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.
Chapter 19
It was 5:00 P. M., and I was back in my car on tlic cell to Alexa as I headed out of the Valley.
'That means Huntington House will get Walts life insurance.' Alexa said after I told her what had just happened.
'They can certainly use it.' But what I was thinking was how Alexa had embraced this from the beginning and had not put any of her own disappointment about losing our vacation 011 me. Sometimes this woman takes my breath away.
'I'd like you to rig this homicide so it ends up 011 my desk,' I told her. 'I know it's technically not a high- profile case and shouldn't go to Homicide Special, but there's gotta be some privilege we can claim to get it over there so Sally and I can work it.' uOkav, but the reassignment has to come through channels. First the coroner needs to change his death finding and a homicide number needs to be assigned. Once that happens, I'll talk to Jeb and have him put in for it,' referring to Captain Jeb Calloway, my boss at Homicide Special.
'I'm sorry about Hawaii, but I owe this to Walt. I can't let anybody else do it.'
'I understand, babe. You don't have to apologize. What are you doing now? You want to meet me for an early dinner someplace?'
'I gotta go back to Harbor Division. I promised the two primaries who handled the original squeal I'd keep them in the pipeline. I want to do it in person.'
'How about we meet at the Tiki Hut again around eight? Mai Tais on me.'
'Book it.'
Kovacevich and Cole were not happy with me, but they weren't exactly pissed off either. They were somewhere in between. Mostly they were just frustrated and angry at the events that had produced their mistake. We were standing in their detective's cubicle on the second floor of the new precinct house in Harbor City. I watched as each of them reviewed the top sheet on the Oakcrest Pathology and Medical Group's autopsy report.
Cole was frowning. 'How the fuck did our ME miss this?' he growled.
'It happens. On the surface it looked like suicide. They were moving fast.'
After rereading the top sheet for about the third time, Kovacevich finally looked up. 'Good work, Scully. It makes me and Cole look like donkeys, but at least a righteous homicide didn't get lost.'
'Listen. So this stays in channels and to keep your record clean, I think it would be best for you to be the ones to take this report back to the L. A. coroner. Tell him the private autopsy was ordered by Huntington House because they were the beneficiaries of Walt's life insurance. Talk to Ray Tsu over at North Mission Road. He already knows I'm looking into this and he's a friend. He'll smooth it over.'
'Thanks,' Cole said.
'The ME's office is gonna want to do another autopsy and establish their own result,' I continued. 'I've already arranged to have Walt s remains made ready to ship. You should call over to Oakcrest and have them send him back over to Mission Road.'
'I can't believe our chop shop missed this,' Kovacevich said, frowning again at the report in her hand.
'I got lucky, and I had an advantage that the rest of you didn't.' They waited to hear me out. 'I knew the guy. I was pretty sure he'd never commit suicide.'
They didn't react to that, just stood there frowning.
'By the way, I'm in the process of getting the case moved to my homicide table, so if you could e-mail the file over to me at the Glass House I'd appreciate it.'
We all exchanged cards, and then I closed my briefcase and prepared to leave.
'This Walter Dix guy was a close friend?' Cole asked.
