chapter 20
I FOUND DR. SIMEON in the cold room. He was laying out cutting tools on a stainless-steel table. Light from a ceiling lamp splashed on his clean white smock like luminous paint. The chrome instruments, knives and saws, gleamed under his rubber-gloved fingers. Almost hidden by his shadow, a body lay under a sheet on a second table against the back wall.
“Come in,” he said hospitably. “I’m afraid I gave you a rough moment this morning. We all contain the same organs, the same old blood and guts, but we don’t like to be reminded of it. We like to imagine that we’re simply inflated skins, full of helium or some other ethereal substance.”
“I was taken by surprise.”
“I know. The shock of mortality. Don’t feel too badly about it. I had a horrible week in medical school, when we started dissecting cadavers.”
My gaze strayed, against my will, to the body on the table behind him. One of the feet protruded from under the sheet. There was blood on the toenails.
“I promised to get in touch with you,” Simeon was saying, “after I’d done a thorough job on Broadman. I finished him up this afternoon, but you’re a hard man to reach.”
“I had to go into Beverly Hills. I appreciate your going to all this trouble.”
“No trouble. In fact, I owe you something. You saved me from making a mistake. I don’t say I wouldn’t have caught it in the normal course. In fact, I would have, when I got around to making a chemical analysis of the blood. But I wouldn’t have caught it so soon.”
“What did Broadman die of?”
“Asphyxia.”
“He was strangled?”
Simeon shook his head. “I’ve found no evidence of strangulation. The neck structures are intact. There’s no sign of external violence at all, apart from the injuries to the back of the head. But the internal evidence points conclusively to asphyxia: edema of the lungs, some dilation of the right side of the heart, some petechial hemorrhaging of the pleura. There’s no doubt at all that Broadman died from lack of oxygen.”
“How did it happen?”
“That’s a difficult question. There’s a possibility that it was an accident, if Broadman lapsed into unconsciousness and swallowed his tongue, as they say. The possibility of accident is remote. The tongue was in a normal position when I examined him. I’d say that he was smothered in some way.”
“In what way?”
“I wish I knew, Mr. Gunnarson. Since he was in a weakened state, it’s possible that someone simply placed a hand over his mouth and nostrils, and cut off his air. I’ve seen infants that were smothered in that way. Never a grown man.”
“Wouldn’t the marks show on his face?”
“They usually do, yes. But as I said, he was in a weakened condition, perhaps unconscious. Not too much pressure would be required.”
“Have you passed on your findings to the police?”
“Naturally. Lieutenant Wills was very much interested. So was Sergeant Granada.” His eyes were bland. “Granada was in here just before dinner.”
“Inquiring about Broadman?”
“Incidentally he was inquiring about Broadman. But his main interest was in the other cadaver.”
“Donato?”
“Donato’s wife. I can understand Granada’s interest. He was the one who found her.”
I did a moral double-take that rocked me on my heels. “Donato’s wife?”
“That’s correct. She took an overdose of sleeping pills. At least that’s what Granada thinks.”
“What do you think, Doctor?”
“I’ll let the condition of the organs tell me what to think. I do know this. I didn’t give her enough sleeping pills to make a fatal dose. It’s possible she had some already, though, or got hold of some more.”
He uncovered the body. It glistened like a fish thrown up on an iron shore. The red on the tips of the feet was toenail polish. Secundina’s face was very deep in sleep.
“And now I give you fair warning.” Simeon picked up a curved knife with a sharp point. “You’d better get out of here, unless you want to see me make a butterfly incision. To an untrained eye, it ain’t pretty.”
I turned away as he raised the knife. Tony Padilla was standing in the doorway.
“My God, is he going to cut her?” His voice was incredulous. His eyes had a fixed stare.
“It won’t hurt her, Tony. She’s dead.”
“I know that. Frankie heard it on the radio.”
He brushed past me and looked down at the dead woman. Through half-closed eyelids she regarded him without fear or favor.
He touched her naked shoulder. “You don’t want to cut her, Doc.”
“It’s necessary, I’m afraid. In cases of violent death, or death from unknown causes, an autopsy is normal procedure. Under the present circumstances, it’s absolutely imperative.”
“How did she get herself killed?”
“If we knew that, I wouldn’t
“What has Granada got to do with it?”
“He found her. He went to her house to ask her some questions-”
“What about?”
The abruptness of the question made Simeon raise his eyebrows, but he answered it civilly. “About her husband’s activities, I believe. He found her on the bed, with her children crying around her. Apparently she was dead, but he couldn’t be sure, so he rushed her here in an ambulance. Unfortunately she was dead.”
“Just like Broadman, eh?”
Simeon shrugged and looked up impatiently. “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to canvass all these issues with you. Lieutenant Wills and Sergeant Granada are in a hurry for my results.”
“Why? Don’t they know the answers already?” Padilla spoke from his whole jerking body, as a dog does when it barks.
“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.” Simeon turned to me. “I gather this chap is a friend of yours. Explain to him that I’m a pathologist, will you-a scientist? I can’t discuss police matters-”
“You think I’m stupid?” Padilla cried.
“You’re acting stupidly,” I said. “If you have no respect for the living, show some for the dead.”
Padilla became silent. With an apologetic glance at the dead woman, he turned and trudged out of the room. I followed him out into the corridor. “I didn’t know you cared so much for her, Tony.”
“Me, either. I used to think I hated her for a long time. I used to see her on the streets, in the bars, with her husband, with Granada. I always got mad when I saw her. And then last night when Gus was knocked off, I thought, I can marry her now. It came to me all of a sudden: that I could marry her now. I would of, too.”
“Have you ever married?”
“No, and I never will.”
The metal door had closed behind us. He looked at it as if life was on the other side, and the automatic door had cut him off from life.
“This is a bad time to make decisions,” I said. “Why don’t you go back to work now? Forget about death and destruction.”
“Sure, and let Granada get away with it.”
“You sound pretty sure he’s guilty.”
“Aren’t you, Mr. Gunnarson?”
It wasn’t an easy question to answer. I was less sure than I had been. I knew that Granada had shot Donato. I could imagine him killing Broadman. The thought of him killing Secundina, a woman he was said to have loved, seemed impossible to me. And Tony’s very insistence on his guilt aroused my occupational reaction, which was
