No offence Intended - Barbara Seranella (10 page)

"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.