CHAPTER 8
I always worked backward from the remains, trying to piece a Marine together by imagining where he’d been inside the Bradley or in the Humvee. How close he’d been to an IED during a foot patrol. In my mind, I re-created the man as he’d been before the bomb. His hair and eyes, his hands and face.
His bones unshattered, his skin unburned.
That is how I found my ghosts.
—Sydney Parnell. ENGL 0208 Psychology of Combat.
The afternoon was flat and cool, the sky the tepid color of weak tea in a sun-bronzed wash of clouds. I parked across the street from the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner—a long, low gray building topped with a bright-blue roof. A garbage truck grumbled past as I stepped out of the truck, and Canada geese winged overhead with a whispered stroke of feathers.
Bandoni leaned on the railing near the front doors. He had a can of Mountain Dew in his left hand, and a cigarette curled smoke from between his fingers.
I made sure Clyde was comfortable in the back of the Tahoe—no dead bodies for him—then crossed the street and jogged up the concrete steps to my human partner.
I said, “It’s kind of late in the day to start an autopsy.”
“The stiff don’t mind.” He dropped the half-smoked cigarette on the concrete, ground it under his shoe. “But Bell’s doing us a favor, scheduling it an hour before closing. She knows we need that ID.”
I stood at the railing next to him and looked for the geese. They were nothing more than black pinpricks, stubble against the skin of clouds. “Is someone here from the crime lab?”
“Miller. He’s already inside.”
Bandoni seemed in no hurry to follow suit. He took a long swallow of the soda.
I said, “What are the chances we’ll get an ID with fingerprints?”
“Who knows? If you’re the praying kind, start now. Even putting a rush on the DNA means we’re looking at twenty-four to thirty-two hours. And if the powers that be decide there’s no good reason to rush? Christ, I’ll be retired.”
He tapped the rail with the flat of his free hand and narrowed his eyes, as if trying to follow the birds. But they’d been swallowed by the clouds.
Cohen had told me that Bandoni was one of the rare detectives who stayed for the entire autopsy. Most cops left after the external examination, heading out as soon as they had an idea about trace evidence and the level of injuries. It was easy enough to read the details later, in the medical examiner’s report.
But Bandoni stayed, and during all the years of his partnership with Cohen, he had refused to offer an explanation.
Maybe it was his way of sitting with the dead.
He smacked the railing. “I hate that name, Chicken Man.”
Surprised, I said, “Finally, something we have in common.”
He grunted. “Hell of a small thing to share.” But there was almost humor in his voice. “How about we just keep it at John Doe until we know who he is?”
“That works.”
I watched Bandoni surreptitiously. His face was a collection of pouches—under his eyes, along his jaw. A pocket of flesh rolled over the collar of his shirt. Other than two spots of red in his cheeks, his skin carried a dull-gray pallor.
I opened my mouth before I knew I was going to speak. “You look like you’re two steps from a gurney yourself.”
A little color came back. He swigged the Mountain Dew. “You that eager for a new partner?”
“God. I didn’t mean to say that.”
“No?” He pulled out a roll of antacids, popped two in his mouth. Around the tablets he said, “It’s the truth, so it’s okay.”
“No. It’s not.”
“I only look like shit.” His mouth crooked up in a half smile. “I feel a hell of a lot worse.”
We were silent for a moment, this time both of us staring into the sky, maybe willing the geese to return.
Finally I said, “We should go in.”
“Yep.” He drained the soda and picked up the smashed cigarette, shoving it into the can. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
We signed in and picked up badges, then followed the hallway down to the autopsy suite. A glance through the windows showed John Doe already wheeled in, the gurney slotted to the workstation in one of the bays. Our victim was still just a shape inside the body bag, but Emma Bell stood next to him, arranging items on a stainless-steel cart. Dan Miller, the crime-lab detective, was inside the room, talking to a tech in a lab coat.
The other bays were empty save for another tech washing instruments.
Bandoni and I slipped on disposable paper masks from a shelf in the hall. As soon as he opened the door to the suite, a wave of cool air washed over us, acrid with chemicals.
Bell waved us over, and we gathered with Miller and the tech in a loose horseshoe around the gurney.
“I just finished with the X-rays,” she said. “It looks like the decedent has a hairline fracture of the left temporal bone. He also has complex, depressed fractures of both sides of the frontal bone along with breaks that continue down through the anterior facial skeleton. I’ll be able to provide more detail when I look inside. But injuries of this nature are often associated with substantial damage to the brain.”
Bandoni’s normal boom was softened by the mask. “Meaning the blow to the head killed him?”
“Blows. I think we have two separate injuries, although again, I need to look inside to be sure. But unless I find something unusual or if something shows up in the tox, I’m guessing the cause of death will be blunt force trauma to the head.”
While the tech snapped photos, Bell clipped the red seal—used to show that the body had not been disturbed since being placed in the bag—and pulled down the zipper.
My gaze went to what was left of John Doe’s skull and
