The 5th Horseman

Chapter 116

JACOBI AND I TOOK a noisy, very rickety service elevator down to the basement, which turned out to be a labyrinth of unadorned concrete walls filling the city block under the hospital.

We followed the signs to the morgue, drifting behind an orderly who was wheeling a gurney in that direction, the wheels rattling and grinding ahead of us.

We stood back as the orderly and gurney preceded us into the chilly room.

A stringy, middle-aged man with a basketball-size pot belly under his scrubs looked up when we entered the room. He put his clipboard down on a nearby corpse and walked toward us.

We exchanged introductions.

Dr. Raymond Paul was the chief pathologist, and he’d been expecting us.

“James Sweet’s room had already been cleaned out and we had him down here by the time we got your call,” he told me.

My sigh bloomed out in front of me, a frosty plume of disappointment. I had hoped against hope that the crime scene, if that’s what it was, hadn’t been destroyed.

We trailed Dr. Paul to the cooler, where he checked a list, then opened a stainless-steel drawer. The slab slid out with a smooth, rolling whirr. I drew back the sheet and saw for myself what Noddie Wilkins had described on the phone.

The boy’s naked body was so small and vulnerable. The cast on his arm made him seem even more pitiful in death.

What had killed the boy?

How could a broken arm turn into this?

Jacobi asked the pathologist, “What the hell happened here?”

“According to his chart, he had a simple fracture of his right humerus and a hairline fracture of the ulna, same arm,” said Dr. Paul. “Apparently, he fell from his bike.”

“And what else, Doctor?” said Jacobi. “Last I heard, a broken arm isn’t fatal. Or maybe it is at this hospital.”

“I was told to keep my hands off this kid,” the doctor told us. “So, you know, I can’t even guess.”

“That’s fine, Dr. Paul,” I said. “The ME is on the way. This little boy is going to the medical examiner’s office.”