The Pallbearers

Chapter 18

I arrived at the twelve hundred block of Whittier Boulevard in Bovle Heights at eight forty the next morning. At that early hour, the neighborhood was quiet.

Vargas's staff of case-pending office workers started drifting into his bungalow at a little after nine. The members of the Pallbearers' Murder Club were there, all of us with guarded expressions, not knowing what to expect. Vicki and Seriana were working the phones. Seriana was trying to reach the funeral director at Forest Lawn while Vicki was chasing down the executive director at Oakcrest.

Sabas Vargas had left the room to call a "friendly judge" who had agreed to fast-track his court papers if this ever came to pass.

Then the miracle happened.

Seriana came back into the den and announced that Walt's body-had not yet been cremated. It was scheduled to go in the oven at eleven o'clock that morning. A small cheer went up from the five of us. Seriana's face remained impassive, but I saw the fierce spark of victory flash in her eyes.

From that point on, it all went pretty quickly. First, Sabass judge issued the restraining order to prevent the cremation, then came his order for Forest Lawn to release Walt's body to us for reautopsy.

By nine thirty, we were splitting up. Sabas and Jack were heading out to Forest Lawn to stand by Walt's casket and make sure nobody out there missed the order and put him into the oven by mistake.

The rest of us headed over to Oakcrest in the Valley. Vicki had arranged for the new autopsy to take place at just after noon and led the way in her Toyota Camry.

Oakcrest Pathology and Medical Group was located on the west end of Thousand Oaks. The area was filled with newly built commercial structures, strip malls, and modern office plazas. Oakcrest was in a new three-story, mirrored-glass building.

The director, Lester Shoe, was a bald guv in a suit who had a prominent eagle's beak. He seemed particularly fond of Vicki and gave us what she said was a killer price for a complete reautopsy.

The service included forensic photography; preservation of toxic samples; and a gross, as well as a microscopic, examination, complete with an immediate written report detailing the top-line findings. A full medical document would follow two to four weeks later. The price for all of this was normally five thousand dollars. Vicki had arranged it for three.

Sabas and Jack arrived at a few minutes past noon and reported that the Oakcrest van had picked up Walt's casket from Forest Lawn and the body was on its way. Then Vicki started passing the hat, collecting personal checks to pay the pathology group.

I wrote mine for five hundred dollars, tore it off, and handed it to her.

"That wasn't so hard, was it, Shane?"

I didn't know if she was talking about my writing the check or the fact that we'd managed to save Walt's body for this second autopsy.

The Oakcrest van with Walts remains arrived at the medical group at a little past one. Technicians in lab coats took delivery of the body and whisked it off to an autopsy theater. I called Alexa and told her what was going on.

"You see, things are looking up," she told me.

"These people seem very professional. Lots of white coats and everything, but I'm not expecting them to find much," I said. "I know how thorough the L. A. medical examiners are. T he chance that they missed something is pretty slim."

"But at least you'll know you did everything possible."

The Hawaii trip lay quietly between the lines of this conversation. It still wasn't too late to go. Neither of us wanted to hope that the Oakcrest pathologists would find nothing so we could jet happily off to paradise, because that would confirm the loss of Walt's life-insurance check and be crippling to Diamond and Huntington House. On the other hand, some part of me, the selfish part that Walt had always scrupulously looked past, wanted this to be over.

We spent the next few hours sitting in the sterile waiting room of the pathology group, looking at bad art and miniature ficus trees. Jack Straw sat quietly opposite me, cycle boots up on the table.

I had watched him write his check for five hundred dollars as if it were nothing, tearing if off, flipping it casually on the table. Where did this guy get five hundred in spare cash? He was an ex-con grease monkey changing piston rings at a cycle shop in Long Beach. He was less than a month out of Soledad, yet money seemed to be no problem.

Vicki Lavicki was pacing. Sabas Vargas was on the cell phone rearranging his court calendar for the next two days, talking to one of the teardrop office chicas.

Diamond was out in the hall, standing alone, looking out the third-story window. Her face was sad as she watched leaves blow off the trees in the parking lot, propelled by a stiff wind. God knows what she was thinking.

Seriana and I sat opposite each other. Her face was impassive as usual, stoic. Once when I held her gaze, I thought for a moment I saw her wink.

Around four o'clock, the chief pathologist, Dr. William Hovt, and his assistant came out.

"Are we all here?" Dr. Hovt asked.

Til get Diamond," Seriana said, and went to retrieve her from the hall.

Finally, we were all standing together, formed in a half circle around the Oakcrest doctors. Our expressions were guarded.

"Most everything we found lines up exactly with the L. A. coroner's findings," Dr. Hoyt began.

"Most everything?" Diamond asked.

"Except for one thing. The L. A. coroner didn't open the deceased's lungs, probably because there was no reason to. We decided to take that extra step and found aspirated blood inside both lower lobes."

"Is that important?" Seriana asked.

"Yes. You see, the shotgun blast took out your friend's entire brain stem before it obliterated the left side of his skull. In the instant the shotgun was fired, the brain stem was destroyed."

"How's that important?" Jack asked.

"The brain stem controls the breathing reflex. Without a brain stem, you can't inhale."

I immediately knew where this was heading. This was the mistake we'd been looking for. I wasn't going to be heading off to Hawaii.

"I don't understand," Seriana said.

"Aspirated blood is blood that has been inhaled from the mouth, down the trachea into the lungs," Dr. Hoyt explained. "With his brain stem gone, your friend couldn't have inhaled that blood after the shotgun blast. He had to have inhaled it before."

Seriana and Sabas started to nod. Diamond, Vicki, and Jack were still lost.

"What Dr. Hoyt is saying," I explained, "is that Walt had blood in his mouth and inhaled it before his brain stem was blown away. The only reason he would have blood in his mouth is if he'd been beaten in the face before he died. The shotgun blast covered up the signs of that beating."

"That means Pop was murdered," jack said.

We all stood there, not quite knowing how to react.

"So what the fuck do we do now?" petite Ms. Lavicki finally asked.