Cal stood up. “Okay. Can I get your number, in case I need to ask you anything further?” She scribbled down the number he gave her and headed toward the front door. “Thanks for your time, Cruiser.”
She opened the door and saw Macey and Raymer walking up the sidewalk. “Uh-oh. You’ve got company.”
“Who’s there?”
“Cops. Sorry. Good luck.” Cal moved quickly out the door before he could protest any further.
“Corwin, what are you doing here?” Macey demanded, blocking the sidewalk.
“Just getting some information, same as you,” Cal said, raising her brows. “You can’t dictate who I talk to.”
“You knew we’d be coming here.”
“I honestly thought you’d have been already,” Cal countered. “I ended up having to do the notification for you. You’re welcome.” She angled to get past the two irritated cops, and then paused. “Seriously, though, I appreciate your digging deeper. You want to hear what I got?”
“No,” snapped the ever-joyous Macey. “We’ll do our own legwork.”
“Suit yourself.” She winked at Raymer, who imitated his partner’s demeanor and glare. “Be seeing you.”
Chapter Seven
Cal hadn’t realized how far she’d traveled down the beach looking for Cruiser. Intellectually, perhaps she had, but not physically. The last mile is always the longest, they say. When she was finally sitting in Molly again she wished for another of Cruiser’s water bottles.
She fished around in the back seat mess, an area that seldom carried passengers and often received the detritus of stake-outs and road trips, and found a half-empty half-liter and sucked down the flat, months-old stuff. Afterward, she pulled out her phone and put in a call to RJ Stone.
Stone was an assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner. She’d befriended him while she was still working Homicide and he was green as grass. He’d been there long enough to settle in and hold his own and they still had a friendly relationship, which was more than she could say for the police force.
“Medical Examiner’s office, Stone speaking.”
“Hey, RJ.” Cal put a little extra honey in her voice. “How’s my favorite ME?”
“Assistant ME,” he said, but Cal could hear the pride in his voice. “California Corwin. How the hell are you?”
“I’m good. How’s the wife and…” Cal hesitated. Unable to remember the sex of his child, she fudged it. “…the rugrat?”
“Growing like a weed. And another one on the way.”
“Congratulations. Condolences?”
“I’m happy.” He chuckled. “I don’t imagine you called me to ask about my progeny. You on a case?”
“Caught one late last night. Or early this morning. Gunshot death. Jenna Duncan.”
“Yeah, we’ve got her. Haven’t had time to do the post yet. I thought this one was open-and-shut? Didn’t someone confess?”
“Yeah. Self defense. Eight hollowpoints.”
“Huh. Seems like swatting a fly with a howitzer.”
“Any chance I could get in to take a look at the body?”
“You know Purcell doesn’t allow unauthorized personnel in the morgue.”
Yes, the Chief Medical Examiner was a stickler. “If you invited me, then I would be authorized.”
“And I’d be risking my job. Well, at least a reprimand. If you were still a cop there’d be no question, but…”
“I need to see this one with my own eyes, RJ. You know reading a report just isn’t the same. What if I see something you don’t?”
“We’ll do a thorough job. Confession or not, we’re going to see what the evidence has to say.”
“Come on, RJ,” Cal wheedled. “Old times’ sake?”
“I forgot how pushy you were.”
She knew she was in. “What would put me over the top, Stone? A dozen chocolate glazed donuts from Bob’s? The kind of thing your wife won’t let you have?”
“I choose what I eat,” he said huffily. “Cynthia is just trying to take care of my health. She’s encouraging me to eat better.”
“What if I encouraged you to throw the diet out the window for a day? Nobody knows how capricious death can be like an ME.”
“Capricious?”
“Unsteady. Like life. Stabilized by chocolate glazed.”
“Boston cream.”
“I can’t make that rhyme. Oh, maybe I can. Life’s a dream with Boston cream. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She made a stop at Bob’s Donuts—good thing it was open 24 hours, as it was getting on toward dinnertime—and went on to the morgue. Stone hadn’t said that the CME would be in or that she should come at another time, so she figured he had it covered. She made sure she had enough confections to grease her way past any unexpected blockers and rang the buzzer at the loading door, where the bodies would be brought.
Stone let her in. “Here, wear this,” he said, handing her a visitor badge, and led her to his office. Inside, she offered up her bribe. He selected a nice fat doughnut with a paper napkin. “Oh, Cal. You’re evil. If I weren’t already married…” He took a deep sniff before sinking his teeth into it with a sigh.
“You’d run screaming if you had any brains. Besides, it always amazes me that you can smell anything after all the DBs and chemicals down here. Thought they would have burned out your olfactory cells long ago.”
“Oh, I can smell this. Trust me.”
The thirtyish Stone sat on the corner of his desk. His dark hair was retreating faster than Cal remembered; he would likely be bald as a billiard ball in another year or three, but he still had a young face, his blue eyes sparkling. Whatever diet the wife had him on was doing its job. He was a good twenty pounds lighter than the last time Cal had seen him, though still with the pudge she remembered.
“Looking good, Stone.”
“Not so bad yourself.”
Cal automatically reached for her hair to make sure it was in place to cover her scars.
Stone gave her an apologetic frown. “No, seriously, you look good. I wouldn’t even guess about the…accident.”
“It was no accident,” Cal said firmly. “You hydroplane a puddle and smash into a tree, that’s an accident. You get blown up by a bomb on the job, that’s no accident.”
“I’m just saying you look good. Your doctor did a good job, from what I can see.”
Forcing herself, Cal turned her head and pulled back her hair to show him the scarring over the right side of her face. He was a friend, and considering his profession, he saw far worse every day.
“Oh. Still, it’s not that bad. You were lucky.”
“Yeah. That’s what I tell myself every time I wake up with a migraine.”
Stone hid the awkwardness by taking another big bite of his donut.
“So, where’s Jenna Duncan? And do we need to worry about anyone showing up?”
“Nah, the boss is off at a conference. Most everyone else clocked out on time, given the opportunity.”
“So the cat’s away and the mice are playing.”
“Playing fair, that’s all. Purcell thinks leaving on time is slacking.”
“And what are you still doing here? Don’t you eat dinner with your family?”
“Somebody’s got to keep these cases moving forward, or the CME’s going to wonder what we’ve been doing while he was gone.”
Stone was one of those people who genuinely loved his job. One of those guys who never asked for time off because he preferred to work. Cal suspected that his wife had to insist on family vacations at regular intervals.
Stone finished off the donut and licked his fingers, then wiped them on the napkin. “All right. Let’s introduce you to our Miss Duncan.”
Cal didn’t bother telling him that she and Jenna had met previously, before she was a corpse. He led her into the staging room, where Stone scrubbed donut residue off of his long, slender surgeon’s fingers. He motioned to the sink as he dried off. “Wash and suit up.”
Stone gave Cal a quick check, making sure everything was properly covered before they entered the exam room. He’d already transferred Jenna Duncan to a table in anticipation of Cal’s visit. “Like I said, we haven’t started the post yet. External exam and X-rays, but we haven’t begun cutting.”
Cal nodded and breathed through her mouth. She knew that Jenna’s body had been kept cold and there was no decomp yet, but to her, the room still smelled like death and corruption beneath the tang of formaldehyde.
Gazing down at Jenna’s dull, lifeless face, she felt an unexpected tug at her heartstrings. Alan couldn’t understand where his mother had gone or why he wouldn’t see her again. Cruiser now bore the entire responsibility for their little boy.
The woman’s once-vibrant figure lay there like meat on a slab, awaiting the knife. Cal had never seen her without heavy makeup. Her scrubbed-clean face made her look young and vulnerable. Her hair was dyed black with green and pink highlights. Her numerous piercing items had been removed.
In spite of her tough image, Jenna had always been friendly and pleasant. She knew Cal by name and drink. Cal could see black tattoos over Jenna’s upper arms and neck. The rest of her body was covered…for now.
“Where did she get hit?”
Stone flipped down the sheet far enough to show a chest like cold, dried hamburger. “Center mass. Front to back.”
Cal held her rising gorge. “Time of death?”
“Between nine and ten last night.”
“The boyfriend said she stabbed him with a knife.”
Stone freed Jenna’s hands from the sheet one at a time and displayed them to Cal.
“No marks or bruises on her hands, so I can’t confirm or deny anything about having used a blade. No defensives, so she might have been the attacker like they say.”
Cal remembered the knife on the scene, the one Macey and Raymer had bagged. “Could it have been a two-edged dagger? Old-fashioned, like medieval?”
“Could be. Again, not enough info.”
“You haven’t done a tox screen yet to see if she was on drugs?”
“We’ll run one. You see a reason to suspect drug use?”
“It might explain her attacking the boyfriend even after she was shot the first couple of times. Make the number of rounds more plausible. Crystal, PCP, bath salts, something rage-inducing that would make her hard to put down.”
Stone nodded. “I’ll put in the lab request myself.”
“Any other apparent injuries?”
“This is something interesting.” He pointed at an ugly pucker, one slightly isolated from the mass in the middle. “You see the pattern of bruising around the bullet wound?”
Cal squinted at it. Stone swung over a magnifying glass and light on an articulating arm, which allowed her a better look.
“It’s pretty faint,” she said. “It looks like grid or mesh pattern.”
“We’ll take pictures with different lighting and angles to heighten the contrast.”
“What’s it from?”
“I don’t know. Maybe something she was wearing? Jewelry that got smashed into her skin?”
“Can I see her personal effects? I know she wore a lot of jewelry.”
Stone took her to a stack of bins filled with clear evidence bags, and sorted through them to find Jenna’s. He laid it on the table. “You can look through the plastic, but you cannot open them. I can, though.”
“Of course! I am trained in evidential chain of custody, Stone.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t stop every second person who comes through here from thinking the rules don’t apply to them. I’ve even had cops try to steal things—all for the best of reasons, of course.”
Cal looked over the personal effects slowly, asking Stone to handle anything she wanted a better look at. Lots of inexpensive but sturdy jewelry, mostly silver. A couple of necklaces, but nothing she could envision causing the bruising. The biker-wallet contents included a picture of Alan, Jenna, and Cruiser all together, Alan no more than two years old. Back before Randy. Cal studied the picture, wondering whether Alan had been diagnosed yet at that point. Autism usually showed up around then.
Kids with special needs were hard on relationships. She looked at Jenna’s and Cruiser’s eyes and body language, but could see no stress or animosity between them. They seemed happy. Yet, things had changed.
Everything always changed.
The clothes resembled Jenna’s usual. She’d been partial to leather and black denim, black t-shirts with biker logos and Goth regalia. As far as Cal knew, she wasn’t actually a biker chick. It was a look. The clothing was bloody. The bullets had punched holes in the shirt, the violence of entry causing rips from the hydrostatic shock.
Cal looked through the rest of the personal effects, which all seemed like run-of-the-mill pocket contents, except for a pair of good-sized needle-nose pliers, the kind with an integrated wire cutter. Cal turned the bag over a couple of times, baffled. Had Jenna been engaged in some home repairs when the fight broke out? Had they been used to threaten her? There was no blood, no indication they had been handled roughly, though the grips were worn with use.
Cal sighed and stepped away to let Stone put the bags back neatly into the bin.
“I’ve got X-rays,” he offered.
“Oh, I want to see those for sure.”
Stone started to put them up on his light box, studying them as he did so. Cal looked at the placement of the six bullets that had remained in her body.
“She has a lot of old, healed fractures,” Stone said.
She switched her gaze to the areas Stone pointed out. “Lots of ribs, front and back. That’s typical of abuse, or contact sports. People don’t generally fall to the ground or run into something and break a rib without help. Arms and legs, but not ribs. Did she play football, roller derby, anything like that?”
“I don’t think so.” She snapped her fingers. “She did do that medieval stuff. I’m not sure how rough it is but I’ll check.”
“She’s had broken fingers too. Some in the arms, not the legs. This one is fairly recent,” he tapped an X-ray that showed Jenna’s right arm. The break Stone indicated was up high, close to her shoulder, and Cal could clearly see plates and screws that had been used to stabilize it. “That was a spiral fracture. So she either fell and landed on it in a twisted position, or more likely…”
“Domestic abuse, being manhandled.” Cal sighed. “Damn. So maybe it wasn’t Alan being abused, it was Jenna. Seeing his mom beaten up, that would be enough to give any kid nightmares.”
“Sure,” said Stone. “It can be very traumatic for a kid to witness abuse. Even if they’re never the victim.”
“That poor little guy. And Randy knew Alan wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what was going on.”
Stone raised an eyebrow.
“He’s four,” Cal said. “Autistic. Can’t communicate clearly.”
“If he’s been left with the abusive spouse after his mother’s death, you’ve got to get him out of there. Make a report to CPS.”
“No, he’s not in the household anymore. And no need to go back, with his mom gone.”
“Good.” Stone folded his arms, looking over the displayed pictures. “The number of healed breaks would indicate it’s been going on for some time. Hmm. There’s some foreign matter near the bullets,” he tapped a couple of bright spots with his pen. “That might give us some clue as to what caused the unusual bruising around the bullet holes. I’ll let you know.”
“Would you? That would be great. And thanks for letting me have a look. This was really helpful.”
He nodded. “And I take it you’d rather the investigating officers d
idn’t know you were around?”
Cal laughed. “Yeah. I already beat them to the punch once, and now twice. I’m on their shit list. No need to raise my standing.”
Cal was ready to get some rest as her watch rolled past eight p.m. She’d had a short, interrupted night, and her body was reminding her of the fact. Still, she wanted to get Mickey started on running background on the main players in the case, so she swung by her office in the Mission District off of Valencia. She pulled Molly into the gated parking lot and entered Mickey’s lair through the walkout on the lower level.
“Coming in! You’d better be decent!” she called as she opened the door.
Mickey was sitting at his computer desk, fully dressed except for shoes, engaged in some alien battle on the screen. He glanced aside at her only briefly. “You look like crap, boss.”
Cal sighed. “Thanks. I bring offerings for sacrifice to the silicon gods.” She set a bottle of diet Coke and two napkin-wrapped Boston cream donuts down on the desk next to him.
“Sa-weet!” Mickey reached across with his left hand to grab one of the Boston creams, without a pause in his game. He took two bites of the donut, which reduced it to half, and said something she didn’t catch through his full mouth.
“English,” Cal said.
He chewed and swallowed, eyes still intent on the invasion on his monitor. “Sorry. I said, what’s the new case?”
“It’s for Sergei.” Cal outlined the circumstances of Jenna’s death as succinctly as possible, after insisting he pause the game.
Mickey nodded. “So is this a Russian thing? Was it something to do with Sergei?”
“No. Why would Sergei call me in for that? He’d know who it was and he’d take care of it himself. Sergei didn’t think it was Randy, because it was so excessive and his story doesn’t ring true. But if he’s an abuser, it could match the pattern—excess rage, killing her in a fit of jealousy or an argument over the kid, followed by remorse. I’ve just started to build the picture and I need some more background.”
“Basic level, criminal, and past relationships?”
“Exactly. Does Randy have any DV charges? Past girlfriends who claimed he was abusive? History of extreme jealousy? Was either of them seeing anyone else?”
The Girl In the Morgue Page 5
