Right to Die

by Jeff Mariotte

  His body had already begun to answer some of those questions. The manner of death, for instance, was almost certainly homicide. One couldn’t shoot oneself from a distance, in two different directions. The multiple gunshot wounds also contraindicated accidental death. Natural causes could still win out, but the amount of blood soaking the man’s clothing and on the ground beneath him made her think he had been alive until he was shot. Once the heart stopped pumping, the blood stopped flowing.

  The blood answered another of her questions. The mechanism of death was almost certainly ex-sanguination, bleeding out because of the bullet wounds.

  When she got inside him and ruled out heart attack, poison, drug overdose, and so on, then her suspicion—that the cause of death was the gunshot wounds (one or both)—would be confirmed, or, far less likely, denied.

  She approached any body with her own hunches and suspicions, but she didn’t let those presumptions dictate her actions or conclusions. She stuck to the process she had learned, and the conclusions would be drawn only when the process was finished, all the evidence considered. The dead told their own stories, but you didn’t know how the story ended until the last page was turned.

  Cameras, still and video, photographed every inch of the man’s clothed body. Once she had checked to make sure that removing his clothing wouldn’t destroy any evidence, she would undress him and photograph him again.

  The nylon jacket and pants were from a budget store tracksuit, white with blue ornamentation and piping. The red T-shirt was cotton, with no logo or message, a common brand that could have come from almost anywhere. The white sneakers had probably cost him several times what the rest of the outfit had. He wore them untied, and Alexx always wondered why gangsters, who might have to run at any moment, would leave their shoes untied, or worse, wear those baggy pants that could fall down at the slightest provocation.

  At the park, she and Ryan had found the bullet holes in the shirt, front and back, and the corresponding holes in the back of the blood-soaked jacket. Other than normal wear and tear, she couldn’t see any additional damage to the clothing. It had vegetation all over it, grass from where the young man had fallen, and patches of moisture from the morning’s dew, but she couldn’t find anything else she could specifically point to as evidence. She carefully removed the clothing and set it aside, to be sent over to the crime lab for further processing.

  “I know this is a terrible imposition,” she said as she tugged off his shoes. “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to, believe me.”

  His athletic socks were white, worn at the heels, washed many times. She pulled them off and put them on a stainless steel counter, revealing feet with thick calluses and blunt, uneven toenails that had probably been cut with a knife instead of clippers or scissors. The familiar—common but by no means universal—odor of sweaty feet drifted up. “You’ve spent some time walking around barefoot, haven’t you?” she asked him. “By choice? Or because your family couldn’t always afford shoes that fit?”

  Dialogue with the dead—they didn’t put that in the job description, but for Alexx, it was the most important part. They had so much to say, if only people knew how to listen.

  “Well, Alexx?”

  She didn’t hear him at first. She was bent over the John Doe’s head, working with a rotary bone saw. Bits of blood and shards of skull flew everywhere, spattering Alexx’s scrubs, safety glasses, and mask. A burning smell filled the autopsy theater, competing with the odors of disinfectant and death; between the grinding sound and the stink, every one of Horatio’s childhood dentist’s office fears might have been coming true.

  Alexx had pinned her hair up and wore dark blue scrubs instead of the stylish suit she’d had on at the park. She was a beautiful woman in any setting, but here in her morgue she dressed for function, not fashion.

  She would have started by making an incision from ear to ear, across the top of the head—taking the polar route, he sometimes thought—and peeled the victim’s scalp forward to reveal his skull. Now she used the bone saw to cut through the skull itself, exposing the brain. She would examine that in place, then remove it for a more thorough inspection and to take tissue samples.

  The fact that the man had been shot twice would never leave her thoughts, but she wouldn’t let that dictate her procedure. Every ME had come across bodies that seemed to have died one way, only to find out that something else entirely had really killed them. Alexx was thorough and precise, and she would give this victim the same consideration she gave them all.

  After a few moments she noticed Horatio, who stood well away from her autopsy table, and shut off her saw.

  “Anything yet, Alexx?” he asked when the blade stopped spinning.

  “I’m still working on him,” she said, stating the obvious. “But so far I’m betting on those gunshot wounds. The through-and-through severed his aortic semilunar valve.”

  “Which carries blood from the heart’s left ventricle into the aorta,” he said softly.

  “That’s right, Horatio. After that, with every succeeding pump of the left ventricle, the blood was carried away from his heart and out the exit wound in his back.”

  She beckoned him closer and showed him the torso wound, a small hole with a dark bruise haloing it. “It’s an abrasion collar,” she said. She had made a Y-shaped incision in the victim, from the shoulders to the sternum and then down the abdomen to the pubis, and removed his intestines, stomach, heart, lungs, and other organs to be weighed and examined separately. Reaching down through the opening, she had cut away his spinal cord and pulled it free. “The shooter was several feet away from him, at least. I’ve already pulled out the second bullet, which entered through his back and lodged in his costal cartilage, but that one hadn’t done what I’d consider to be significant damage.”

  “So the round that killed Mister Doe is the forty-five that we found at the scene,” Horatio said. “The through-and-through.”

  She offered him a wide smile. “That’s for you to prove, Horatio, not me. The one I gave Calleigh looked like a nine-mil.”

  “Time of death?” Horatio asked her. He brushed a lock of light red hair—what his mother had called “strawberry blond”—off his forehead. It promptly fell back where it had been, and he left it alone.

  “I put TOD between two and four this morning,” she replied.

  “Thank you, Alexx.” He started to turn away.

  “One more thing, Horatio,” she said, touching a remote control button. An image flickered to life on one of the big monitors by her table. “Take a look at these tattoos. Do you think they might help you identify this boy?”

  At the park, Horatio had noticed the teardrop beside the man’s eye, but he hadn’t seen the flesh of his back. It was covered in ink. The stylized letters LDB dominated the display, running from one shoulder blade to the other, about eight inches high, as ornate as a newspaper’s logo. Above the letters, centered between the shoulderblades, was a sun with daggerlike flames leaping from it. Below the letters, his back was filled with incredibly detailed images—men and women, several knives, various snakes and dragons, and other things that Horatio couldn’t identify in all the clutter, especially with the bullet wounds deforming some.

  “They just might, Alexx. His back is his canvas.”

  “And his ID badge,” Alexx said.

  “Print me out a copy of those tattoos, please, Alexx. I’ll see if our friends at the gang unit recognize our victim.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Alexx said. “Maybe you’ll get a hit from his ten-card, too. Otherwise I think you can probably do it from dental records—the vic’s had a bit of dental work done.”

  “That’s good, Alexx. The more avenues, the better—we need to know who this boy is in order to find out who killed him,”

  “I don’t know him by sight.” Sergeant Gabe Ramos handed the photos back to Horatio. “But he’s with Los Danger Boys, for sure. That’s what the big LDB on his back means.”

  “A
nd you think he’s currently a member?” Horatio asked. He had worked with Gabe on several cases, including his investigation into the deadly Mala Noche gang, and trusted the man completely.

  Gabe scratched his left eyebrow, which was thick and black. He kept his hair cut short and his face shaved clean, but even by noon his five o’clock shadow was beginning to show. “Pretty sure, yeah. For one thing, he’s still young. Usually guys don’t try to get out of gangs until they’re older, a little more mature. In their thirties, maybe forties. Unless something happens.”

  “Something like…?”

  “Usually, the surest way out is to be killed,” Gabe said. “Otherwise, some who are arrested try to go straight after they serve their time, and will try to keep far away from their former gang members. Those will often get their tats removed, because wearing a gang tat when you’re not in the gang anymore can be a death sentence. This guy hasn’t tried to remove the LDB, and given his apparent age, I’d have to guess that he’s still with them. Or was, until just before you found him.”

  “Was,” Horatio agreed. “He took the most common exit route. What can you tell me about Los Danger Boys?”

  “They’re one hundred percent Hispanic,” Gabe said. “Mostly Puerto Rican, but they’ve let in a few Mexican-Americans and even some Cubans.”

  “That’s rare, isn’t it?”

  “Most gangs are more discriminating,” Gabe answered. He was in uniform, leaning against a filing cabinet in the gang unit’s suite of offices. Other officers worked around them, some typing on keyboards or talking quietly on telephones, others gathered around a map of Miami, plotting out the afternoon’s patrol routes. “But Los Danger Boys feel that all Hispanics have something in common, even if it’s just a mutual hatred of other gangs, so they’ve opened the doors. Besides, Miami’s been getting a lot more Mexican-Americans lately, so part of it might just be a pragmatic consideration.”

  “How many members are there, Gabe?”

  “Statewide, I’d say in the neighborhood of two hundred, maybe two-twenty. Of those, probably forty or fifty are in the system. In Miami, about sixty or seventy, mostly in the Overtown neighborhood.”

  “Some mean streets there,” Horatio said.

  Gabe tapped the filing cabinet behind him. “We shake them down pretty regularly,” he said. “Try to get ten-cards and photos, known aliases, that kind of thing, for our files. But I don’t know them all, and your boy there is one I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting.”

  “And you won’t,” Horatio reminded him. “I may have to have a talk with some of his fellow Danger Boys, though, to find out who he is.”

  “You need any help, let me know, Horatio.”

  “I appreciate it, Gabe. Thanks.”

  Horatio left the gang unit, heading back to the crime lab, but Frank Tripp stopped him en route.

  “We were just on our way to see you, Horatio,” he said. “You saved us a trip.”

  “Glad to help,” Horatio said. He eyed the man behind Frank. Brown hair cut and combed neatly, crisp dark suit, silk tie, sunglasses tucked into his breast pocket—a Fed, he thought.

  “Lieutenant Horatio Caine,” Frank said quickly, like a party host remembering his manners, “this is Special Agent Wendell Asher. He’s with the Bureau.”

  Horatio gave Asher a quick handshake. Asher was a few inches taller than he was, and from his build and carriage, Horatio was willing to bet he’d played college football. “It’s a pleasure,” he said. “You’re not in the Miami field office.”

  “Denver,” Asher said. His teeth were white and even, his voice smooth as silk. “Here on special assignment.”

  “Dennis Sackheim vouched for him,” Frank said.

  “Apparently these two are old pals.”

  “Acquaintances, really,” Asher corrected. “We went through the Academy together. I could tell you some stories—”

  “What brings you to Miami?” Horatio interrupted. He really didn’t want to hear stories about Dennis’s Academy days.

  “A serial bomber,” Asher answered.

  “But we haven’t had any bombings lately.”

  “Not yet.” Asher held up his right hand, with his index and middle fingers crossed for luck. “I think I’m ahead of him, for a change.”

  “Guy targets, what’d you say? Abortion clinics, that sort of thing,” Frank added.

  “That’s right. Clinics where abortions are performed. Even the homes of some of the doctors who perform them. He’s killed nine people so far, and injured scores more.”

  Horatio kept up with law enforcement journals. “I’ve heard about him,” he said. “The one they call the Baby Boomer?”

  “That’s the name a newspaper stuck on him,” Asher said, suddenly pinching the bridge of his nose. “I guess that’s what passes for ironic cleverness in the media. He bombs birth control clinics, so he’s the Baby Boomer.”

  “What makes you think he’s here in Miami?”

  Asher let out a loud sneeze. “Excuse me.”

  “Gesundheit,” Horatio said.

  “Thanks. Think I caught a cold on the flight out here. Damn airplanes.”

  “More and more common,” Frank said. “I drink that fizzy yellow stuff when I have to fly. Nasty, but it seems to help.”

  “Anyway,” Asher went on, “I’ve been on his trail for a couple of years, all over the Western states. The last place he hit was in Albuquerque, and I got closer than ever to him there. I found his motel room, but he had already checked out. I did a garbage pull, and in the motel’s Dumpster I found a bookstore receipt in his room trash. He had paid cash for Florida and Miami maps and a guidebook. It’s not much, but if I’m right, it’ll be the first time I’ve been able to get ahead of him, instead of having to wait for his next bombing.”

  Horatio tried to picture Wendell Asher climbing into a Dumpster in his nice Italian suit. Hard to envision, but he admired the dedicated police work it showed. “Is he associated with any radical groups or organizations?”

  “Not that I’ve been able to pin down,” Asher replied. “Most of them publicly decry his methods, even though privately many of their members, and some of their leaders, are glad he’s out there. He’s brutal but effective—clinics have closed, and doctors have stopped providing abortions in areas where he’s struck. So while the groups can’t come out and announce that he’s their hero, when you talk to a lot of their people one-on-one you get the sense that he’s kind of a Robin Hood figure to them.”

  “I see,” Horatio said. “I hope you catch him before he pulls anything. My people will be ready to process any crime scenes that might come up.”

  “We’ll be keeping all the city’s abortion providers under heavy guard until he’s in custody,” Frank assured them. “But just in case, I wanted you two to meet. I know your people are pros, Horatio, but this is a highly charged issue, emotionally, and I wanted your guarantee that none of your CSIs will let their personal beliefs interfere with the investigation.”

  Horatio tensed up at the suggestion. There had been some problems in the past between the crime lab and other parts of the police department, Horatio knew. He and his people remained under the microscope. But they didn’t have a bigger booster in the department than Frank Tripp, so he guessed that the question was for the FBI agent’s benefit and not his own. “My people have their own opinions,” he said. “As do I. But when we put on our badges and come to work, we leave those opinions at home. We believe in letting the evidence speak, not our prejudices. We couldn’t be effective criminalists otherwise.”

  “I appreciate that,” Asher said. “I look forward to working with you, Lieutenant Caine.”

  Frank walked Horatio part of the way to the door, leaning close and speaking in low tones. “I don’t trust Sackheim any farther’n I could toss him,” he said. “So just in case, I called the Denver field office.”

  “And?”

  “They confirmed Asher’s identity and his assignment. Guy is who he says he is. Got so
me demolition experience in the first Gulf War, so they assigned him the case, and he’s run with it ever since.”

  “All right,” Horatio said, satisfied by Frank’s due diligence. “I just hope he can catch his man. Ideally, before he sets off any explosives here in Miami.”

  3

  CALLEIGH DUQUESNE HELD up a deformed slug, using forceps so as not to contaminate it with her own fingerprints or body oils—this precaution in spite of the fact that she wore latex surgical gloves. “This one,” she said, “was the fatal bullet.”

  “That’s the forty-five?” Horatio asked. They were in Calleigh’s gun lab, where she had removed the bullet from a small paper envelope. Behind her was her gun cage, where she kept an array of firearms that would have delighted any gun enthusiast.

  “That’s right.” Calleigh’s long blond hair was tied back out of her face, and her blue eyes sparkled in the fluorescent light, showing faint green highlights. She spoke with a lilting Southern accent.

  “The through-and-through, recovered from the wall beside the victim. The concrete didn’t do it any favors. The other bullet’s a nine-millimeter, the one Alexx removed from the body, but she determined that it didn’t do any real damage.”

  “At least, not fatal damage.”

  “Right.”

  “Has she definitely determined that the gunshot was the cause of death?”

  “She’s at least leaning that way,” Calleigh said.

  “And one more thing came up while you were at the PD.”

  “What’s that, Calleigh?”

  “The victim had P-GSR on his right hand.”

  “Is that so?” Primer gunshot residue was left behind by soot residues from a pistol. Since the victim had been shot from a distance, he wouldn’t have had any from the guns that shot him—especially on his hand. “So he fired a weapon, too.”

  “But we didn’t find any spent casings around him, or anywhere else at the scene for that matter.”