Jack searched for something to say, something to calm him, but the words didn’t come fast enough. The Jamaican turned and sprinted toward the bridge, one arm pumping, the other held close to his body. He kept on running until he vanished somewhere in the twilight beyond the marina.
He was a troubled man, the conversation had been very odd, and Jack stood there in the waning moments of daylight as he pondered what seemed to be the strangest but most certain thing of all.
The Jamaican surely would have killed him before giving up his gift from Falcon, his protection-that necklace of metal beads.
chapter 12
A round nine p.m., Alicia met Detective Barber at the Joseph H.Davis Center for Forensic Pathology, a three- building complex on the perimeter of the University of Miami Medical Center campus and Jackson Memorial Hospital. The nearby cancer center, eye institute, and spinal project were top-notch, but when it came to medical science, Miami’s living had nothing on its dead. The Davis Center was a first-rate, modern facility, with some of the best forensic specialists in the world.
The body in Falcon’s car had put the City of Miami police on high alert. A down-on-his-luck homeless guy with his eye on the mayor’s daughter was one thing. A vicious killer was quite another. Investigators were covering every angle, so it seemed wise for Alicia to take a look at the victim before an autopsy made her unrecognizable. Fingerprint analysis having turned up nothing, the woman’s identity was still unknown. The face was battered beyond recognition, but perhaps Alicia would recognize something else about her. If there was some connection between the victim and Alicia, police wanted to know about it from the get-go.
An assistant medical examiner escorted Alicia and Detective Barber to examination room three. Barber was a familiar face around the Davis Center; he had worked homicides for several years. Alicia, however, was a newcomer. “Have you seen an autopsy before?” the assistant ME asked her.
“Once,” said Alicia, “during training.”
“Good. But if you feel light-headed, just let me know.”
The pneumatic doors opened, and they were immediately slammed with the indoor equivalent of an Arctic blast from the air vents in the ceiling. Alicia felt as though she’d just discovered the epicenter of Miami’s latest cold front. Bright lights glistened off the white sterile walls and buff tile floors. The unclothed, ashen cadaver lay face-up on the stainless-steel table in the center of the room.
The examiner knew the detective, and he introduced himself to Alicia as Dr. Petrak. Then he said something in such a heavy Eastern European accent that Alicia couldn’t understand him.
Detective Barber translated. “He says we’re just in time.”
From the looks of things, Alicia would have guessed they were too late. The autopsy was well under way. Two deep incisions ran laterally from shoulder to shoulder, across the breasts at a downward angle meeting at the sternum. A long, deeper cut ran from the breastbone to the groin, forming the stem in the coroner’s classic “Y” incision. The liver, spleen, kidneys, and intestines were laid out neatly beside a slab of ribs on the large dissection table. The cadaver was literally a shell of a human being, and just the sight of it was making her a little queasy. Or was it the sweet, sterile odor that was getting to her?
“Are you okay?” asked Dr. Petrak.
“I’m fine,” said Alicia.
The doctor was examining the victim’s battered right cheekbone, working beneath an intense white spotlight. His powers of concentration were such that his bushy gray eyebrows had pinched together and formed one continuous caterpillar that stretched across his brow. He laid his tweezers aside and snapped a digital photograph.
Alicia’s gaze drifted across the lifeless body. Lifeless-that was a very fitting word. Whoever she was, she had been without a life for a long time. The fingernails were jagged, several of them bitten back to the quick. The toes were deformed, presumably from shoes that didn’t fit. The calluses on her knees were thick and discolored. They told of a woman who’d spent day after day on Miami’s sidewalks, looking up to passing strangers, begging for spare change. They might never ascertain her true identity. Alicia felt sorry for her, then she felt embarrassed for herself. It seemed that people always felt compassion after it was too late to help.
“Interesting,” said Dr. Petrak. “Verrrry interesting.”
Alicia was suddenly reminded of an old episode of Laugh-In that she’d seen on cable. Dr. Petrak sounded like that comedian with the cigarette and wire-frame glasses who used to dress up like a German soldier from the Second World War. Vaht vahs his name?
“What’s very interesting?” said Detective Barber.
Arte Johnson. That was the guy. Alicia wasn’t trying to check out, but little mental journeys helped take her mind off the odor and bring the blood back to her head.
The doctor said, “Officer Mendoza, what do you think when you see a woman with an Adam’s apple?”
Alicia suddenly felt as though she’d been caught daydreaming in ninth-grade science. “A woman with an Adam’s apple?”
She had stated her question as if it were an answer. It worked.
“Exactly,” said Dr. Petrak. “It can’t be, right?”
“Unless she used to be a man,” said Detective Barber.
Dr. Petrak looked up, his expression deadpan. “Don’t get crazy on me, okay, detective?” He refocused on his work and carefully opened the victim’s mouth with a long, probing instrument. “What this bump tells us is that there is something lodged in her throat.”
Alicia took a half-step closer. Dr. Petrak was right: This was getting interesting.
“Of course, the X-ray didn’t hurt my diagnosis much, either.” The doctor shined a laser of light deep into the victim’s gaping mouth. The front teeth were missing, though it was difficult to tell if that was a result of the beating or of simple neglect over the years. The shattered molars, though, were clearly the work of the same lead pipe that had demolished her cheekbone. Dr. Petrak probed with his forceps, his hand as steady as a heart surgeon’s. The bulge in her throat was due mostly to the missing molars, but Dr. Petrak seemed to be searching for something else. Finally, with a turn of the wrist, he had it. He carefully removed the object and placed it on the dissection tray.
“What is it?” Alicia asked.
He held the tray before them for a closer look. “What does it look like?” he asked.
Alicia studied it for a moment. “A metal bead,” she said. “Like those add-a-bead necklaces that preppy girls used to wear.”
“Except that this one is lead, not gold,” said Dr. Petrak. “I found six others just like it inside the victim’s stomach.”
“You mean she swallowed them?” said Detective Barber.
“Apparently so,” said the doctor.
“Why would she do that?” said Alicia.
“You can answer that as well as I,” said the doctor. “Think in very simple terms. To do this work, you must constantly remind yourself not to skip over the obvious. So, she swallowed them because…”
Alicia wished otherwise, but she had no idea where the doctor was headed.
“Think in the most basic sense,” he said. “Why do we do anything in life?”
“Because we want to?” she said.
“Very good,” said Dr. Petrak. “Or?”
Alicia considered the possibilities. “Because someone forces us?”
“Excellent,” said the doctor.
“But why would anyone force her to swallow metal beads?” said Alicia.
“Ah,” said Dr. Petrak as he switched off the spotlight. “That’s where my job ends. And yours begins.”
