“Michael missed this as well. He read the accident report, the EMT report, and he saw what he expected to see. What he missed was an elevated oxygen level in Mr. Chen’s venous blood gases. We expect to see levels at right around seventy-five percent. Mr. Chen’s venous oxygen level was eighty-eight.”
“He’s in shape? A runner?”
“No way. Supplemental oxygen is the only explanation for levels like that.”
“We’re going around in circles. So you’re saying it was the EMTs. They did attempt resuscitation.”
“No, not according to their report they didn’t. What I’m telling you is we’ve got inconclusive evidence to support a clear-cut method of death. It’s entirely possible that Mr. Chen was caught from behind,” Dixon said. “Whoever it is, he’s pretty strong. Chen struggles, winning the hematoma surrounding the lips. His assailant manages to drop him. Chen encounters the blunt object. He’s unconscious and he’s about to drown, and don’t ask me how, but the air around him is spiked with O. I’d check to see if anyone was welding down there. Oxyacetylene.
Something that might explain it.”
“A sloppy EMT report explains it.”
“We work closely with these people. I’m not going to mud-sling.”
“Help me out here, Dixie. I’ve got a pair of missing women.”
“With that sinkhole raining down around them, the EMTs could have hurried him out of there, and then later covered it up when it came report time, because they realized the guy died in their care. Improper care. You never know.”
Boldt wasn’t sure that helped him. He had no desire to prosecute a couple EMTs.
Dixon suggested, “A fireman would have supplemental oxygen. Who responded to that cave-in?”
“A fireman killed Chen,” Boldt said in total disbelief.
“I know it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Not unless it was someone who didn’t want to be found.”
“Then why apply the oxygen?” Dixon asked, as frustrated as Boldt.
“That’s what we need to answer.”
“We?”
“You’d better write it up, Dixie. I may have to stick it to those EMTs.”
The Gift
“Lieutenant, we got a delivery at the Third Avenue entrance for you.”
Matthews, who wasn’t expecting anything, said, “Just sign for it and send it up, would you, Pete?”
“Can’t do that anymore, Lieutenant, sorry. New regs.”
She’d read that memo at some point. What a pain in the neck. “Well, at least sign for it, then. I’ll be down to get it.”
“Guy says he won’t leave it for anyone but you.”
“Then he’s going to have to wait.”
“He’s been waiting, Lieutenant. This is my third call up there.”
She’d been in meetings and hadn’t checked her messages. It seemed possible. “Ask him what it is, who it’s from.”
She heard the inquiry through the receiver. Then Pete said he was going to put the guy on the line.
“Hey, Lieutenant.”
She knew the voice, but it took her a moment to identify it.
“Mr. Walker?”
“I told you I could help.”
She suffered a chill like a small shudder rippling through her. The image that filled her imagination was that of the family dog leaving a dead squirrel on the doorstep. “We discussed this.”
“You had to say those things. I understand that … I understand the way things work.”
“I’m not sure you do. What’s in the package, Mr. Walker?”
She took a wild guess. What would the adoring student bring the teacher? “Some fish? Fresh fish?”
“Fish? It’s hers,” he said sadly. “Proof that sack of shit is lying if he says he didn’t do anything to Mary- Ann.”
“Mr. Walker … Ferrell, it’s illegal to involve yourself in an active investigation. We went over all this.” Another chill swept through her. This wasn’t the first time a bereaved relative had attached him-or herself to a case, but she’d never personally experienced it. Instead of celebrating the cooperation, she felt boxed in.
“You’ve got snitches, right? So, I’m a snitch. Don’t knock it ’til you check it out.”
“If you leave the package for me, Mr. Walker, I’ll pick it up later.”
“No way. I get to see you, or I take it with me. What’s wrong with you? You want to get this guy or not?”
“You have to leave the package, Mr. Walker. There’s nothing I can do about it. They X-ray them, electronically sniff them-there’s all sorts of security now that I can’t do anything about.
It takes a couple of hours. I’ll look at it and I’ll call you.”
“No way. I’m waiting.”
“What happened to your double shift?”
“New arrangements.”
“Mr. Walker-”
“I’m waiting, like it or not.”
She could hear the phone being passed back to Pete.
“Lieutenant?” the gruff voice inquired.
“Tell him I’m on my way down. Go ahead and start it through security, okay, Pete?” In fact, such security took only a matter of minutes. She wondered if it was stupid to show Walker she’d exaggerated the situation. To hell with it: She’d accept the package, get Walker out of there, and warn him not to try it again.
A few minutes later she passed the lobby coffee stand and approached the busy security checkpoint at the building’s main entrance on Third Avenue. Ferrell Walker stood waiting-there were no chairs-just on the other side of the twin metal detectors, to the left of the lumbering X-ray machine. He wore the same sweatshirt and blue jeans that she’d seen him in earlier the same day. She could imagine that smell even at a distance.
Pete, a burly patrolman in his early fifties who’d worked the front entrance for years, indicated a somewhat soggy brown cor-rugated cardboard box that waited on a folding table. The noise generated at the entrance by all the security questioning and the signing in and the beeping of the metal detectors and the grinding of the X-ray machine’s conveyor belt created a jagged tension in the air that Matthews always felt in the center of her chest as a threat of violence. She used the garage entrance on most days, appreciating the calmer approach taken there as a result of an officers-only policy. But here, in the coffee-scented foyer with its high ceiling, standing under the faint light of overhead fixtures with dull bulbs chosen for their low consumption of energy, she felt more like a tourist at the security check of an airport in a foreign country.
The cardboard box seemed to grow in size and significance.
She lost sight of Walker, due to the security installation, but could feel him standing over there staring at her.
“Bring him through, please, Pete.”
The officer on duty signaled for Walker to step through the metal detector, but Walker refused.
Matthews stepped around to where she could see the kid and said to him, “You can leave it with him. In the plastic tray.
They’ll give it back to you when you leave.”
Walker looked skeptical.
“They’ll give it back to you,” she repeated.
Walker removed the long fishing knife from a hand-sewn leather sheath tucked inside the waist of his pants and hidden by his sweatshirt. He seemed impressed that she should have anticipated this. He placed it in the dirty
