Cases filled with chemicals and equipment stood against the adjoining walls, and a lab table with a deep sink and a computer sat along the fourth wall beside the stairwell. Three autopsy tables filled the center of the room, each beneath a low-hanging fluorescent light.
'Do you want him out of the cooler?' the woman asked.
'That won't be necessary,' McCaskey said. 'Do you have a light we can bring over?'
'Yes,' she said.
McCaskey had been around death before. Too much, in fact. But that had been in shoot-outs or entering a drug den when someone had just ODed. However sad, however tragic, there was drama in the exit. It was the last act of a life. The exchange with Dr. Hennepin had been casual, as if they were deciding what to do with refrigerated leftovers. In fact, they were. There were no pyrotechnic or emotional fireworks, no memorable or even unmemorable gestures. Just the muted echo of their footsteps and low voices, and their curiosity, which hung in the air like buzzards.
The doctor pulled the heavy handle on cooler number four. Billionaire Wilson was not even in number one. Leftovers and one notch below the bronze. The morgue was one hell of an equalizer.
There was a rush of cool air and a smell like raw lamb meat. The body had not yet been embalmed. Dr. Hennepin slid the slab from the cooler. Then she got a workman's light from one of the cabinets and hung it from the handle of the cooler above. It was not an elegant setup, but it did the job. She also brought over a box of latex gloves. They each donned a pair. Starting at the head, she rolled back the white sheet that covered the body. There was a large Y-shaped incision in the trunk. The area well outside the cut was purple. It shaded to surrounding flesh that was yellowish white. Instead of being sutured, the area had been covered with adhesive tape. The cut had been made through the white tape. After the autopsy was concluded, the wound was closed with a series of clasps built into the tape.
'That's enough,' McCaskey said when she reached the waist. Since she had already looked at the femoral artery, he was not interested in any region that far from the heart. The first thing he did was look at the eyes.
'A drug might have been applied by eyedropper,' he said. 'You often find broken blood vessels from the pressure of holding open the lids.'
'This is a little far from the heart,' the doctor pointed out.
'Yes, but a mega dose of coenzyme Q10 could have been given that way
'
'Causing an infarction that would impact the heart quickly and directly,' the medical examiner said.
'And Q10 would not turn up on a routine toxological scan,' McCaskey added.
'How did you find out about the coenzyme?'
'I investigated a doctor who killed a patient with whom he was having an affair,' McCaskey told her. 'When we had enough circumstantial evidence, he confessed and told us how he did it. In this case, though, the eyes look normal.'
They did not feel normal, however. The ocular muscles had begun to tighten, setting the eyes stiffly in their sockets. It was like working on a mannequin.
'May I borrow your micro light McCaskey asked.
'Yes,' she said, taking the tiny, powerful flashlight from her vest pocket. She handed it to him.
McCaskey angled the head back slightly and shone the light up the nose.
The veins of the nasal passage were another area where a killer might have made an injection. The skin did not appear to have been broken.
'Do you need any of the cartilage retracted?' the doctor asked.
'No. There would be a small clot if he had been injected here.'
'And you know that because?'
'Junkies,' McCaskey said. 'There are a number of places they inject themselves so the track marks don't show.'
'Interesting. I had heard of them using the areas between the fingers and toes,' the doctor said.
