Cure

17

March 26, 2010

Friday, 7:21 a.m.

The taxi dropped Laurie off directly in front of OCME. She paid the fare and climbed from the vehicle. She was alone. Jack had half asked, half told her he wanted to get back to his beloved bike. Laurie didn’t like the idea and feared for his life as she had from day one, but didn’t stand in his way. Part of the reason she was disappointed he didn’t accompany her was because if they traveled together it was easier for her to justify the expense of a cab, yet she’d taken one anyway because she was particularly eager to get to work as quickly as possible with what she had learned the evening before about her one and only case. She was brimming with confidence that it was going to be an interesting day. Little did she know.

The handoff that morning with JJ had been flawless and much easier than it had been the day before. Leticia had arrived earlier than scheduled. JJ had clearly recognized her and acted delighted to see her, so there were no tears. And Laurie, being less anxious than she had been the day before, had managed to have everything ready before Leticia appeared.

“Good morning, Dr. Laurie!” Marlene Wilson said in her usual lilting voice. Laurie returned the greeting and got buzzed into the ID room.

Sweeping into the room like an invading force, Laurie tossed her coat into one of the overstuffed vinyl chairs. Then she stopped abruptly. It could have been the previous day! There were the same people in the same spots, doing the same things: Arnold Besserman was at the desk going through all the case folders of the bodies that had come in overnight; Vinnie Amendola was in the same chair he was in the previous morning and was equally absorbed in this newspaper; and most surprising of all, Lou Soldano was back again, fast asleep with his feet propped up on the radiator cover, the top button of his shirt undone, and his tie loosened.

Arnold was the only one who noticed her. He greeted her rather perfunctorily, without looking up from his work. After his greeting he went on to say, “I do want to thank you for taking over on the unidentified case yesterday morning.”

“You’re welcome,” Laurie said, on her way to the coffee machine. “It’s turning out to be quite a case.”

“I’m glad,” Arnold said with a tone and attitude that discouraged further discussion.

Suit yourself, Laurie thought silently. She would have explained a little more if Arnold had specifically asked, but she was glad he didn’t, as she’d already decided not to talk about it with anyone, particularly with Jack, until she learned more about the cause of death. Overnight her creativity had hit on another idea, which was going to require redoing the external exam.

“Where’s Jack?” Laurie inquired.

“Haven’t seen him yet,” Arnold said. “He didn’t come with you?”

“He’s back to his bike,” Laurie said.

“The fool,” Arnold pronounced.

Laurie did not respond. Although she agreed with Arnold about the bike riding, she did not think it was Arnold’s place to criticize Jack. To change the subject, she asked about Lou, wondering why he was there two days in a row.

“He came in with a real doozy, a floater, to be exact, and another unidentified individual.”

“Oh?” Laurie questioned. She was immediately curious. A floater meant someone who’d been fished from the water. As there was a lot of water around New York because Manhattan was an island, there were frequent floaters. There were enough so that when one attracts the attention of a detective captain to stay up all night, it had to be unique in some way. As Laurie put sugar in her coffee, she decided to ask what the story was.

“There’s not much of a story,” Arnold said, finishing up with a case file and putting it on the to-do pile. “I mean, it was fished out of the water around Governors Island, which isn’t all that unusual. What’s unusual about it is that those who have seen the body claim it should be an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art. The corpse’s supposedly an unbelievable mass of tattoos from around his neck down to his ankles and wrists, and everything in between. I actually haven’t seen it yet, but that’s how it’s been described. When I finish here, I’m going to take a peek.”

“Can you tell the ethnicity?” Laurie questioned.

“Asian.”

“What’s the apparent cause of death? Drowning?”

“No. The description in the case file is multiple GSW. The MLI wrote that she thought someone had opened up with a machine gun from behind because there were as many as a dozen entrance wounds.”

“Wow. Whoever killed him wanted him dead,” Laurie commented as she recalled a similar case she’d seen in a pathology journal of a Japanese man with astounding tattoos who’d been shot multiple times and beheaded with a classical Japanese samurai sword called a katana. As described in the article, the man had been killed along with a number of others during a turf war between rival Yakuza families in Tokyo, Japan.

Laurie glanced over at Lou’s sleeping form, becoming progressively curious why he would make the effort to come in for a floater. She doubted it was the tattoos. She imagined whatever it had been that had caught his attention must have been compelling since it required him to stay up all night two days in a row. “Why did Detective Captain Soldano come in with the body? Did he say?”

“I’m sure it’s because he’s interested in the autopsy. Why specifically, I have no idea. Why don’t you ask him?”

Sipping her hot coffee, Laurie strolled over to Lou and gazed down at him. He looked equally as tired as he had the previous morning, if not a bit more. Again, he was not snoring but breathing very rhythmically and deeply. Remembering Jack’s comment about Lou being better off the sooner he got into a real bed, she reached out and placed her hand on top of his. Lou had his hands resting on his chest, fingers intertwined.

“Lou!” Laurie called softly, trying to wake him as gently as possible.

“It’s me, Laurie,” she said, continuing to gently shake his hands. She watched as his eyes opened and went from confusion to recognition within a second or two. Then he pulled his feet from the radiator and sat up straight.

“Do you want a little coffee?” Laurie asked, straightening up.

“No, thanks,” Lou managed. “Just give me a second.”

“You don’t need a doctor to tell you this habit of no sleep isn’t good for you. Talk about burning the candle at both ends!”

Lou blinked his eyes a few times and then took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “I’m firing on all cylinders. Where’s Jack?”

“He’s riding his bike this morning. I came by cab, and there was no traffic. God willing, he’ll be here in a few minutes. I don’t even want to think about the alternative. Can’t you get him to stop?”

“I’ve tried,” Lou said with frustration. “Hey, did you see what I came in with?”

“I assume you mean the floater. I haven’t seen the body, but Arnold here described it.”

“It’s unbelievable.”

“So I’ve been told. But I assume the tattoos are not what brought you in.”

“Heavens, no,” Lou said with a short laugh. “I’m in here with the concern that there might be some kind of underworld war in the making, particularly with some of these newer Asian and Russian gangs moving in and bumping up against each other. Business is not great for normal people these days, and when normal people suffer, so do the gangs, and they can get at each other’s throats. It’s standard policy to notify me if the Harbor Control Unit picks up any bodies that suggest a professional hit. The harbor is a key dumping spot December through March, when the ground up in Westchester or over in Jersey is too hard to dig.”

“Okay,” Laurie said. “Are you here to watch the autopsy, and if so, do you want me to do it, or do you want to wait for Jack?”

“It certainly doesn’t matter to me. I’d be thrilled if you’d do it. The sooner, the better.”

“Arnold!” Laurie called out. “Would it be all right with you if I do the detective’s case?”

“Absolutely,” Arnold said. “And that will be it for you. It’s a light day, and besides, I owe you.”

Laurie was about to complain that she wanted more cases until she stopped herself, remembering what she wanted to do vis-à-vis yesterday’s case, especially since she found it rather coincidental that she was doing autopsies on two unidentified Asians back-to-back.

“Vinnie!” Laurie called. “How about lending me a hand? I know Marvin isn’t in yet, but you are available. I also know you like working with Jack, but maybe he could survive for one day without your guidance. We need to start the autopsy on this floater right now to get Captain Soldano home as soon as possible.”

Still hiding behind his newspaper, Vinnie closed his eyes and gritted his teeth at Laurie’s request for his help. He felt like such a coward. Instead of coming forward to talk about the disturbing meeting he’d had with the Vaccarro henchmen, he’d followed their orders about the threatening letter. To avoid detection, he’d typed the letter on the mortuary tech’s monitor but transferred it to a USB storage device on his key chain before deleting it. He printed it at a nearby Kinko’s. To be safe rather than sorry he’d brought some latex rubber gloves so as not to leave any latent prints on the sheet or the envelope. Back at OCME, still wearing the latex gloves and avoiding being seen by the receptionist or anyone else, he slipped the envelope under the double doors into the foyer. To get back in, he’d run around the corner, entering through one of the receiving bays where the bodies were brought in.

“Vinnie!” he heard Laurie call again but much closer. Slowly he lowered his paper. Laurie was standing directly in front of him. “Didn’t you hear me?” she questioned with mild irritation.

Vinnie shook his head.

Laurie repeated herself about starting the floater.

Resigned, Vinnie stood up and tossed his paper onto the chair behind him.

“Take Captain Soldano downstairs and get him set up. Then put up the floater. I’ll be running up to my office but will be down shortly. Got it?”

Vinnie nodded, feeling like a traitor. He couldn’t look Laurie in the eye. The problem was that he knew too much about the Vaccarro group, and he certainly did not put it past them when they had threatened to drive out to his house and watch his girls come home from school. He felt he was between a rock and a hard place.

As Vinnie led the way down to the morgue, he looked back at Lou and wondered what the detective was thinking. The last time Vinnie had been forced to do a favor for Paulie Cerino, Detective Soldano had been the one who found out about it. So Vinnie was appropriately terrified that he’d be the number-one suspect if Laurie ignored the threat and turned the letter over to the authorities, meaning the chief, Harold Bingham, something Vinnie expected she would do. All Vinnie could do was hope that the threatening letter would be considered an outside job, not an inside one.

Up in her office, Laurie closed the door, turned on her computer monitor, and proceeded to hang up her coat. Then she quickly changed into green scrubs before pulling on a Tyvek suit over them. As soon as the monitor came on, she got on the Net and looked up the article she’d remembered about the murdered Yakuza member. What she wanted to do was skim the autopsy finding, which she did rapidly. With that quickly accomplished, she left her office and descended down to the pit.

Having acclimated himself to the morgue environment by having watched so many autopsies, Lou had offered to help Vinnie get the body from the cooler and transfer it onto the autopsy table. By the time Laurie got down to the basement level and into the autopsy room, Vinnie and Lou had everything ready to start the case.

“Those are the most impressive tattoos I’ve ever seen,” Laurie admitted. From the neck to the wrists to the ankles, everything was covered with intricate tattoos in a rainbow of colors, literally everything. “The problem is that it makes for a difficult external exam. But you can certainly tell he was a member of a Yakuza family.”

“Really?” Lou questioned. “You mean because of the tattoos.”

“More than that,” Laurie said. She picked up the corpse’s left hand. “He’s missing the last joint of his left little finger, a common Yakuza self-inflicted injury. To show penance to a Yakuza leader if it’s indicated, a Yakuza follower must cut it off at the joint and give the severed piece to his boss. It’s a ritual way to weaken one’s grip on a sword to make one more dependent on one’s boss.”

“Are you kidding me?” Lou questioned dubiously.

“I’m not,” Laurie said. “And here’s something else.” Laurie lifted the man’s flaccid penis and pointed to a series of nodules. “This is another interesting Yakuza ritual. These are pearlings. They are actual pearls buried under the skin, one for each year in prison. The individual does it himself with no anesthesia.”

“Ouch,” Lou voiced. He and Vinnie exchanged an uncomfortable glance.

“How on earth do you know all this about Yakuza?” Lou questioned. He’d always been impressed with Laurie’s general knowledge, but this seemed beyond the pale. Lou had some knowledge of the Yakuza organization and history from having spent six years in the organized crime unit with the NYPD before switching to homicide.

“I should just let you guys think I’m so smart,” Laurie confessed, “but when I just went up to my office, I checked an article I’d remembered, involving an autopsy on a murdered Yakuza.”

“I put up the X-rays on the viewer box,” Vinnie said. He pointed.

“Excellent!” Laurie said, and clasping her gloved hands in front of her, she walked over to inspect them. There were multiple foreign bodies sprinkled around inside the chest and abdomen, and within several extremities. They all appeared to be either intact bullets or bullet fragments. The skull appeared to be foreign body-free.

“We’ll be following all the bullet tracks,” Laurie said to Lou. “Is there anything you’d specifically like to learn?”

“Whatever you think is appropriate for this kind of case,” Lou said. “I’d like to get at least some of the bullet material, both cores and casings, to see if they are from the same gun or multiple guns. We’ve already photographed the tattoos to see if they will help make an identification.”

“All the paperwork in order?” Laurie asked Vinnie.

“I think so. Obviously we’ve got the X-rays. The photos are in the folder, and I know the corpse has been fingerprinted. I think we’re okay.”

“Terrific,” Laurie said. “Let’s do it.”

The group walked back to the table. “One thing I can see right away,” Laurie said. “What we are looking at are exit wounds.” Using her hands to smooth out the skin, especially around the multiple meaty exit wounds, Laurie tried vainly to find any hidden entrance wounds. She was unable to do so. “So this individual was apparently only fired upon from the rear. That’s some information, wouldn’t you say, Lou?”

“Most definitely,” Lou responded, although he had no idea what it meant. “Maybe he was running away?”

“Could be,” Laurie responded. “Or swimming away.” Then to Vinnie she said, “Let’s turn him over and look at the entrance wounds.”

Vinnie followed Laurie’s orders and helped turn the body, with Lou pitching in, but he did not respond verbally, which Laurie found odd. To Laurie, one of Vinnie’s endearing characteristics was his wry, sarcastic humor, which often bested Jack’s. But this morning it was absent. “Is something wrong, Vinnie?” Laurie asked when the now prone body was again properly aligned on the autopsy table. “You’re so quiet this morning,” she said.

“No, I’m fine,” Vinnie said — too quickly, from Laurie’s point of view. For a moment she briefly wondered if he was resentful that she had asked him to help her rather than allowing him to wait for Jack.

At that moment Jack came blasting through the autopsy-room doors in his regular clothes, merely holding a mask against his face, violating two rules simultaneously.

“Hey, what’s going on in here? I’m ten minutes late and both a special NYPD case is snapped away and my personal mortuary tech has been kidnapped.”

“You should have come with me in the taxi,” Laurie lectured.

“Hello, Lou, and hello, Vinnie,” Jack said, coming up to the table and ignoring Laurie’s comment.

“Hello, Dr. Stapleton,” Vinnie responded quietly.

Jack’s head lifted, and he stared at Vinnie. “‘Dr. Stapleton’? How formal, indeed. What’s up with you? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine,” Vinnie responded. The truth was that he experienced a sharp resurgence of his guilt with Jack’s arrival. He wished he could leave and find someone else to take his place. In fact, the thought passed through his mind that maybe he should take a short leave of absence until whatever was going on with the Vaccarros and the subway case was over and done.

“My God, look at these tattoos!” Jack exclaimed, looking back at the corpse on the table. “That’s fantastic. What’s the story?”

“Floater,” Lou explained. He told Jack the little that was known about the case so far.

“Interesting! I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Jack responded to Lou. Switching his attention to Laurie, he said, “You enjoy yourself! I’ll catch you later. Hope histology and the lab turn up something on your case yesterday.”

Jack started to leave but stopped. “Hey!” he added when she didn’t respond. Not only did she not respond, but she seemed hypnotized, staring at the Asian’s profile with his head turned to the side. Jack snapped his fingers in front of her face, and she acted as if she’d suddenly awakened.

“This is incredible,” she said. “I think I’ve seen this man.”

“You mean you’ve seen this corpse, or do you mean you’ve seen the man alive?”

“Alive,” Laurie said. “As incredible as it may seem.”

“Where?” Jack demanded. “When?”

Both Lou and Vinnie responded to this exchange by staring at Laurie with an intensity equal to Jack’s.

Laurie then shook her head. “It can’t be!” she said, throwing up her hands. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”

“What kind of coincidence?” Jack asked as he stepped back to where he’d been, closer to Laurie. It was difficult to see her face through her plastic face shield.

Laurie again shook her head as if trying to dislodge a crazy thought. “Last night I made what might be a breakthrough on the case I autopsied yesterday—”

“I thought you didn’t get a case yesterday,” Lou interrupted.

“I got it after you’d gone home,” Laurie explained. “Anyway, I suddenly think there might be a connection between yesterday’s case and this case. Obviously I’m not sure at this early point, but I believe there’s a possibility.”

“What kind of connection?” Lou asked. “This could be important!”

“Now, don’t get your hopes up,” Laurie cautioned.

“At least tell me what you have in mind,” Lou pleaded. He was excited. This was exactly why he had become so interested in forensic pathology and took the time and effort to come to OCME. In a number of cases since meeting Laurie and then Jack, it had been the autopsy that had provided the critical facts to solve a homicide, he hoped just like the one currently lying on the table in front of him.

“I’d rather not,” Laurie said. “Bear with me, please! Maybe this afternoon I’ll have the facts that I need. I’m sorry I’m not being more forthcoming.”

“This seems overly melodramatic,” Lou complained. “If this case is a harbinger of growing tension in the organized-crime world, it’s important we get the clue sooner rather than later, to limit fallout in the civilian sector. I don’t mind the bad guys killing each other. In some ways, that makes the NYPD’s job easier. It’s when civilians get hurt that I get upset.”

“I’m sorry,” Laurie said. “It’s all just jelling in my head at this point.”

“Are you trying to prove something to yourself?” Jack questioned. “Is that the explanation, as Lou says, for this melodramatic approach? I mean, there is a possibility that Lou or I could add a thing or two to your thinking process.”

“Maybe there’s something like that involved,” Laurie confessed. “I do want to do it myself.”

“Well, just tell me one fact, then,” Jack said. “Did you find out if your victim yesterday had a seizure?”

“Yes, I believe he did.”