Blindsight Page 8

  Laurie let out a short, nervous laugh. “I’m sorry, Lou,” she said. “I’d forgotten the eyes had been taken. Truly. This was the case where the family was insistent that the deceased’s wishes to be an organ donor be honored. If the eyes can be harvested within twelve hours, they often can be used if there are no other contraindications. Occasionally it can even be longer than twelve hours if the body is chilled.”

  “I don’t mind being the butt of a joke,” Lou said.

  “But it wasn’t a joke,” Laurie insisted. “I’m sorry. Honest. I’d been called on this case yesterday. With everything else that’s happened, I’d forgotten. I just remembered this was a case where the victim took the cocaine IV. Let’s see if we can find the injection site.”

  Laurie rotated Duncan’s right arm palm up so she could examine its volar surface. Vinnie did the same with the left arm.

  “Here it is,” Laurie exclaimed, pointing to a minute puncture wound over one of the veins in front of the elbow area.

  “I didn’t know cocaine could be mainlined,” Lou said.

  “It’s taken into the body just about every way you can imagine and some you can’t,” Laurie said. “IV is not common, but it’s done.” As she spoke, her mind took her back to the night before she found Shelly dead in his bedroom. He’d just come home from Yale, and Laurie was in his room, eager to hear about college. His open Dopp kit was on his bed.

  “What’s this?” Laurie questioned. She held up a pack of condoms.

  “Give me that,” Shelly shouted, clearly peeved to have his baby sister find such a thing in his shaving kit.

  Laurie giggled as Shelly snatched the contraceptives from her hand. While Shelly was busy burying them in his top bureau drawer, Laurie looked into the Dopp kit to see what else she could find. But what she saw was more disturbing than interesting. Touching it ever so gingerly, Laurie lifted a 10 cc syringe from the bag. It was the needle she was to see the following day.

  “What is this?” she demanded.

  Shelly came over and tried to grab the needle, but Laurie evaded him.

  “You got this from Daddy’s office, didn’t you?” Laurie demanded.

  “Give me that or you are in serious trouble,” Shelly snapped. He trapped her against the wall.

  Laurie gripped the needle in both hands behind her back. Having grown up in New York City, she knew what it meant when a fellow teenager had a needle.

  “Are you shooting up?” Laurie asked.

  Shelly overpowered her and got the needle. He took it over to his bureau and hid it with his condoms. Then he turned back to his sister, who hadn’t moved.

  “I’ve tried it a couple of times,” Shelly said. “It’s called speedball. A lot of the guys at school do it. It’s no big deal. But I don’t want you to say anything to Mom or Dad. If you do, I’ll never talk to you again. You understand? Never.”

  Laurie’s momentary reverie was cut short by the booming voice of Calvin Washington. “What the hell is going on here?” he yelled. “Why haven’t you even started this case? I came in here to see if you found anything we can hang our hats on and you haven’t even started. Get busy.”

  Laurie sprang into action. She completed her external examination, noting only a few ecchymotic bruises on Duncan’s upper arms in addition to her other findings. Then she took a scalpel and expertly made the traditional Y-shaped incision from the points of the shoulders down to the pubis. With Vinnie helping, she worked silently and quickly removing the breastbone and exposing the internal organs.

  Lou tried to stay out of the way. “I’m sorry if I’ve slowed you down,” he said when Laurie paused, allowing Vinnie to organize the specimen bottles.

  “No problem,” Laurie said. “When we do DePasquale I’ll explain a bit more. I just want to get Andrews finished. If Calvin really gets mad there could be trouble.”

  “I understand,” Lou said. “Would you rather I leave?”

  “No, not at all,” Laurie said. “Just don’t get your feelings hurt when I ignore you for a while.”

  After Laurie inspected all the internal organs in situ, she used several syringes to take various fluids for toxicologic testing. She and Vinnie went through a precise procedure to make sure the right specimen got in the correctly labeled bottle. Then she began to remove the organs, one by one. She spent the most time on the heart, until eventually it, too, was removed.

  While Vinnie took the stomach and the intestines to the sink to wash them out, Laurie carefully went through the heart, taking multiple samples for later microscopic examination. She then took similar samples from some of the other organs. By then Vinnie was back. Without any encouragement, he began on the head, reflecting the scalp. After Laurie inspected the skull, she nodded to him to use the power vibrating saw to cut through the skull in a circular fashion just above the ears.

  Lou kept his distance when Laurie lifted the brain out of its skull and plopped it into a pan held by Vinnie. Wielding a long-bladed knife similar to a butcher’s, she began making serial cuts as if she were dealing with a slab of processed meat. It was all an efficient, well-practiced duet requiring little conversation.

  Half an hour later, Laurie led Lou out of the autopsy room. Leaving the aprons and gowns behind, they went up to the lunchroom on the second floor for coffee. They had about fifteen minutes while Vinnie took Duncan’s remains away and “put up” the next case, Frank DePasquale.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll be eating anything for a few days,” Lou said when offered something from one of the several vending machines in the lunchroom. Laurie poured herself another cup of coffee. They sat at a Formica table near the microwave oven. There were about fifteen other people in the room, all engaged in animated conversation.

  Seeing other people smoking, Lou took out a box of Marlboros, a pack of matches, and lit up. When he noticed Laurie’s expression, he took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Okay if I smoke?” he asked.

  “If you must,” Laurie said.

  “Just one,” Lou assured her.

  “Well, Duncan Andrews didn’t have any pathology on gross,” she said. “And I don’t think I’m going to find anything on histology either.”

  “You can only do your best,” Lou said. “If worse comes to worst, dump it in Calvin’s lap. Let him decide what to do. As part of the brass, it’s his job.”

  “Whoever does the autopsy has to sign out on the death certificate,” Laurie said. “But maybe I can give it a try.”

  “I was impressed with the way you handled that knife in the autopsy room . . .” Lou said.

  “Thanks for your compliment,” Laurie said. “But why do I feel like I hear a “but’ coming?”

  “It’s just I’m surprised an attractive woman like yourself would choose this kind of work,” Lou said.

  Laurie closed her eyes and let out a sigh of exasperation. “That’s a rather chauvinistic comment.” She stared at Lou. “Unfortunately, it undermines your compliment. Did you mean to say, ‘What is a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?’ “

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” Lou said. “I didn’t mean it that way at all.”

  “Talking about my appearance and my abilities and relating the two makes a negative comment about both,” Laurie said. She took a sip of her coffee. She could tell that Lou was bewildered and uncomfortable. “I don’t mean to jump on you,” she added. “But I’m sick of defending my career choice. And I’m also sick of hearing my looks and my gender have anything to do with my position.”

  “Maybe I’d better just keep my trap shut,” said Lou.

  Laurie glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I think we should get downstairs. I’m sure Vinnie has DePasquale on the table.” She gulped down the rest of her coffee and stood up.

  Lou stubbed out his cigarette and hurried after her. Five minutes later they were back in their gowns, standing in front of the X-ray view box in the autopsy room, looking at the X-rays of Frank DePasquale. The AP and the lateral of the head showed the b
right silhouette of the bullet resting in the posterior fossa.

  “You were right about the location of the bullet,” Laurie said. “There it is in the base of the brain.”

  “Gangland execution is very efficient,” Lou said.

  “I can believe it,” Laurie added. “The reason is that a bullet into the base of the brain hits the brainstem. That’s where the vital centers are for things like breathing and heartbeat.”

  “I suppose if I have to go, that’s one way I’d like it to be,” Lou said.

  Laurie looked at the detective. “That’s a pleasant thought.”

  Lou shrugged. “In my line of work you think about it.”

  Laurie glanced back at the X-ray. “You were also right about its being small caliber. I’d guess a twenty-two or a twenty-five at most.”

  “That’s what they usually use,” Lou said. “The more powerful stuff is just too messy.”

  Laurie led the way to table six, where Frankie’s mortal remains were laid out. The corpse was slightly bloated. The right eye was more swollen than the left.

  “He looks younger than eighteen,” Laurie said.

  “More like fifteen,” Lou agreed.

  Laurie asked Vinnie to roll the body over so they could look at the back of the head. With a gloved hand she parted his wet, matted hair and exposed a round entrance wound surrounded by a larger round area of abrasion. After taking some measurements and photographs, Laurie carefully shaved the surrounding hair to expose the wound completely.

  “It was obviously a close-range shot,” Laurie said. She pointed to the tight ring of gunpowder stippling around the punched-out center.

  “How close?” Lou asked.

  Laurie pondered for a moment. “I’d say three or four inches. Something like that.”

  “Typical,” Lou said.

  Laurie took another series of measurements and photographs. Then, with a clean scalpel, she carefully teased bits of the gunpowder residue from the depths of some of the small stippled puncture wounds. By tapping the scalpel blade against the inside of a glass collection tube, Laurie preserved this material for laboratory analysis.

  “Never know what the chemists can tell us,” she said. She gave the tubes to Vinnie to label.

  “We need a break,” Lou said. “I don’t care where it comes from.”

  When Vinnie was finished labeling the collection tubes, Laurie had him help her turn Frank back into a supine position.

  “What’s wrong with the right eye?” Lou asked.

  “I don’t know,” Laurie said. “From the X-ray it didn’t look like the bullet went into the orbit, but you never know.” The lid was a purplish color. Swollen conjunctiva protruded through the palpebral fissure. Gently, Laurie pulled up the eyelid.

  “Ugh,” Lou said. “That looks bad. The first case had no eyes; this one looks like the eye’s been run over with a Mack truck. Could that have happened when he was floating around in the East River?”

  Laurie shook her head. “Happened before death. See the hemorrhages under the mucous membrane? That means the heart was pumping. He was alive when this occurred.”

  Bending closer, Laurie studied the cornea. By looking at the reflection of the overhead lights off its surface, she could tell that the cornea was irregular. Plus, it was a milky white. Reaching over to the left eye, she lifted its lid. In contrast to the right, the left cornea was clear; the eye stared blankly at the ceiling.

  “Could the bullet have done that?” Lou asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Laurie said. “It looks more like a chemical burn the way it’s affected the cornea. We’ll get a sample for Toxicology. I’ll look at it closely in sections under the microscope. I have to admit, I haven’t seen anything quite like it.”

  Laurie continued her external exam. When she looked at the wrists, she pointed to them. “See these abrasions and indentations?”

  “Yeah,” Lou said. “What’s that mean?”

  “I’d say this poor guy had been tied up. Maybe the eye lesion was some kind of torture.”

  “These are nasty people,” Lou said. “What irks me is that they hide behind this supposed code of ethics when in reality it’s just a dog-eat-dog world. And what really irks me is that their screwing around tends to give all Italian-Americans a bad name.”

  As Laurie examined Frank’s hands and legs, she asked Lou why the Vaccarro and Lucia crime families were feuding.

  “For territory,” Lou said. “They all have to sleep in the same bed, Queens and parts of Nassau County. They are forever at each other’s throats for territory. They are in direct competition for their drugs, loan-sharking, gambling clubs, fencing, extortion rings, hot car rings, hijacking . . . You name it and they’re into it. They’re forever fighting and killing each other, but it’s a Mexican standoff so in a way they also have to get along. It’s a weird world.”

  “All this illegal activity goes on even today?” Laurie questioned.

  “Absolutely,” Lou said. “And what we know about is just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Why don’t the police do something?”

  Lou sighed. “We’re trying, but it ain’t easy. We need evidence. As I explained before, that’s hard to get. The bosses are insulated and the killers are pros. Even when we’ve got the goods on them they still have to go through the courts, and nothing is guaranteed. We Americans have always been so worried about tyranny from the authorities, that we legally give the bad guys the edge.”

  “It’s difficult to believe so little can be done,” Laurie said.

  “Something can only be done if we get hard evidence. Take Frank DePasquale here. I’m ninety-nine percent sure Cerino and his crew are responsible for whacking him. But I can’t do anything without some proof, some break.”

  “I thought the police had informers,” Laurie said.

  “We have informers,” Lou agreed. “But nobody who really knows anything. The people that could really point a finger are more scared of each other than they are of us.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll come up with something with this post,” Laurie said, redirecting her gaze to Frank DePasquale’s corpse. “The trouble is that bodies in water tend to be washed of evidence. Of course, there is the bullet. At the very least I can give you the bullet.”

  “I’ll take whatever I can get,” Lou said.

  Laurie and Vinnie tackled the autopsy. At each step she explained to Lou what they were doing. The only difference between Frank’s autopsy and Duncan’s was the way Laurie did the brain. With Frank she was meticulously careful to follow the bullet’s path. She noted that it never came near to the swollen eye. She was also careful not to touch the bullet with a metal instrument. Once she’d retrieved it, she put it into a plastic container to avoid scratching it. Later, after it was dry, she marked it on its base, then photographed it before sealing it in a small envelope. The envelope was then attached to a property receipt, ready to be turned over to the police, meaning Sergeant Murphy or his partner upstairs.

  “It’s been quite a morning,” Lou said as they exited the autopsy room. “It’s been very instructive, but I think I’ll pass on your third case.”

  “I was surprised you tolerated two,” Laurie said.

  They paused outside the locker room. “I’ll go through the microscopic material on Frank DePasquale, and I’ll let you know if anything interesting turns up. The only thing that I think might be interesting is the eye. But who knows?”

  “Well, it’s been fun . . .” Lou said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  Laurie looked into the lieutenant’s dark eyes. She had a feeling he wanted to ask her something else, but couldn’t seem to get it out. “I’m heading upstairs for another shot of coffee,” she said. “Would you care for another before you run off?”

  “Sounds good,” Lou said without hesitation.

  Up in the lunchroom they found themselves at the same table they’d occupied earlier. Laurie couldn’t understand why the confident Lou had becom
e so fidgety and awkward. She watched while he took out his cigarettes and matches and fumbled to light up.

  “You’ve been smoking for a long time?” Laurie asked, just to make conversation.

  “Since I was twelve,” Lou said. “In my neighborhood it was the thing to do.” He shook out his match and took a long drag.

  “Have you ever considered stopping?” Laurie asked.

  “Absolutely,” Lou said. He blew smoke over his shoulder. “It’s easy to stop. I’ve been doing it weekly for a year. Seriously though, I do want to quit. But it’s hard at headquarters. Most everybody smokes.”

  “I’m sorry that we didn’t come up with a breakthrough with DePasquale,” Laurie said.

  “Maybe the bullet will help somehow,” Lou said. He dropped his cigarette into the ashtray while trying to balance it on the edge. “The ballistics people are pretty resourceful. Ouch!” Lou pulled his hand away from the ashtray. He’d burned his finger on his cigarette.

  “Lou, are you all right?” Laurie asked.

  “I’m fine,” Lou said too quickly. He tried again and this time succeeded in retrieving his cigarette.

  “You seem upset about something,” Laurie said.

  “Just have a lot on my mind,” Lou said. “But there is something I’d like to ask. Are you married?”

  In spite of herself, Laurie smiled and shook her head. “Now there’s a question out of the blue.”

  “I agree,” Lou said.

  “Also, under the circumstances, it’s not very professional,” Laurie said.

  “I can’t argue with that either,” Lou admitted.

  Laurie paused as she had a mini-argument with herself. “No,” she said finally. “I’m not married.”

  “Well, in that case . . .” Lou said, struggling for words, “ . . . maybe we could have lunch someday.”

  “I’m flattered, Lieutenant Soldano,” Laurie said uneasily. “But I usually don’t mix my private life with work.”

  “Nor do I,” Lou said.

  “What if I say maybe, and I’ll think about it?”