The Pallbearers

Chapter 16

"I'm not sure I have a take," I said, trying to cluck him. What I really wanted to do was to get the hell out. I already knew that coming here was a huge mistake.

Sabas Vargas had a deep bass voice that he used to control the room. "I know we re not all on the exact same page, but the idea of this meeting is to discuss whether or not its feasible that Pop would go into his backyard and blow his head off. A lot of you feel he wasn't that kind of guy."

"We don't know that," I said. "Diamond was the closest to him recently. She says he was stressed, worried about missing funds."

"Seriana tells me that you got the ME's report," Sabas went on, not reacting to that. "Anything in there that looks off?"

"No." I looked around at the room of Huntington House grads. None of them seemed too happy with me.

"Usually when I'm trying a death case, there's something in the ME report worth quarreling with," Sabas said suspiciously.

"Nothing," I repeated. "It was pretty standard. Pretty cut-and-dry." How the hell did I allow myself to get dragged into this?

"If you don't want to help, why did you bother coming?" Vicki Lavicki said, anger reddening her freckled, schoolgirl complexion.

"I came because Seriana asked me to," I defended. "It doesn't mean I think we're going to find anything."

"You also told Corporal Cotton you were looking into Pop's death on your own," Vicki pressed. "So it's okay for you to check it out, but it's not okay for the rest of us."

I glanced over at Seriana who held my gaze silently, never blinking.

"I was checking a few things because I agree it wasn't Pop's style or in his general demeanor to pull something like this. Also, I agree that the bungalow fire seems a bit much on top of the suicide, so I spent twenty minutes to check out the coroner's autopsy. Not much there. You can read it for yourselves."

I took the report out of my briefcase, again leaving the grisly autopsy photos behind, and slid the file across the table. Seriana had already read it, so she passed it on to Vicki, who passed it to Sabas, who passed it to Jack. Once they had all finished, they returned it to me.

"So you find nothing was done inappropriately at the coroner's inquest? Nothing wrong with the police investigation?" Sabas asked. "You're absolutely sure?"

"I'm sure. I talked to the cops who got the original rollout. Nothing in their investigation suggested anything but suicide. They gave me a copy of Walt's suicide note. It was written on his computer, only his prints on the keyboard. I have it here."

I also put that on the table, and it followed the same path as the ME report, going hand to hand around the room. When they finished reading those seven lines, each of the pallbearers looked up. I could see frustration on Vicki's face, anger in Seriana s intense black eyes. Jack was tipping back, arms folded, flashing forearm art. Sabas Vargas seemed to be losing energy for this as the pieces I'd gathered started to paint a depressing picture of suicide.

"Pop didn't write that," Vicki suddenly blurted. "It's not in his handwriting, just a computer printout. He wouldn't say he got pulled down by leash drag or did a yard sale. What kind of BS is that?"

That was sort of my take too, but I didn't say anything. I wasn't going to stop working on this, I just didn't want to do it with them.

"You're sure nothing in the ME's report seemed out of the ordinary?" Sabas said skeptically. "Not even one little detail?"

"Well…" I stopped. They all leaned forward. I knew in that second that I'd just made a major blunder. They knew I had something, and I didn't want to go down that road. What was I doing? I felt myself being pulled in by a sense of belonging. We'd all been there. All residents of the home. I owed Pop, but did I owe these people?

"Well what?" Vicki said. "What is it? You found something?"

"I didn't find anything. It's just that…" I looked again at their expectant faces. What the hell. Since I'd already stumbled, I might as well finish the fall. "The coroner told me they give the obvious suicide autopsies to the new medical examiners. According to the shift supervisor, this Barbara Wilkes person who did Pop's ME report has only been on the job for six months."

"So she could have missed something?" Jack said, smiling, looking triumphantly at Seriana, who, as usual, had no expression.

"I didn't say that. I just said she was new. Not a lot of experience."

"And that means she could have missed something," Jack repeated. He leaned forward, bringing the two chair legs down abruptly.

"It's possible but not probable," I said.

They all looked at me, waiting. For some damn reason, it made me edgy. Or maybe I was just feeling guilty. The moment simmered

"Whatta ya want!?" I snapped angrily. "Stop looking at me. It doesn't mean anything. Besides, I can't work on this. It's not even a case. I spent a couple a hours and got my hands on a few things, but that's all I can do. No case, no crime. No crime, no investigation!"

"Shane, if you were going to do something… if you could take one more step, what would it be?" It was a good question, asked in a quiet voice by Seriana Cotton. Her voice might have been soft, but her black irises were stuck on mine like laser-gun sights.

"I'd try to get an exhumation order and reautopsy the body," I finally admitted. "Sometimes, if an examiner is certain of what the outcome will be before he or she does the autopsy, they could jump to an inaccurate conclusion, especially somebody with little experience. If they already think they know what the finding will be, or if they're rushed and doing it in a hurry, it's possible they might do a quick slapdash job. I'd redo it and look for something that would get Walt's death classification changed from suicide to homicide. Then the department will assign a homicide number to it and a proper police investigation would take place."

"Let's do that then," Vicki said.

"How you gonna do that?" I replied. "I said I'd try for an exhumation, but it's not gonna happen. We have no new facts to submit to force one. The coroner doesn't have time to redo this stuff on a whim. They're way too busy over there as it is."

"There are private firms we could hire that perform independent autopsies," Sabas Vargas said. "I've used them to gather my own medical evidence for trials."

"And who's gonna pay for that?" I asked.

"I will," Vicki said. "I'll put up my piece."

"Me too," Seriana said. Jack nodded, so did Sabas Vargas. They were circling the wagons.

"I know who we could get to do it for us," Vicki Lavicki said, smiling. "One of our clients at Kinney and Glass is Oakcrest Pathology and Medical Group. They do that kind of thing. It's my account and I'm friends with the executive director. I'm sure I could get us a quick job at a good price." She glared at me. "I assume you'll also step up for your end of the exhumation and autopsy costs, Shane?" she challenged.

"Yeah, sure," I flustered. "I'm good for my piece."

I couldn't believe how completely I'd been sucked in. Somehow I'd just joined this silly Pallbearers' Murder Club.

"I'll use the phone in the other room. Maybe the director of Oakcrest hasn't gone home yet," Vicki said, getting up and leaving the den.

Jack asked, "How do we get Walt's body exhumed? Isn't that going to be kinda tough to accomplish?"

"Walt didn't have any living relatives," Sabas said. "Nobody but us. I guess whoever signed the final agreement with the mortuary to have him picked up would be the one to authorize it."

"That was me," Diamond said. We all turned and saw her standing in the doorway. She'd finally made it.

"We're thinking we should pass the hat among us and exhume and reautopsy Walt's body," Jack told her. "Shane thinks that the L. A. coroner missed something."

Of course, I didn't say that. But this had already developed a life of its own.

"We can't do that," Diamond said softly. "I thought you guys knew. That's why we didn't have a graveside ceremony. Walt stated in his will that he wanted to be cremated. The body's been destroyed."