"Drive safely, Mr. Hardin," I said.
He backed the car off the lawn, driving over a flower bed.
"And the irises," the man in the bathrobe shouted, as the car pulled away down the road. He looked at me. "I'm telling you, the other man was driving, and he was drunk."
I said, "Here's my card. If things don't turn out right, call me."
He looked at the card, shaking his head, and went back into his house. Connor and I got back into the car. We drove down the hill.
Connor said, "You got information on the aide?"
"Yes," I said.
"What was in his pocket?"
"I'd say it was a pair of women's panties."
"So would I," Connor said.
Of course there was nothing we could do. Personally, I would have liked to spin the smug bastard around, push him up against the car and search him, right there. But we both knew our hands were tied: we had no probable cause to search Hardin, or to arrest him. He was a young man driving with two young women in the back seat, either of whom might be without her panties, and a drunken United States senator in the front seat. The only sensible thing to do was to let them all go.
But it seemed like an evening of letting people go.
The phone rang. I pushed the speaker button. "Lieutenant Smith."
"Hey, buddy." It was Graham. "I'm over here at the morgue, and guess what? I have some Japanese bugging me to attend the autopsy. Wants to sit in and observe, if you can believe that shit. He's all bent out of shape because we started the autopsy without him. But the lab work is starting to come back. It is not looking good for Nippon Central. I'd say we have a Japanese perp. So: you coming here or what?"
I looked at Connor. He nodded.
"We're heading there now," I said.
The fastest way to the morgue was through the emergency room at County General Hospital. As we went through, a black man covered in blood was sitting up on his gurney, screaming "Kill the pope! Kill the pope! Fuck him!" in a drug-crazed frenzy. A half-dozen attendants were trying to push him down. He had gunshot wounds in his shoulder and hand. The floors and walls of the emergency room were spattered with blood. An orderly went down the hall, cleaning it up with a mop. The hallways were lined with black and Hispanic people. Some of them held children in their laps. Everyone looked away from the bloody mop. From somewhere down the corridor, we heard more screams.
We got onto the elevator. It was quiet.
Connor said, "A homicide every twenty minutes. A rape every seven minutes. A child murdered every four hours. No other country tolerates these levels of violence."
The doors opened. Compared to the emergency room, the basement corridors of the county morgue were positively tranquil. There was a strong odor of formaldehyde. We went to the desk, where the thin, angular deaner, Harry Landon, was bent over some papers, eating a ham sandwich. He didn't look up. "Hey, guys."
"Hey, Harry."
"What you here for? Austin prep?"
"Yeah."
"They started about half an hour ago. Guess there's a big rush on her, huh?"
"How's that?"
"The chief called Dr. Tim out of bed and told him to do it pronto. Pissed him off pretty good. You know how particular Dr. Tim is." The deaner smiled. "And they called in a lot of lab people, too. Who ever heard of pushing a full workup in the middle of the night? I mean, you know what this is going to cost in overtime?"
I said, "And what about Graham?"
"He's around here someplace. He had some Japanese guy chasing after him. Dogging him like a shadow. Then every half hour, the Japanese asks me can he use the phone, and he makes a call. Speaks Japanese a while. Then he goes back to bothering Graham. He says he wants to see the autopsy, if you can believe that. Keeps pushing, pushing. But anyway, the Japanese makes his last call about ten minutes ago, and suddenly a big change comes over him. I was here at the desk. I saw it on his face. He goes mojo mojo like he can't believe his ears. And then he runs out of here. I mean it: runs."
"And where's the autopsy?"
"Room two."
"Thanks, Harry."
"Close the door."
"Hi; Tim," I said, as we came into the autopsy room. Tim Yoshimura, known to everyone as Dr. Tim, was leaning over the stainless-steel table. Even though it was one-forty in the morning, he was as usual immaculate. Everything was in place. His hair was neatly combed. His tie was perfectly knotted. The pens were lined up in the pocket of his starched lab coat.
"Did you hear me?"
"I'm closing it, Tim." The door had a pneumatic self-closing mechanism, but apparently that wasn't fast enough for Dr. Tim.
"It's only because I don't want that Japanese individual looking in."
"He's gone, Tim."
"Oh, is he? But he may be back. He's been unbelievably persistent and irritating. The Japanese can be a real pain in the ass."
I said, "Sounds funny coming from you, Tim."
"Oh, I'm not Japanese," he said seriously. "I'm Japanese-American, which means in their eyes I'm gaijin. If I go to Japan, they treat me like any other foreigner. It doesn't matter how I look, I was born in Torrance — and that's the end of it." He glanced over his shoulder. "Who's that with you? Not John Connor? Haven't seen you in ages, John."
"Hi, Tim." Connor and I approached the table. I could see the dissection was already well advanced, that the Y-shaped incision had been made, and the first organs removed and placed neatly on stainless steel trays.
"Now maybe somebody can tell me, what is the big deal about this case?" Tim said. "Graham is so pissed off he won't say anything. He went next door to the lab to see the first of the results. But I still want to know why I got called out of bed to do this one. Mark's on duty, but he is apparently not senior enough to do it. And of course the M.E. is out of town at a conference in San Francisco. Now that he has that new girlfriend he is always out of town. So I get called. I can't remember the last time I got called out of bed."
"You can't?" I said. Dr. Tim was precise in all ways, including his memory.
"The last time was January three years ago. But that was to cover. Most of the staff was out with the flu, and the cases were backing up. Finally one night we ran out of lockers. They had these bodies lying around on the floor in bags. Stacked up in piles. Something had to be done. The smell was terrible. But no, I can't remember being called out just because a case was politically tense. Like this one."
Connor said, "We're not sure why it is tense, either."
"Maybe you better find out. Because there's a lot of pressure here. The M.E. calls me from San Francisco, and he keeps saying, 'Do it now, do it tonight, and get it done.' I say, 'Okay, Bill.' Then he says, 'Listen, Tim. Do this one right. Go slow, take lots of pictures and lots of notes. Document your ass off. Shoot with two cameras. Because I got a feeling that anybody who has anything to do with this case could get into deep shit.' So. It's natural to wonder what the big deal is."
Connor said, "What time was that call to you?"
"About ten-thirty, eleven."
"The M.E. say who called him?"
"No. But it's usually only one of two people: the chief of police or the mayor."
Tim looked at the liver, pulling apart the lobes, then placed it on a steel tray. The assistant was taking flash pictures of each organ and then setting it aside.
"So? What've you found?"
"Frankly, the most interesting findings so far are external," Dr. Tim said. "She had heavy makeup on her neck, to cover a pattern of multiple contusions. Bruises of different ages. Without a spectroscopic curve for the hemoglobin breakdown products at the bruise sites, I'd still say these bruises are of variable age, up to two weeks old. Perhaps older. Consistent with a pattern of repeated, chronic cervical trauma. I don't think there's any question: we're looking at a case of sexual asphyxia."
"She's a gasper?"
"Yeah. She is."
Kelly thought so. For once Kelly was right.
"It's more common in me
n, but it is certainly reported in women. The syndrome is the individual is sexually aroused only by the hypoxia of near-strangulation. These individuals ask their sexual partners to strangle them, or put a plastic bag over their head. When they're alone, they sometimes tie a cord around their neck, and hang themselves while they masturbate. Since the effect requires that they are strangled almost to the point of passing out, it's easy to make a mistake and go too far. They do, all the time."
"And in this case?"
Tim shrugged. "Well. She has physical findings consistent with a sexual asphyxia syndrome of long standing. And she has ejaculate in her vagina and abrasions on her external vaginal labia, consistent with a forced sexual episode on the same night of her death."
Connor said, "You're sure the vaginal abrasions occurred before death?"
"Oh, yes. They are definitely antemortem injuries. There's no question she had forced sex sometime before she died."
"Are you saying she was raped?"
"No. I wouldn't go that far. As you see, the abrasions are not severe, and there are no associated injuries to other parts of her body. In fact, there are no signs of physical struggle at all. So I would consider the findings consistent with premature vaginal entry with insufficient lubrication of the external labia."
I said, "You're saying she wasn't wet."
Tim looked pained. "Well. In crude layman's terms."
"How long before death did these abrasions occur?"
"It could be as much as an hour or two. It wasn't near the actual time of death. You can tell that from the extravasation and swelling of the affected areas. If death occurs soon after the injury, blood flow stops, and therefore the swelling is limited or absent. In this case, as you see, swelling is quite pronounced."
"And the sperm?"
"Samples have gone to the lab. Along with all her usual fluids." He shrugged. "Have to wait and see. Now, are you two going to fill me in? Because it looks to me like this little girl was going to get in trouble, sooner or later. I mean, she's cute, but she's screwed up. So . . . what is the big deal? Why am I out of bed in the middle of the night to do a careful, documented post on some little gasper?"
I said, "Beats me."
"Come on. Fair is fair," Dr. Tim said. "I showed you mine, now you show me yours."
"Why, Tim," Connor said. "You made a joke."
"Fuck you," Tim said. "You guys owe me. Come on."
"I'm afraid Peter is telling you the truth," Connor said. "All we know is that this murder occurred at the time of a big public Japanese reception, and they are eager to get it cleared up right away."
"That makes sense," Tim said. "The last time the shit hit the fan around here, it was because of that thing involving the Japanese consulate. Remember, the Takashima kidnapping case? Maybe you don't remember: it never made the papers. The Japanese managed to keep it very quiet. But anyway, a guard was killed under odd circumstances, and for two days, they put a hell of a pressure on our office. I was amazed what they could do. We had Senator Rowe calling us in person, telling us what to do. The governor calling in person. Everybody calling us. You'd think it was the president's kid. I mean, these people have influence."
"Of course they do. They've paid handsomely for it," Graham said, coming into the room.
"Close the door," Tim said.
"But this time, all their fucking influence won't help," Graham said. "Because this time, we have them by the short and curlies. We have a murder: and based on the lab results so far, we can say without question that the murderer was Japanese."
☼
The pathology lab next door was a large room lit by even banks of fluorescent lights. Rows of microscopes, neatly laid out. But late at night, only two technicians were working in the big space. And Graham was standing beside them, gloating.
"Look for yourself. Pubic hair comb-through reveals male pubic hair, moderate curl, ovoid cross section, almost certainly Asian in origin. The first semen analysis is blood type: AB, relatively rare among Caucasians, but much more common among Asians. The first analysis of protein in the seminal fluid comes up negative for the genetic marker for . . . what's it called?"
"Ethanol dehydrogenase," the technician said.
"Right. Ethanol dehydrogenase. It's an enzyme. Missing in Japanese. And missing in this seminal fluid. And there's the Diego factor, which is a blood-group protein. So. We have more tests coming, but it seems clear that this girl had forced sex with a Japanese man before she was killed by him."
"It's clear you've found evidence of Japanese semen in her vagina," Connor said. "That's all."
"Christ," Graham said. "Japanese semen, Japanese pubic hair, Japanese blood factors. We are talking a Japanese perp here."
He had set out some pictures from the crime scene, showing Cheryl lying on the boardroom table. He started to pace back and forth in front of them.
"I know where you guys have been, and I know you've been wasting your time," Graham said. "You went for videotapes: but they're gone, right? Then you went to her apartment: but it was cleaned up before you ever got there. Which is exactly what you'd expect if the perp is Japanese. It lays right out, plain as can be."
Graham pointed to the pictures. "There's our girl. Cheryl Austin from Texas. She's cute. Fresh. Good figure. She's an actress, sort of. She does a few commercials. Maybe a Nissan commercial. Whatever. She meets some people. Makes some contacts. Gets on some lists. You with me?"
"Yes," I said to Graham. Connor was staring intently at the pictures.
"One way or another, our Cheryl's doing well enough to be wearing a black Yamamoto gown when she gets invited to the grand opening of the Nakamoto Tower. She comes with some guy, maybe a friend or a hairdresser. A beard. Maybe she knows other people at the party, and maybe not. But in the course of the evening, somebody big and powerful suggests they slip away for a while. She agrees to go upstairs. Why not? This girl likes adventure. She likes danger. She's cruising for a bruising. So she goes upstairs — maybe with the other guy, maybe separately. But anyway, they meet upstairs, and they look around for a place to do it. A place that's exciting. And they decide — him, probably, he decides — to do it right on the fucking boardroom table. So they start doing it, they're whanging away but things get out of hand. Her loverboy gets a little too worked up, or else he's kinky, and . . . he squeezes her neck a little too hard. And she's dead. You with me so far?'"
"Yes . . ."
"So now loverboy has a problem. He's come upstairs to fuck a girl, but unfortunately he's killed her. So what does he do? What can he do? He goes back down, rejoins the party, and since he is a big samurai cocksman, he tells one of his underlings that he has this little problem. He has unfortunately snuffed out the life of a local whore. Very inconvenient for his busy schedule. So the underlings run around and clean up the boss's mess. They clean up incriminating evidence from the floor upstairs. They remove the videotapes. They go to her apartment and remove evidence there. Which is all fine, except it takes time. So somebody has to stall the police. And that's where their smoothie suckass lawyer Ishiguro comes in. He delays us a good hour and a half. So. How does that sound?"
There was a silence when he had finished. I waited for Connor to speak.
"Well," Connor said, at last. "My hat is off to you, Tom. That sequence of events sounds correct in many respects."
"You're damned right it does." Graham puffed up. "Damn fucking right."
The telephone rang. The lab technician said, "Is there a Captain Connor here?"
Connor went to answer the phone. Graham said to me, "I'm telling you. A Jap killed this girl, and we are going to find him and fucking flay him. Flay him."
I said, "Why do you have it in for them, anyway?"
Graham gave me a sullen look. He said, "What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about how you hate the Japanese."
"Hey, listen," Graham said. "Let's get something straight, Petey-san. I don't hate anybody. I do my job. Black man, white man, Japanes
e man, it makes no difference to me."
"Okay, Tom." It was late at night. I didn't want to argue.
"No, hell. You fucking think I'm prejudiced."
"Let's just drop it, Tom."
"No, hell. We're not going to drop it. Not now. Let me tell you something, Petey-san. You got yourself this fucking liaison job, isn't that right?"
"That's right, Tom."
"And how come you applied for it? Because of your great love of Japanese culture?"
"Well, at the time, I was working in the press office— "
"No, no, cut the shit. You applied for it," Graham said, "because there was an extra stipend, isn't that right? Two, three thousand a year. An educational stipend. It comes into the department from the Japan-America Amity Foundation. And the department allows it as an educational stipend, paid to members of the force so that they can further their education in Japanese language and culture. So. How're those studies going, Petey-san?"
"I'm studying."
"How often?"
"One night a week."
"One night a week. And if you miss classes, do you lose your stipend?"
"No."
"Fucking right you don't. In fact, it doesn't make any difference if you go to classes at all. The fact is, buddy, you got yourself a bribe. You got three thousand dollars in your pocket and it comes right from the land of the rising sun. Of course, it's not that much. Nobody can buy you for three grand, right? Of course not."
"Hey, Tom— "
"But the thing is, they aren't buying you. They're just influencing you. They just want you to think twice. To tend to look favorably upon them. And why not? It's human nature. They've made your life a little better. They contribute to your well-being. Your family. Your little girl. They scratch your back, so why shouldn't you scratch theirs? Isn't that about it; Petey-san?"
"No, it isn't," I said. I was getting angry.
"Yes, it is," Graham said. "Because that's how influence works. It's deniable. You say it isn't there. You tell yourself it isn't there — but it is. The only way you can be clean is to be clean, man. If you got no stake in it, if you got no income from it, then you can talk. Otherwise, man, they pay you and I say, they own you."
Michael Crichton - Rising Sun Page 12
