The Drop

14

By the time Bosch was gowned and gloved and had entered the autopsy suite, George Irving’s body was already being sewn closed with thick waxed twine.

“Sorry I’m late,” he announced.

Dr. Borja Toron Antons pointed to the microphone hanging from the ceiling over the autopsy table, and Bosch realized his mistake. The details of the autopsy were being recorded and now it would be formally noted that Bosch had all but missed the postmortem medical examination. If the case ever came to a point that there was a trial, a defense attorney would be able to insinuate much from that to the jury. It didn’t matter that Chu was in attendance. The fact that the lead investigator was not where he was supposed to be could take on a sinister, even corrupt, connotation in the hands of the right attorney.

Bosch took a position next to Chu, who had his arms folded and was leaning against a worktable across from the foot of the autopsy table. It was about as far from the autopsy as you could get and still say you were there. Even through the plastic germ guard Bosch could tell Chu was not happy. He had once confided to Bosch that he wanted to be in the Open-Unsolved Unit because he wanted to investigate murders but had trouble viewing autopsies. He couldn’t stand the sight of the human body being mutilated. That made working cold cases a perfect assignment. He reviewed autopsy reports but didn’t actually attend them, and he still got to work murders.

Harry wanted to ask him if anything of interest had come up during the cut but decided to wait to ask Antons directly, and off the tape. Instead, he checked the worktable at the pathologist’s back and counted the vials in the tox rack. He saw that Antons had filled five tubes with Irving’s blood, meaning he was requesting a full toxicological screening. On a routine autopsy, blood is screened for twelve baseline drug groups. When the county is sparing no expense or there is suspicion of a drug involvement that is off the usual trail, then a full screen widens the net to twenty-six groups. And that takes five vials of blood.

Antons ended the autopsy by describing his closing of the Y incision and then took one of his gloves off to turn off the microphone.

“Glad you could make it, Detective,” he said. “How were you hitting ’em?”

Off the tape his Spanish accent seemed to grow thicker with his sarcasm.

“I was two under at the turn,” Bosch said, rolling with it. “But hey, I knew my partner could handle things here. Right, partner?”

He gave Chu a rough clap on the shoulder. By referring to him directly as partner, Bosch was sending a coded message to Chu. They had agreed when they first became a team that if ever a play was on or one of them was running a bluff, the tip-off would be to call the other one partner. The code word meant that the receiver should play along.

But this time Chu ignored the routine.

“Yeah, right,” he said. “I tried calling you, man. You didn’t answer.”

“I guess you didn’t try hard enough.”

Bosch gave Chu a look that almost melted his plastic face guard. He then turned his attention back to Antons.

“I see you’re doing the full scan, Doc. Good call. Anything else I should know about?”

“It wasn’t my call. I was told to run a full scan by the powers that be. I did, however, point out to your partner an issue that bears further scrutiny.”

Bosch looked at Chu and then at the body on the table.

“An issue? Further scrutiny? Is he talking about detective work?”

“The body’s got like a scratch or a bruise or something on the back of the right shoulder,” Chu said. “It didn’t come from the fall because he landed facedown.”

“Antemortem injury,” Antons added.

Bosch stepped closer to the table. He realized that because he had arrived late to the death scene, he had never seen the victim’s back. Irving had already been turned over by Van Atta and the crime scene team by the time Bosch had arrived. No one from Van Atta to Crate and Barrel had mentioned anything about an antemortem injury on the shoulder.

“Can I see it?” he asked.

“If you must,” Antons said grumpily. “If you had been here on time you would have already seen it.”

He reached over a worktable to a shelf and pulled a new set of gloves out of a box.

Bosch helped turn the body over on the table. The back was coated in bloody fluid that had accumulated on the table, which had raised sides like a tray. Antons pulled down an overhead nozzle and sprayed the fluid off the body. Bosch saw the injury immediately. It was about five inches long and included minor surface scratching and slight bruising. There was a discernible pattern that was almost circular. It looked like a series of four crescent moons, repeating about an inch apart, scratched onto the shoulder above the scapula line. Each crescent was about two inches high.

The dread of recognition came over Bosch. He knew Chu was too young and new to the job to be familiar with the pattern. And Antons wouldn’t recognize it either. He had only been around a decade or so after coming from Madrid to attend UCLA’s med school and never going back.

“Did you check for petechial hemorrhaging?” Bosch asked.

“Of course,” Antons said. “There was none.”

Petechial hemorrhaging occurred in the blood vessels around the eyes during suffocation.

“Why do you ask about petechial hemorrhaging after seeing this abrasion on the back of the shoulder?” Antons asked.

Bosch shrugged.

“Just covering all the bases.”

Antons and Chu were both staring at him, expecting more. But he didn’t give it. They stood there silently for a long moment before Bosch moved on. He pointed to the abrasion on the body’s back.

“You said antemortem. How close to death are we talking about?”

“You see that the skin is broken. I took a culture. The histamine levels in the wounds indicate the injury occurred very close to death. I was telling Detective Chu, you need to go back to the hotel. He may have scratched his back on something while climbing over the balcony. You can see there is a pattern to the wound.”

Bosch knew the pattern already but wasn’t going to say anything yet.

“Climbing over the balcony? So you’re calling this a suicide?”

“Of course not. Not yet. It could be suicide. It could be accidental. There is follow-up needed. We’ll do the full toxicological scan, and this injury needs to be explained. You see the pattern. That should help you narrow it down at the hotel.”

“Did you check the hyoid?” Bosch asked.

Antons put his hands on his hips.

“Why would I check the hyoid on a jumper?”

“I thought you just said you weren’t ready to call him a jumper.”

Antons didn’t answer. He grabbed a scalpel from a rack.

“Help me turn him back over.”

“Wait,” Bosch said. “Can I get a picture of this first?”

“I took photos. They should be in the printer by now. You can pick them up on the way out.”

Bosch helped him turn the body back over. Antons used the scalpel to open the neck and remove the small U-shaped bone that guarded the windpipe. He carefully cleaned it in a sink and then studied it for fractures under a lighted magnifying lens on the counter.

“Hyoid’s intact,” he said.

Bosch nodded. It didn’t prove anything one way or the other. An expert could have choked Irving out without cracking the bone or causing bleeding in the eyes. It didn’t prove anything at all.

But the marks on the back of the shoulder were something. Bosch felt things changing about the case. Changing rapidly. And it was bringing new meaning to high jingo.