No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella

by Barbara Seranella

  They rode down to the next floor in silence. She was conscious of his eyes and grateful that the majority of his attention was not directed at her face. He used his key to open the elevator door. She gave his arm a squeeze on her way out.

  "Thanks again."

  "Good luck," he said and pointed down the hallway indicating where she should go. The hallway took her past several closed office doors, then opened to become what appeared to be a waiting room. Several vinyl chairs lined the wall; worn issues of Good Housekeeping magazine were fanned across a small coffee table.

  She passed a wax mannequin covered with a plastic sheet and laid out on a steel gurney Only the yellowish feet of the mannequin showed. She supposed the dummy was used as some sort of teaching aid, like one of those visible V-8's they had at the trade school. A man in a white smock came along and whipped off the tarp with a magicians flourish. She saw that the figure on the table was female and very detailed, right down to her pubic hair.

  "Oh," she said.

  "What?" asked the man.

  "She's real, isn't she?"

  He chuckled and made a notation on his clipboard. Munch realized the dead woman was on a scale. The corpse weighed ninety-eight pounds. She looked at the cadaver's face and asked, "How'd she die?"

  The man consulted his clipboard. "Overdosed on booze and Methaqualone. See how emaciated she is? Thats how these alcoholics get. They stop eating and do nothing but drink."

  "Terrible," Munch agreed.

  "You here with the class?" he asked.

  "The guard said I'd find everybody down here," she said.

  He indicated a doorway

  "Thanks."

  He nodded and went back to his work.

  She pushed through the thick rubber flaps and they shut automatically after her. The room in which she found herself hummed with a subdued energy She had expected it to be colder. The smell of blood and raw meat was overpowering. She had no association to match the odor to, but she was sure she would never forget it. She made her way over to the group of men who surrounded a fixed steel table. They glanced up at her as she approached, then turned their attention back to what they had been observing.

  There was a cracking noise and then she saw another man in a white smock with the words MEDICAL EXAMINER stenciled across the back manipulating the handles of a pair of large garden loppers. The clippers reminded her of the ones Jack used to trim the trees around the shop. She stepped in closer to see what he was doing. A man in a green shirt moved aside, making room for her. She discovered that the man in the white smock was snipping through the rib cage of a large black man. The skin of the dead man's torso had been cut from his throat to his pubis and pulled to the side, exposing his rib cage and stomach cavity

  "Jesus," the man in the green shirt muttered.

  Another man across the table began to rock on his feet. As Munch watched, the color drained from the man's face and he fell to the floor. The man in the white smock giggled.

  A plastic name tag over his pocket identified him as Dr. Sugarman.

  Munch looked away. She saw scales like the ones used in the market for measuring cuts of fish and meat and stainless steel ladles resting in beakers of purple fluid. The drains in the cement floor were pink with blood. She drew a deep breath and opened her notebook.

  The autopsy continued for another fifteen minutes. Dr. Sugarman explained why it was important to gather the heart blood, feel the texture of the liver, and study stomach contents. Munch learned what the ladles and scales were for. After Sugarman finished with the organs, he went to work on the head. She watched as the skin of the corpses scalp was cut across the back from ear to ear and then pulled inside out over the mans face.

  "And this," Dr. Sugarman said, "is where the expression 'To pull the wool over ones eyes' comes from."

  A few of the other students laughed weakly; the man in green swallowed audibly and looked away Sugarman used a Stryker vibrating saw to cut through the skull. At two different points he cut V-shaped notches into the bone.

  "Why am I doing this?" he asked Munch.

  "So you know how it fits back together," she said. "Ahh, very good. Are you considering a career in pathology?"

  "I've just always been good at taking things apart and putting them back together again," she said.

  He popped off the skullcap and removed the brain. Despite herself, Munch found the whole thing fascinating. You just needed to take a step out of yourself, she decided, and not think of the body as a somebody

  The man she had met in the hallway weighing the dead woman escorted two men dressed in dark suits into the autopsy suite. She immediately recognized them as the same two cops she had seen on the news.

  "Welcome, detectives," Sugarman said. " hope you don't mind an audience, but this will be an excellent opportunity for these people to study entrance and exit wounds." He turned to the man she had met in the hall. "Class, meet our deputy coroner, Donald Moss. Donald, if you will."

  Donald snapped four x-ray films onto a display box mounted on the far wall and then pushed a small black button located to the side. The fluorescent light stuttered for a second, then shone brightly behind the images of partial skeletons. The first two films were of skulls: frontal and profile shots.

  Sugarman addressed the cluster of students. "The detectives are here to view the autopsy of a homicide victim. We'll finish this one later," he said, patting the arm of the deceased black man.

  He had the class assemble before the x-ray view box. Using a long, thin wooden dowel, he showed them the various points of interest.

  "And here," he said, his pointer touching the top half of a frontal shot of the skull, "Is where the bullet entered." He pointed to the next film. "Here is the same skull in profile. The damage from a high-velocity bullet is considerable. As the bullet passes through solid matter, it creates a vacuum—a small tornado surrounds its path. You'll remember your laws of physics. When vacuums are created, matter rushes in to fill the voids."

  "What are those bits of white?" a student asked.

  "Good question. Fragments of lead that sheared off the bullet." Sugarman moved his pointer to the base of the skull. "As you can clearly see, the throat shot severed the brain stem. Either one of these wounds would have been fatal, but the detectives assure me that the head shot was fired first, so this is what we will record as the cause of death."

  Sugarman moved down the line to the film of the lower torso. "We took these x-rays with the subject fully clothed. You see these dime-shaped spots over the pubis? Any guesses?"

  When nobody volunteered, Sugarman said, "The subject is wearing button-fly jeans."

  Munch breathed through her mouth deeply and slowly She felt the pulse in her throat throb. Sleaze always wore button-fly jeans.

  Sugarman nodded to Donald.

  Donald walked across the room and opened up the doors to what Munch realized, as she felt the blast of frigid air, was a cold storage room. He wheeled out a body on a gurney The corpse was covered with a plastic sheet.

  Sugarman pulled back the sheet. "Gentlemen and lady" he said with an acknowledging nod to Munch, "meet John Doe three-oh-five."

  Munch took a deep breath and then looked into the clouded brown eyes of her old friend and sometime lover. Her mouth dried up and her ears rang. She missed the next few things Sugarman said. All she could think was: "He's got a name. He's got a name."

  * * *

  "The first thing we must do," Sugarman said, standing over the body "is observe. Since this is a homicide, we must document every step of our examination. Donald doubles as our photographer?

  Blackstone and Alex pulled on surgical gloves while Sugarman lectured. Blackstone leaned into Alex's ear and whispered, "Ten bucks says the big guy loses it."

  "Which guy?"

  "The one in the green shirt, standing next to the broad with the binder."

  "You're on."

  Donald stepped forward and snapped pictures, paying special attention to the wound areas.
He took shots from the front and side.

  "Let's get some of the exit wounds," Blackstone said. He and Alex rolled the body over so Donald could take pictures of what was left of the back of the head and neck.

  Sugarman removed a thin chain from around John Doe's neck and said, "One necklace, gold-plate."

  Donald put down the camera and made a notation on his clipboard. He left the room and returned with a large cardboard box, which he placed beside the corpse.

  Blackstone noticed that the one woman among them had been forced to stand outside the circle. He watched her rub at her eye with a gloved fingertip and swallow hard. She was also looking a little pale. Maybe she wanted to be outside. He leaned over to his partner and said, "Double or nothing the broad loses it, too."

  Alex looked over the woman, who was scribbling notes in her binder. "You're on," he said, then turned his attention back to their homicide victim. John Doe 305 was still fully clothed. Over his long-sleeved thermal, he wore a black T-shirt with the Grateful Dead skull and roses logo emblazoned across the front. His Levi's were worn but clean. The pockets were empty having been gone through at the crime scene by the coroner. That search had not yielded much: some loose change, a Zippo lighter, and a nearly empty wallet. All those had been tagged and stored on Friday

  Sugarman explained the effects of rigor mortis and how it was caused by the collection of lactic acid in the muscles. "Because our homicide here is a shooting victim, special care must be taken in the removal of his clothes. Every tear and burn mark must be catalogued. We can't just cut off the shirt."

  "This is going to be good," Blackstone whispered. "By working the muscles," Sugarman said, grasping the stiff arm of his John Doe, "we should be able to restore some pliability to the arms." He massaged the shoulder and biceps, then pulled the arm straight back. The shoulder socket made a sickening crack as it was manipulated.

  The color completely left the face of the student in the green shirt. His eyes rolled back in his head. As his big body hit the floor, he tipped over an empty gurney and a tray of medical tools. Sugarman grinned from ear to ear. The small woman in the flowered blouse left the room. Alex pulled out a twenty from his wallet and handed it to Blackstone.

  It wasn't until the student had been revived, the gurney righted, and the strewn equipment collected that the autopsy could continue. The woman never returned.

  The corpse was naked now. The discarded clothes had been carefully stored in the cardboard box. Each article of clothing was put in its own bag to prevent contamination. Later the serologists would study each item, testing that all the blood was from the same source, and looking for stray samples of hair and fibers. But for now, all attention was directed to the body which the ME examined closely for scars and tattoos.

  "The left arm shows scarring from intravenous drug use," Sugarman announced. The students pressed in to see actual needle marks up close. "What's this on his fingertips?" one of the students asked.

  "Fingerprint ink," Sugarman explained and went on to lecture that the coroner's responsibilities included the identification of the deceased, protection of their property and notification of the relatives. He then explained that the coning of the skull bone puncture wound informed him as to the path of the bullet and had each of the students take a close look at the throat before he began cutting.

  Blackstone wandered over to the box of clothes. He noticed a piece of binder paper lying on the floor and bent over to pick it up. Scrawled across the paper were the words: "His name is John Garillo."

  "Shit," Blackstone said. "Alex, come on. We got to catch that girl."

  They ran out to the hallway The elevator door was shut. Blackstone stabbed furiously at the button.

  "What's up?" Alex asked.

  Blackstone showed him the note, holding it carefully from one corner.

  "You think that was the broad from the freeway?"

  "Has to be."

  The elevator opened. They got in and pushed the 3 button. "Come on, come on," Blackstone said, tapping his foot and willing the lift to move faster. The door opened to the empty lobby Alex rushed to speak to the guard on duty while Blackstone ran to the exit. Standing on the sidewalk, he knew that it was hopeless.

  Alex joined him. "What do you think?" he asked.

  "You go observe the rest of the autopsy" Blackstone said. "I'm going to take this over to the lab and see if they can lift some prints. Run the name John Garillo through NCIC and see what comes up. I'll meet you back at the station."

  "All right," Alex said. "I'll catch a lift with a blue."

  "You do that," Blackstone said. He realized that he felt a strange sort of exaltation. That surprised him. If anyone had asked him how he thought he might have felt losing a key witness by seconds, he would have guessed angry He never would have imagined feeling charged by it. Hell, he realized, he was grinning.

  9

  MUNCH LEFT THE parking structure in a state of high anxiety Not even caring where it took her, she jumped on the nearest on-ramp and got into the fast lane. Her ears were still buzzing, making it difficult to form coherent thoughts. She turned on her air conditioning, aiming the blast of cold air directly at her face.

  It was stupid to leave his name like that. She could have just as easily called it in anonymously The cops would run his name through their computers and maybe come up with the address in Venice. She tried to remember if she had touched anything there.

  She kept repeating the words to herself, He's dead. Hes dead. Hes dead. Tears streamed from her eyes and she welcomed their relief.

  An eighteen-wheeler to her right sounded his air horn. She realized she had encroached on his lane and swerved out of his way In her haste, she over-corrected. The GTO rattled as its tires ran over ruts in the center divider shoulder.

  "Easy does it," she said out loud, and forced herself to slow down. She took several deep breaths and checked her mirrors for cops.

  A mountain range she didn't recognize loomed to her right. Mature evergreens marked palatial homes. Her gas gauge hovered between a quarter of a tank and empty. Spotting an Arco sign, she got off the freeway After filling up and checking the station's map, she discovered she was in some place called La Crescenta. She said the name out loud, liking the safe solid sound of it. With her finger, she traced the chain of freeways that would take her home to the Valley

  In Burbank, she hit a snarl that slowed traffic to a standstill. She used the time to check her face in the mirror. Her mascara had run, staining her cheeks with dark blue rivulets.

  For a brief instant, she saw her mothers face looking back at her. It was only lately that she had begun recognizing her mothers features in her own. The shape of their chins and mouths was similar.

  Her eyes weren't brown, but they were large like her mothers. People always used to say how pretty her mom was. And besides, it could be much worse, she thought, touching the mirror. What if she awoke one morning to see Flower George in her reflection? Just the thought of it sent an involuntary shudder down her spine.

  She shut off the air conditioning, feeling calmer. The steady hum of the road beneath her, coupled with the anonymity of being just one more traveler on a road of many soothed her overwrought nerves. Sleaze was dead.

  What would Ruby say about all this? Probably something about how death was often the inevitable result of using. Munch didn't think she could bear hearing any glib AA clichés. Trite truisms didn't make a friends death any more palatable. She could think of only one person who would truly understand: Deb.

  She hit the steering wheel with her palm. Goddamn him to die and leave her all this shit. Now what was she supposed to do? And what about Asia?

  If Lisa was her only relative, would she be automatically placed there? More like sentenced, if that were the case. The kid deserved better. Sleaze would have wanted more for his little girl.

  It was almost seven by the time she got back to her apartment.

  She parked in the alley and came in through the back door.
The back door was a big selling point when she rented her apartment. Having another way out was an advantage she wouldnt have felt comfortable without. She knew what it meant to live without options.

  Dropping her notebook on the kitchen table, she kicked off her shoes and sank heavily into a chair. The card Sleaze had written Deb's number on was propped up against the salt shaker, its invitation clear. She reached for the phone and dialed the combination of digits that would connect her with her old life. The phone rang six times before it was picked up, and even then, it was a few more moments before anyone spoke. She heard the familiar sounds of glasses clinking, jukebox music, and boisterous voices yelling over the music. Finally a man's gruff voice spoke into the phone.

  "Snakepit."

  "Hi, is Deb there?"

  "Hold on," he said in an annoyed growl. "Deborah!" Munch heard him yell.

  She waited; here stomach growled, and she remembered she hadn't eaten.

  "Nah," the man said, returning to the phone.

  "She ain't been in tonight."

  "Can I leave a message?" she asked.

  "No," the man said. "This ain't her goddamned answering service." He hung up.

  She stared at the telephone. The buzz of the dial tone had never sounded so rude. She didn't realize how badly she missed Deb until just then. The ache for the familiar sound of her f1iend's voice filled her chest. She loved Deb like a sister, more than a sister. The things they had been through together bonded them for life.

  Deb had been there for her at one of the worst times of her life. It was the morning after she had been released from the hospital, leaving behind the little blob that would later turn out to be the only baby she could ever have had. Nobody had warned her how attached you could become to a two-month-old lump of tissue, neither boy or girl. She hadn't even been showing yet. The grief she felt afterward caught her totally off-guard, leaving her as bereft as if she'd known the kid for years.

  Deb didn't comment on the one-hundred-proof Southern Comfort Munch had been guzzling the day before and how that might have brought on the miscarriage. When Munch arrived at her door, Deb simply led her inside. She was cooking French toast for Boogie. Munch sat on the counter and watched, too numb to do anything else.