Shadow Image

by Martin J. Smith

“And these are the cases from the past ten years you feel should be reviewed?” he said.

  “I’ve only completed my review of seven of those ten years.” She nodded toward the file from which she’d pulled the Underhill folder. “But you’re essentially correct.”

  “And these are cases you’re reviewing because you have questions about them?”

  “Correct.”

  The cat-and-mouse game was annoying, but at least Christensen felt like he was making progress. “What sort of things do you consider when you refer a case? I mean, you must have specific things you’re looking for.”

  Carrie Haygood leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk and folding her thick hands beneath her chin. Her face was serious now. The stakes of the game seemed to rise. “There are indicators we look for, Mr. Christensen, red flags that are typical in cases of this sort. Inconsistencies.” She paused to let the word’s weight settle.

  “Between?”

  “Cause of death. Physical evidence. Witness statements. Forensic science has come a long way in the last few years, Mr. Christensen. A physical injury tells a story, but not every overworked detective is able to hear it or understand it.”

  “You look for red flags,” he said.

  “Correct.”

  “And you saw one in this file?”

  She shook her head, slowly and deliberately. “I’m not at liberty to discuss any particular case, Mr. Christensen, as I said.”

  He tried again. “Are there certain causes of death that are suspicious?”

  “Not on their face, no,” she said. “But some findings are misinterpreted more often than others.”

  “And when you see one of those, you pay particular attention?”

  “Correct.”

  Christensen shifted forward in his chair. Their faces were maybe three feet from one another, their eyes locked. “I assume you then examine the other information in the file for those inconsistencies you’re talking about.”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you come across questions you can’t answer, you refer that case to the Child Death Review Team for further review.”

  Haygood nodded toward the hanging files, her eyes never leaving his. “We have twenty-eight so far.”

  Christensen sat back, the implication settling on his chest with the weight of an X-ray apron. He felt as if he’d kicked over a rock, exposing something wretched and squirming and very dangerous. He looked around the room at the paperwork of tragedy. Only twenty-eight cases stood apart, and Chip Underhill’s was one of them.

  A question popped into his mind, and he asked it as soon as it did. “What’s a subdural hematoma?”

  The air around Carrie Haygood seemed to crackle with tension, an almost electrical charge. “It’s a brain injury,” she said, “but one with very predictable causes.”

  They had reached a precipice now, and there was no turning back.

  “Such as?” Christensen said.

  “It’s most common in cases where there’s a high-velocity impact.”

  “Like a car crash?”

  “Correct.”

  “Or a horse kick?”

  Haygood shrugged. “In my experience, Mr. Christensen—and I’m speaking generally here—only two things cause a subdural hematoma in children. A high-velocity impact, or an assault.”

  “By an adult?”

  Haygood nodded. “We call it shaken baby syndrome. Snaps their little heads back and forth. It explains maybe ten percent of the two thousand child-abuse deaths every year in this country. But subdural hematoma cases are tricky, because there usually aren’t classic signs of abuse. No history. No criminal record in the adult. What you have are people, typically boyfriends or fathers, who just lose control for a minute or two. Which is why we try to look at the SH cases more closely than some others.”

  She had said nothing, really, but the inference hung between them.

  “But a horse’s kick would be consistent with that, right?” he said.

  “Maybe.” She pushed his file of photocopies back across the desk. It was still open to the last page of Simon Bostwick’s autopsy protocol. Her finger lingered on a paragraph beneath the section describing Chip Underhill’s head. “Assuming the physical evidence was consistent with the witness accounts.”

  Christensen read the paragraph again. No contusions. No fractures. No obvious bleeding except in the boy’s brain and retinas. Nothing whatsoever that suggested the impact of a horse’s hoof. He looked up. Haygood still hadn’t shifted her eyes from his.

  “Of course, we’d never proceed on a case without digging out the full file from the morgue,” she said.

  “The full file?”

  “These files I’ve got don’t include the autopsy photos, X-rays, that sort of thing,” she said.

  He nodded. Carrie Haygood sat back, her chair groaning as her weight shifted. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

  “Now,” she said finally, “if you don’t have any other questions, Mr. Christensen, I’ve got a lot of work here that needs my attention.”

  Chapter 25

  The fifth-floor corridor was empty. Christensen pulled the door to room 514 shut and looked up and down the hall, trying to make sense of an illogical feeling he had. He suddenly knew the uneasy feeling of a small deer who blunders into a wide-open meadow during hunting season. The silence was profoundly disturbing.

  He passed the elevator and started down the stairs, reviewing his conversation with Carrie Haygood. She’d told him nothing, and everything. At the very least, she’d implied that there was reason to suspect the official version of the death of Chip Underhill, the only child of the man likely to be the state’s next governor. She’d used the word “assault,” if only in general terms. He couldn’t imagine a more explosive allegation in the heat of a high-profile political campaign.

  Then again, who was Carrie Haygood? Boil it all down, filter out her Ivy League credentials and her projected air of sanctity and mission, and in the end she was just an investigator who worked for J. D. Dagnolo, one of Underhill’s most rabid political opponents. She’d already decided something was amiss with the previous investigation. Then she’d sketched a vague theory full of implication to a total stranger who had wandered uninvited to her office just days before the primary-election polls opened. Why?

  He needed to talk to Brenna. She knew better than most how to navigate the Machiavellian swamp that was Grant Street. He knew only that he was in over his head, clutching for the hand of someone who understood this world of expedient loyalties and calculated cruelty and the strange science of judiciously leaked information. As he swept past the district attorney’s offices on the third floor, Christensen wondered if Haygood was already on the phone to her boss.

  A flash of familiar color, a brilliant copper, caught his eye as he passed the large window overlooking the brick courtyard. A second look confirmed his hunch. Two floors below, Brenna was standing at the center of a small knot of men gathered near the blue fountain at the courtyard’s center. Two of the men were holding television cameras. Klieg lights blazed.

  He hurried down the remaining stairs and looked for a way into the building’s central plaza. When he found one, he slowed his pace to a saunter to stay inconspicuous as he approached the group. He edged as close as he could and sat down on a low wall, hoping to snag Brenna as soon as she was done. If she shared any of his nagging doubts about the Underhills, she showed no hint of it as she answered the reporters’ questions calmly and patiently.

  “—don’t know where that information is coming from, Mr. Levin, but we’re certainly going to wait until the investigation is complete before responding to anything like that.”

  “So, are you saying you we
re not aware of this supposed eyewitness, or that you’re not concerned about his statements about the struggle?”

  “Neither, Myron, and I think you’re aware of that. I’m saying we know of at least one conflicting account of Mrs. Underhill’s fall, and that we hope further investigation will get to the bottom of it. But right now, we don’t find that account cause for alarm.”

  “No cause for alarm? No cause for alarm?” Astonished reactions were a Myron Levin trademark. “You don’t find the possibility that the leading gubernatorial candidate’s mother might have been shoved off a cliff ten days before the election any cause for alarm?”

  Another reporter, a young black woman, interrupted. “Give it a rest, Myron. Brenna, how is Mrs. Underhill feeling?”

  “She’s back home and doing fine. Because of her age, it may take her broken bones longer than usual to heal, but her doctors don’t anticipate any long-term physical problems. Thank you for asking, Tawny. Is that it, everybody?”

  Myron Levin wouldn’t be denied. “The investigator’s report says the witness was part of the Underhills’ household staff, a Hispanic male,” he said. “It says his wife worked for the family, too. True?”

  “I’ve read the same report, Mr. Levin,” Brenna said. “Ask the sheriff or the D.A. if it’s true. It’s their report. If you’ll excuse me, then—”

  “Have you spoken to the witness, Ms. Kennedy?”

  “I won’t comment on that.”

  Christensen caught Brenna’s eye as she pushed her way out of the tight circle. She started to smile, apparently relieved to see a friendly face and be out of the spotlight, but Levin followed her. He dropped his microphone to his waist as they walked away from the group. “Brenna,” he said in a stage whisper.

  Brenna turned around, clearly annoyed. They were off-camera now, and Brenna had had enough. Christensen was glad he wasn’t Myron Levin at that moment.

  “You may want to touch base with Dr. Walsh’s office,” Levin said. “Something’s come up, if you know what I mean.”

  Brenna froze, her shoulders going slack. Levin stood with his microphone dangling at his side, looking very much like a slugger who’d just connected. Brenna wheeled and walked back toward him. “Cut the bullshit, Myron. What’s that mean—something’s come up?”

  Levin just smiled. “Just a hunch. Call.”

  Brenna shifted her briefcase from one hand to the other, never taking her eyes off the TV reporter’s. Then, without another word, she turned and walked away. She was coming straight toward him now, but from her stride Christensen could tell she had no intention of stopping. In her wake, the faintest trace of Eternity.

  “Whoa, what’s with her?” Liisa cocked her head toward Brenna’s closed office door. “She didn’t even pick up her messages.”

  “I’ll take them in to her,” Christensen said.

  The secretary shook her head, handing him a stack of pink message slips. “Enter at your own risk.”

  He knocked lightly and pushed through the door. Brenna was at her desk, the telephone already to her ear, dramatically framed in an angled bank of wide windows. Every time he came to her office, Christensen was impressed by its stunning panorama view that swept from the South Side past PPG’s crystal tower, Point State Park, and across to Three Rivers Stadium. She motioned him in, saying “Tommy Hasch, please” into the phone.

  “Problems?” he said.

  Brenna covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “Not sure. Myron’s still up to something. I just need to get ahead of the curve.” Christensen started to respond, but she held up her free hand. “I’ll hold. Thanks.”

  He was a pretty good judge of her moods, but this one was confounding—not exactly worried, but uneasy. Brenna was the consummate Grant Street insider, and the thought that Myron Levin or any news reporter knew something she didn’t probably bugged her more than she’d ever admit.

  “Who’s Tommy Hasch?” he asked.

  “Deputy coroner.” She winked. “My mole over there. Find what you needed at the courthouse this morning?”

  He thought of Carrie Haygood. “We need to talk about that. Bren, I think we’re both behind the curve on this thing—”

  “We need to talk about something else, too,” she interrupted. “How do you feel about Harrisburg?”

  “Nothing a neutron bomb wouldn’t fix.”

  Brenna flinched. Her eyes narrowed. She was pissed, and he didn’t care. Right now, it was a welcome distraction.

  “Never mind,” she said.

  “Bren, this woman on the Child Death Review Team—”

  “Tommy?” She motioned for silence. “Since when are you actually in the office?”

  Her voice was suddenly playful, almost sultry, a carnal whisper in the ear of any man who ever imagined himself with her. He’d heard her use it on cops and prosecutors with devastating effect, and just as effectively in bed. Christensen knew she was just wheedling for information, knew why, but he felt himself suddenly jealous of a deputy coroner named Tommy Hasch.

  “Walsh can’t replace everybody,” she said. “Clerical I can see, but not you guys. Preech hired good people, pros, when he was in office. Walsh wouldn’t play patronage with professional staff. He needs you guys to make him look good.”

  Brenna listened patiently as the deputy coroner apparently continued his litany of ongoing staff changes at the morgue under new coroner Cyrus Walsh. Finally: “If there’s anything I can do, write a letter or anything for you, let me know. Not that it would do any good. Walsh seems to have his own agenda, and I don’t know him nearly as well as I knew Preech. But you let me know if there’s anything—”

  She listened again as Tommy Hasch continued, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling in mock exasperation. “Well, he’s—” she tried. Then, oozing sympathy, “I know. So you let me know if there’s anything I can do. You’ve done me a ton of favors over the years. Me? Nothing much. A little birdie just told me to call. What’s new?”

  Christensen walked over to the bank of windows, to the side facing the Monongahela River. He pressed his face against the glass, trying to see the morgue in the dark canyon between the courthouse and the Grant Building, but it was lost somewhere in the shadows.

  “I read about that, up in the Hill. You handled that one?” Brenna shook her head. “Oh, yuck. Where do kids get guns that big?” She shifted in her seat, getting down to business. “Anything come up on any of my cases?”

  Christensen tried to read her eyes. They were focused now on a blank legal pad on her desk. She plucked the pen from its holder, ready to take notes.

  “Nothing?” Brenna set the pen down. Her shoulders relaxed. “You’re sure?” The soft leather of her executive chair exhaled, as did Brenna, as she leaned back and ran a hand through her hair. “Maybe I need a new little birdie.”

  When she leaned forward again, though, she picked up her pen and jotted some notes. “That was yesterday morning? I didn’t hear anything about it.”

  Christensen crossed back to the chair in front of her desk and sat down, glancing at his watch. Almost lunchtime, but he wasn’t hungry. When he looked up, he was startled by the change in Brenna’s expression.

  “No IDs, though? Any idea how soon you’ll have them?” She was scribbling furiously now. “Where’d they come up?”

  Christensen leaned forward, trying to read her handwriting upside down. McKees Rocks. Neville Island. Other phrases leapt off the page: Hispanic male. Hispanic female. Execution-style. Powder burns. Wadding in tissue. Bruised wrists. His mind raced to a horrifying conclusion.

  Brenna noticed him eavesdropping, waved him off, and pulled the pad away.

  “You know those currents around the Point, Tommy. Even if they were dumped together, even weighted, they wouldn’t stay down
long. Any idea where they went in?” Brenna turned her chair to her left, focusing briefly on the brown sliver of Allegheny River that divided Downtown from the North Side. “You can tell all that from the sediment in his pockets?”

  Brenna set the pen down and turned the pad over on her desk. “Nothing, probably. I don’t know,” she said. Her voice shifted again, back to the carnal whisper. “Would you be a sweetheart, though, and let me know when you’ve got IDs. I won’t know if it means anything or not until you’ve got those.”

  She reached forward, her finger poised above the phone’s disconnect button. “Tommy? It’s probably nothing, like I said, but this stays between us, right? Thanks.”

  Brenna mustered a provocative good-bye and brought her finger down, then looked across the desk. He waited, breathless. The intercom beeped immediately, and Liisa announced a visitor. Brenna studied him a long time, then stood up. “It’s probably nothing,” she repeated, “but maybe we should talk later.”

  Chapter 26

  Annie wanted Flintstones; Taylor wanted Bugs Bunny. “Come on, guys,” Christensen urged. “Jenny’ll be here in five minutes and we need to decide so I can get it on the stove.”

  The two children glared at one another.

  “Look, it’s all just macaroni and cheese,” he said. “They’re both orange. Orange food is good for your eyes or something, isn’t it?”

  Annie stood with her legs planted slightly apart, arms folded across her chest. “Flintstones taste better.”

  “Bugs,” Taylor countered.

  “Flintstones.”

  Christensen opened the pantry, put both boxes back on the shelf and closed the cupboard door with more force than was necessary. “We’ll have something else then,” he said, his tone calculated to leave no room for discussion. “Go wash your hands. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

  Annie could barely contain her rage. She took a step toward the younger and smaller boy, clenching and unclenching her tiny fists. Taylor seemed to shrink as she approached. “You’re dead,” Annie said.