“No, thanks,” Lou managed. “Just give me a second.”
“You don’t need a doctor to tell you this habit of no sleep isn’t good for you. Talk about burning the candle at both ends!”
Lou blinked his eyes a few times and then took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “I’m firing on all cylinders. Where’s Jack?”
“He’s riding his bike this morning. I came by cab, and there was no traffic. God willing, he’ll be here in a few minutes. I don’t even want to think about the alternative. Can’t you get him to stop?”
“I’ve tried,” Lou said with frustration. “Hey, did you see what I came in with?”
“I assume you mean the floater. I haven’t seen the body, but Arnold here described it.”
“It’s unbelievable.”
“So I’ve been told. But I assume the tattoos are not what brought you in.”
“Heavens, no,” Lou said with a short laugh. “I’m in here with the concern that there might be some kind of underworld war in the making, particularly with some of these newer Asian and Russian gangs moving in and bumping up against each other. Business is not great for normal people these days, and when normal people suffer, so do the gangs, and they can get at each other’s throats. It’s standard policy to notify me if the Harbor Control Unit picks up any bodies that suggest a professional hit. The harbor is a key dumping spot December through March, when the ground up in Westchester or over in Jersey is too hard to dig.”
“Okay,” Laurie said. “Are you here to watch the autopsy, and if so, do you want me to do it, or do you want to wait for Jack?”
“It certainly doesn’t matter to me. I’d be thrilled if you’d do it. The sooner, the better.”
“Arnold!” Laurie called out. “Would it be all right with you if I do the detective’s case?”
“Absolutely,” Arnold said. “And that will be it for you. It’s a light day, and besides, I owe you.”
Laurie was about to complain that she wanted more cases until she stopped herself, remembering what she wanted to do vis-a-vis yesterday’s case, especially since she found it rather coincidental that she was doing autopsies on two unidentified Asians back-to-back.
“Vinnie!” Laurie called. “How about lending me a hand? I know Marvin isn’t in yet, but you are available. I also know you like working with Jack, but maybe he could survive for one day without your guidance. We need to start the autopsy on this floater right now to get Captain Soldano home as soon as possible.”
Still hiding behind his newspaper, Vinnie closed his eyes and gritted his teeth at Laurie’s request for his help. He felt like such a coward. Instead of coming forward to talk about the disturbing meeting he’d had with the Vaccarro henchmen, he’d followed their orders about the threatening letter. To avoid detection, he’d typed the letter on the mortuary tech’s monitor but transferred it to a USB storage device on his key chain before deleting it. He printed it at a nearby Kinko’s. To be safe rather than sorry he’d brought some latex rubber gloves so as not to leave any latent prints on the sheet or the envelope. Back at OCME, still wearing the latex gloves and avoiding being seen by the receptionist or anyone else, he slipped the envelope under the double doors into the foyer. To get back in, he’d run around the corner, entering through one of the receiving bays where the bodies were brought in.
“Vinnie!” he heard Laurie call again but much closer. Slowly he lowered his paper. Laurie was standing directly in front of him. “Didn’t you hear me?” she questioned with mild irritation.
Vinnie shook his head.
Laurie repeated herself about starting the floater.
Resigned, Vinnie stood up and tossed his paper onto the chair behind him.
“Take Captain Soldano downstairs and get him set up. Then put up the floater. I’ll be running up to my office but will be down shortly. Got it?”
Vinnie nodded, feeling like a traitor. He couldn’t look Laurie in the eye. The problem was that he knew too much about the Vaccarro group, and he certainly did not put it past them when they had threatened to drive out to his house and watch his girls come home from school. He felt he was between a rock and a hard place.
As Vinnie led the way down to the morgue, he looked back at Lou and wondered what the detective was thinking. The last time Vinnie had been forced to do a favor for Paulie Cerino, Detective Soldano had been the one who found out about it. So Vinnie was appropriately terrified that he’d be the number-one suspect if Laurie ignored the threat and turned the letter over to the authorities, meaning the chief, Harold Bingham, something Vinnie expected she would do. All Vinnie could do was hope that the threatening letter would be considered an outside job, not an inside one.
Up in her office, Laurie closed the door, turned on her computer monitor, and proceeded to hang up her coat. Then she quickly changed into green scrubs before pulling on a Tyvek suit over them. As soon as the monitor came on, she got on the Net and looked up the article she’d remembered about the murdered Yakuza member. What she wanted to do was skim the autopsy finding, which she did rapidly. With that quickly accomplished, she left her office and descended down to the pit.
Having acclimated himself to the morgue environment by having watched so many autopsies, Lou had offered to help Vinnie get the body from the cooler and transfer it onto the autopsy table. By the time Laurie got down to the basement level and into the autopsy room, Vinnie and Lou had everything ready to start the case.
“Those are the most impressive tattoos I’ve ever seen,” Laurie admitted. From the neck to the wrists to the ankles, everything was covered with intricate tattoos in a rainbow of colors, literally everything. “The problem is that it makes for a difficult external exam. But you can certainly tell he was a member of a Yakuza family.”
“Really?” Lou questioned. “You mean because of the tattoos.”
“More than that,” Laurie said. She picked up the corpse’s left hand. “He’s missing the last joint of his left little finger, a common Yakuza self-inflicted injury. To show penance to a Yakuza leader if it’s indicated, a Yakuza follower must cut it off at the joint and give the severed piece to his boss. It’s a ritual way to weaken one’s grip on a sword to make one more dependent on one’s boss.”
“Are you kidding me?” Lou questioned dubiously.
“I’m not,” Laurie said. “And here’s something else.” Laurie lifted the man’s flaccid penis and pointed to a series of nodules. “This is another interesting Yakuza ritual. These are pearlings. They are actual pearls buried under the skin, one for each year in prison. The individual does it himself with no anesthesia.”
“Ouch,” Lou voiced. He and Vinnie exchanged an uncomfortable glance.
“How on earth do you know all this about Yakuza?” Lou questioned. He’d always been impressed with Laurie’s general knowledge, but this seemed beyond the pale. Lou had some knowledge of the Yakuza organization and history from having spent six years in the organized crime unit with the NYPD before switching to homicide.
“I should just let you guys think I’m so smart,” Laurie confessed, “but when I just went up to my office, I checked an article I’d remembered, involving an autopsy on a murdered Yakuza.”
“I put up the X-rays on the viewer box,” Vinnie said. He pointed.
“Excellent!” Laurie said, and clasping her gloved hands in front of her, she walked over to inspect them. There were multiple foreign bodies sprinkled around inside the chest and abdomen, and within several extremities. They all appeared to be either intact bullets or bullet fragments. The skull appeared to be foreign body-free.
“We’ll be following all the bullet tracks,” Laurie said to Lou. “Is there anything you’d specifically like to learn?”
“Whatever you think is appropriate for this kind of case,” Lou said. “I’d like to get at least some of the bullet material, both cores and casings, to see if they are from the same gun or multiple guns. We’ve already photographed the tattoos to see if they will help make an identification.”
“All the paperwork in order?” Laurie asked Vinnie.
“I think so. Obviously we’ve got the X-rays. The photos are in the folder, and I know the corpse has been fingerprinted. I think we’re okay.”
“Terrific,” Laurie said. “Let’s do it.”
The group walked back to the table. “One thing I can see right away,” Laurie said. “What we are looking at are exit wounds.” Using her hands to smooth out the skin, especially around the multiple meaty exit wounds, Laurie
