by Baxter Clare
And that was another gnat buzzing in Frank’s ear. They’d talked to Claudia’s neighbors and two of them remembered seeing her brother’s junked Bonneville outside her house on Sunday night. Both wits pinned the time around nine PM, about fifteen minutes after the Estella’s had been gunned down. One saw a figure get out from the driver’s side but wouldn’t say more than that. It looked like a man in dark clothes, but at night, with the street lights shot out, the wit couldn’t even swear with certainty that the driver had been male. But they were both pretty sure about the Bonneville because of its size and coughing muffler.
Frank glanced around when Nancy brought her drink. She recognized lawyers, ADAs and detectives. Johnnie had peaceably wandered over to a table crowded with secretarial types and Hunt was hunched over the bar with a couple off-duty sticks. He was dressed in tight jeans that pegged over expensive boots and his muscles squeezed out from under a tight LAPD T-shirt. A black Stetson clung magically to the back of his head and his belt sported a silver buckle the size of a salad plate, the type cowboys won in rodeos. Frank thought he’d look more at home in a juke-joint than a bar full of suits. Usually the Figueroa uniforms favored a rougher bar called Red’s, and she wondered idly why Hunt spent so much time in the company of the suits he seemed to despise. Then it occurred to her he’d probably gotten eighty-sixed from Red’s.
When Nancy brought her salad, Frank ordered another double. The first drink had untied the knots in her shoulders and the second would undo the knots in her mind. She attacked her dinner, careful not to spill on the papers clamoring for attention.
Chapter Four
While Frank and her crew had been catching up on sleep, a heads-up sheriff was comparing Luis Estrella’s old Bonneville to the one on his APB sheet. Through a not uncommon assortment of red tape and miscommunications, Frank didn’t hear about the car until Thursday afternoon. Given the antagonistic relationship between the LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, Frank was glad she’d heard at all. Swearing more out of excitement than frustration, she and Noah grabbed jackets and headed out to Old Topanga Canyon Road.
The car was parked in an isolated turnout in a grove of eucalyptus trees. Thick chaparral rose steeply from the north shoulder of the road, and fell away to the south. It was hot and still in the scrub-covered hills and the air smelled of dust and heated plant oils. The car was dusty inside and out, loaded with all kinds of crap, like Luis had been living in it. They quickly poked through the litter, finding nothing more interesting than Luis’ works on the passenger seat and a clean Bowie knife. The trunk was locked and the keys were missing but it didn’t smell like they had pudding in a cup, or in civilian terms, a body in a trunk.
Noah tried to videotape the scene, but the camera battery was dead, as always. He settled on Polaroids while Frank sifted through eucalyptus leaves and old trash. As they waited for SID’s arrival, Frank scanned the random homes perched on the steep hills, noting the sparse traffic pattern. She wanted SID to process the trunk before they jimmied the lock. Depending on what they found inside, SID could either continue at the scene or have the car hauled back to the print shed to finish their evidence collection in a more optimal setting.
The SID van pulled up and Noah groaned when Dave Grummond’s gangly form emerged. He was a tall man, balding, thin, and vaguely reminiscent of a cadaver. He was born without a sense of humor and had never thought to cultivate one, but he was a meticulous forensic technician. Frank greeted him quietly, outlining the situation for him. Her idea was to dust the trunk area so they could pop it open. If there was a body inside, they’d process it in situ to preserve the evidentiary value. If not, they’d tow the vehicle to the LAPD print shed. Grummond nodded gravely. When he spoke, he sounded like a butler in Masterpiece Theatre.
“I should like to start by wanding with cyanoacrylate and RAM. I should think that would show up well against the dark paint while yielding as many prints as possible.”
“Whatever you think’s best,” Frank agreed, backing away so Grummond and his tech could get started.
Noah asked, “Aren’t you going to do the Rappenwhiph test first?”
Grummond frowned, “I don’t think I’m familiar with that test.”
Noah bent near the trunk and sniffed. He tapped the metal hood, listening to the hollow sound it made.
“No dead body,” he said. “It passed the rap an’ whiff.”
The older man studied Noah quizzically, then gave up, returning his attention to the laborious process of getting into his gloves. Noah grinned at Frank, delighted with himself. Frank shook her head and watched Grummond load cartridges into his Super Glue gun. When he was finished he walked all around the car, completing his circuit near the right rear bumper. Aiming his wand like a magician he released a mist of fumes and dye over the trunk’s surface area. Prints popped up like acne on a teenager.
While the tech held the light, Grummond started shooting them with his 1-to-l, methodically setting up each photograph.
“Jesus Christ,” Noah griped in Frank’s ear. “This isn’t Yosemite and he isn’t Ansel fucking Adams.”
Frank lifted her shoulders but made no move to rush the tech. Noah sighed and went back to toeing the leaves around the car. His impatience amused Frank. They’d always been a good team. Still were. Frank’s conservatism tempered Noah’s enthusiastic tendency to trample details while he rushed headlong into a case. In turn, Noah gave Frank the push she needed when she mired in too much caution and deliberation. The traits they carried into their professional roles applied to the personal as well. Noah was a good mirror for Frank. Because he had earned her elusive and implicit trust, he was able to tell her things that would have landed anyone else flat on their ass.
Frank rolled up her sleeves, enjoying the dry heat. The sun on her skin brought an unbidden image of Kennedy and the sensation of their bodies touching. Frank blinked the memory back to its hiding place, glad for the distraction of her pager. Glancing at the number, she returned the call in the privacy of the unmarked. A secretary put her on hold, then Frank said, “Hey. What’s up, doc?”
She winced, realizing she sounded like a cartoon character. Either Gail was used to it or didn’t notice, because she answered matter-of-factly, “I think I’ve got someone here you might be interested in.”
While searching for the mountain lion that had mauled the young girl in Topanga, a park ranger had literally stumbled over a body about a quarter mile from where Luis Estrella’s car had been found. The Sheriffs office was called and after the coroner investigated, the decomposing body was hauled out of the canyon amid curses and insults to the dead man’s mother. Gail had been checking the daily roster when the stinker had been brought in, and she thought Frank might want to check out his tattoos.
After Grummond popped the trunk, confirming there wasn’t a body inside, Frank had the Bonneville towed to the print shed, then she and Noah fought through traffic to the USC medical complex. After badging their way into the coroner’s office, they were met by Homicide Deputies from the Sheriffs office. They had jurisdiction over the body and Frank recognized them with dismay. They were old-school deputies, with fully evolved contempt for women, non-Anglos, the LAPD, and all outside investigative authorities — not necessarily in that order. Cooperation was going to be a bitch.
Frank patiently explained the LAPD’s involvement. One of the LASD dicks told her to cry him a river. The upshot was she’d have to subpoena the case file from them. Frank hadn’t expected any less. She and Noah stood apart from the deputies as they waited for Gail. She’d been paged, but it was another twenty minutes before she arrived, flushed and breathless. A handful of pathology students trailed behind her like ducklings.
“Sorry,” she gasped, “I’m going to get into some scrubs and be right back.”
Frank followed, speaking to her for a short minute. When she rejoined Noah, he breathed, “Ahhhh,” as he watched the docs skirted legs disappear.
“Did you ask her for
a date?”
“Don’t start,” Frank warned, gowning up.
When Gail returned she ushered everyone into Room C, the small, air-tight room within the main autopsy suite. Frank hated C autopsies because it meant the corpse either carried an infectious diseases or, more frequently, was decomposing nastily. This time it was the latter, and as Frank filed in she clenched her teeth against the stench. The men bitched and swore, and the students struggled vainly for nonchalance.
“We already x-rayed his teeth so maybe we can get a dental ID, but these should do for now, ” Gail said, referring to a number of tattoos on the deceased. They squeezed against each other in the fetid room and as the deputies feigned disinterest, Noah produced a color copy of a photograph. The picture tattoos corresponded perfectly to the tats on the body. It looked like they’d found Luis Estrella.
The eye sockets were vacant, and jays and small mammals had stripped much of the facial tissue down to the bone. A print ID was impossible because they’d also gnawed away at his fingers. Estrella was as fat and swollen as a steamed bratwurst. The bacteria digesting him from the inside out gave off the malodorous gasses that caused his limbs and abdomen to swell. The swelling, plus a green discoloration spreading from his belly around a network of darkly rotting veins suggested he’d been dead at least a couple of days. That and the occasional maggot that continued to fall out of his head onto the steel table.
Gail innocently asked the deputies if they had the case file with them and they grudgingly handed it over. Noah tried to look over her shoulder but Frank gave him a quick, surreptitious shake of her head. He looked puzzled until Gail asked, “Mind if I make a copy?”
She passed the folder to her tech and the smaller of the two men protested, “What for?”
“New protocol,” she sighed. “You should’ve gotten the memo already. Admin wants us to have copies of the initial investigation in all questionable deaths, in case the techs have missed something.”
“Shit,” the other dick breathed. “I’m already buried in fucking paperwork and they keep piling more on.”
“Tell me about it,” Gail commiserated. She and a new tech cataloged Estrella’s bloody shoes, sweatshirt, and the rest of his personal effects, including three baggies of heroin. After weighing and measuring the body, Gail started the exterior exam.
“Autolysis is well advanced,” Gail noted into her microphone. “What would you say the average daytime high’s been the last few days?”
“Hot,” one of the deputies offered uselessly, but a student said, “It was 88 yesterday and its felt like that most of the week.”
Gail nodded, “And it looked like he was found in a pretty sunny area, so I’m guessing he probably hasn’t been dead more than three or four days.”
Frank quickly counted backward. That would have put his time of death at Monday or Tuesday. Plenty of time to ace his family, score some dope, wander up to Malibu and fix on a remote turnout… then what? Get out of his car to take a leak and fall down the hillside?
Gail was studying various lacerations, scabs and contusions, and as if reading Frank’s mind, Noah asked, “Any of those consistent with a tumble down a canyon?”
“Not really,” Gail said, pointing. “The coloring on these bruises indicates he probably incurred them before death. The lacerations are scabbed, except for this one.” She indicated a fresh two-inch tear on his upper forearm that corresponded to a tear in his sweatshirt.
“That doesn’t look like it bled much,” one of the deputies said.
“So he was dead when he was cut?” Noah added.
“Possible,” Gail murmured, “but given where he was found there could be any number of postmortem explanations.”
Continuing into the mike, she spoke about bilateral needle marks on the arms and a fresh hemorrhage in the ante-cubital fossa of the left arm. She catalogued old scars and tattoos, noting lividity and lack of rigor. He’d already gone in and out of the latter and the former was consistent with the position his body was found in.
Having finished the external portion, Gail sharpened a knife and gave her students time to ask questions and form opinions. As she made the “Y’ cut she apologized for not having any half-face masks available, and Frank breathed through her mouth. One of the students fled the room, followed by a second. The men swore some more, as if that would help lessen the smell issuing from Estrella’s rotting body, but the fact was they’d all carry the thick, gagging smell with them for the rest of the day.
“Welcome to the romantic world of pathology,” Gail grinned. Slicing connective tissue, she flipped Estrella’s chest plate over his chewed face. After cutting through the ribs she pulled them out, exposing lungs and the pericardial sac. A few more slashes with the knife and the green sides of Estrella’s abdomen fell away, exposing the discolored abdominal organs.
The younger of the two deputies pawed his foot, muttering, “I hate this fucking job,” and for once, Frank had to agree. Gail let the path residents make conclusions before she lifted out the organ block and laid it on the dissecting table. Then she sawed through Estrella’s skull and lifted the calvarium, giving them a look at his brain. Frank thought she saw a slight edema but no obvious trauma, and Gail confirmed that into the dictaphone.
After years of self neglect, Luis Estrella was in pretty bad shape. Clusters of bacteria around his heart indicated mild endocarditis from using dirty needles. As the autopsy progressed, he turned out to be a compendium of the “-itis’s” associated with long-term drug abuse — esophagitis, pyelonephritis, pancreatitis, cholecystitis, and his liver looked more like pate than beef, indicating advanced alcoholism. All his organs were congested and his bladder contained almost 700cc of urine. A conscious person would have been in considerable pain with such a full bladder, so Gail assumed Estrella was unconscious at the time of death, explaining why he hadn’t voided. Coupled with the respiratory edema and no obvious signs of trauma, Gail’s preliminary ruling was that Estrella had overdosed into coma and eventual respiratory arrest.
Leaving the mess for the tech to clean up, Gail led her troupe out of Room C into relatively fresh air.
“Depending on the lab results, what I’m calling it right now is accidental death due to overdose. Questions?”
The sheriffs men shook their heads, happy with Gail’s verdict. They left before she could change her mind and the students went to wash up.
“Their paper,” Frank reminded.
“Oh, yeah,” Gail said slipping away.
Noah asked, “What do you think, boss?”
Frank shrugged, “Looks like we’re in the dark until we get some lab results back.”
“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking.”
“We’ve got blood spatter on the sweatshirt. We’ve got what looks like the same pattern on this guy’s shoes. With blood on them. For whatever reason — and maybe this is what his sister’s holding back from us — he’s pissed at his family and he whacks them. He takes off in his car. Maybe he’s stoned out of his fucking mind. He stops at his sisters, tells her what he’s done — which would also explain her lack of cooperation — and he takes off. Just driving anywhere. The guy’s a junkie, probably all he wanted to do was get a stick in his arm. So he shoots a hot load — he’s not being too careful ‘cause he’s shook — he gets out of his car at the overlook, maybe to take a leak or something, wanders down the road. He’s disoriented, he slips, down he goes. It’s dark. He can’t find his way out ‘cause he’s too stoned. Goes into coma. End of story.”
“Very tidy,” Frank said, watching Gail return with a manila folder.
“Here you go,” the ME said, “Those two are positively antediluvian.”
“Think we could get a bug guy to look at those maggots? Make sure they’re not from a housefly?”
“I can do that,” Gail nodded.
“And you’ll let me know tox results as soon as you can?”
“Of course.”
Noah asked, “So we gonna see you at the
Alibi tomorrow?”
“I don’t know,” Gail said doubtfully. “Last time I was there Johnnie set some poor woman’s hair on fire.”
“Ah, that was an accident,” Noah insisted.
The woman was a redhead that Johnnie had been lusting over. She and her friends had been snubbing him all night, so in an inebriated moment of vengeance Johnnie’d “accidentally” lit her hair while he was lighting his cigarette. This enabled Ike and Johnnie to douse her with their fresh drinks and put the fire out.
That little antic had cost Johnnie another conduct unbecoming write-up and Frank suppressed a frown. Sober, Johnnie was a great cop; drunk, he lost all impulse control. That was his third CUBO in just over a year, not good stats to have in his file.
“Come on, doc. You’re due.”
“I assume you’ll be there,” she said to Frank. “Most likely.”
“We’ll see then,” she replied, fanning her nose. “You stink. Go change.”
Chapter Five
On Friday night the Alibi was thick with suits, civilians, and a handful of uniforms. The ninety-third squad ringed a table in the middle of the crowded bar with a shapely rookie in the center. Ike and Johnnie were barely giving the pretty boot room to breathe and Frank wondered what might happen before the night was over.
She surveyed her crew, happily awaiting the lab work that would convince them Luis Estrella was responsible for his family’s homicide. Not only that, the nine-three had had two closures during the week, one a double homicide. Frank wished she could celebrate with her boys but she was catching this weekend. Besides, she wasn’t as convinced about Estrella’s guilt.
