does a body get uncut drugs these days?" I wondered out loud.
He winked and leered. "When you're a big-time rock star, I imagine you can pretty much get whatever you want."
Tommy pulled open the trapdoor in the model's chest to reveal a morass of internal organs, all blown up like a mottled rainbow of balloons, all fighting for space within the torso.
"Did you ever see a spleen that big?" he asked, poking a quivering purple balloon with his gloved index finger.
"Not since breakfast," I offered cheerfully. "Was there other evidence of him being an IV drug user?"
Amazing realism. They've even included aroma. I wonder if the individual organs are all scratch-and-sniff?
"That's the sad part," Tommy said, dropping the trapdoor with a wet plop. "Cops found a set of works there in the house. He had three or four fresh puncture marks. He was either a moderate user or he'd just started. Either way, he was no way ready for anything that strong."
"How much energy did the SPD put into it?"
I could see the consternation in his eyes. I should have been puking down the drain by now. I had him going.
"What was there for them to do? He's found locked in his own house, in his own bathroom, needle still in his arm. This wasn't like Beaver Cleaver suddenly went wrong or anything either. This kid had a psychiatric history you wouldn't believe. Foster homes. Been remanded to the state twice. I mean, I'm sure, you know, him being famous and all, I'm sure SPD dotted their f s and such, but this was strictly a no-brainer."
"Nothing at all?" I pressed.
He ruminated. "An elderly neighbor thought she heard loud voices coming from the place on the night he died."
"Did they investigate?"
I could sense that he was smiling behind the mask. "You know what she wanted the crime lab techs to do?''
"What?"
"She wanted them to check and see if her locks had been picked. You know why?"
"I'll bite. Why?"
"Be
cause she was sure that people had been breaking into the place and moving her stuff. Her keys and glasses. Not stealing them or anything. Just moving around so she couldn't find them. She figured it was the Lebanese couple at the end of the hall."
I took another tack. "And, from your end, you gave him the whole nine yards?"
"Hey, man, it's a big case. I've got every second on film and enough tissue samples in the freezer for a barbecue. The steel plate from his arm. You name it, I got it. My Peking ducks are in a row."
"I didn't mean to imply " I started.
"You ever seen a pancreas?"
I took a deep breath. "No," I said. "But I've been meaning to."
He began rooting around, up to his elbow in the torso. I took another tack. "Who found him?"
"Anonymous phone tip. A woman, as I understand it. Probably one of his groupies. Didn't want to get involved. That sort of thing. Probably a user herself. They want nothing to do with the heat, but I don't have to tell you that."
"No question about any of it at all?" I pressed.
"Nada. Cut and dried.... Ahhhh," he said, snaking his arm out of the model. In his hand was an oblong object the size of a sweet potato. He waved it under my nose. "The pancreas," he announced.
That's what it is a sweet potato or a yam covered in guava jelly. Amazing what they'll think of and they are scratch-and-sniff. Wow. Wonder how in God's name they did that.
Nonplussed, I ambled back around to the far side of the model.
"Well, Tommy, my man, thanks for the info and the anatomy lesson," I said.
His eyes narrowed. His cheek twitched madly beneath the mask.
"You know how come everything blows up like this, Leo?" he asked as he again pulled back the trapdoor.
"How come?"
"Because it's a closed system. Once the gas buildup begins, it has no external outlet. Once rigor closes the anus, the gas just moves from organ to organ, blowing them up like a bunch of circus balloons linked in series."
Balloons. I knew it! That's precisely what they are. They must have painted them all those ghastly earth tones. Surely they don't come in those hues.
"Until--" He let it hang.
"Until what?"