prosecution's star witness, and Lee knew that anyone putting money on the defendant now was making a fool's bet. He smiled to himself and slipped out the back door of the courtroom.
When he reached the corridor, his cell phone rang. He found a quiet corner by the restrooms before answering it. He hated talking on his phone in public, and thought people who did were 'coarse,' as his mother would say.
'Campbell here.'
'Lee?' It was Chuck Morton, and he sounded nervous.
'Yes. Chuck? What's happened?'
'Now, Lee, don't get excited, please-'
'What? What is it?'
'Now, don't call your mother until we know more-'
'It's about Laura, isn't it? What's happened?' Lee heard his own voice rising in pitch and volume, and felt himself starting to hyperventilate.
'Lee, please calm down. It may be nothing at all.'
Spots danced in front of his eyes. He forced himself to take a deep breath before he spoke again. 'What have you found?'
'A couple of kids came across some bones in Inwood Park.'
Inwood Park was an unlikely place for a body drop, especially if Laura was abducted near her apartment in Greenwich Village, he thought.
'What makes you think it's her?'
'The medical examiner's office thinks it may be about the right age and, uh, gender, but we-uh, they-want to do a reverse DNA analysis.'
Lee forced himself to breathe again, doing his best to sound professional.
'No clothing or other identifying-'
Chuck interrupted him. 'No, nothing. But if we can get DNA samples from you and your mother-'
'Yeah, I know how it works. I'll be right there.'
'Wait-I'm not in my office. I'm at the ME's office.'
'Okay. Be right there.'
He turned off his phone and shoved it into his pocket, but his hand was trembling and sweaty, and the phone slid from his hand, clattering to the floor. It skidded across the smooth tiled floor and came to rest at the feet of Dr. Katherine Azarian.
'You dropped your phone,' she said, picking it up.
'Uh, thanks,' Lee mumbled, taking it from her.
'No problem,' she said, and continued on toward the ladies' room. She carried a cream-colored lamb's wool overcoat in one hand and a leather briefcase in the other.
'Uh-wait!' he cried.
'Excuse me?' She turned back to face him, her expression wary.
'Please-please just wait a second. I'm with the NYPD-' Lee fumbled for his ID, trying desperately to keep her from leaving.
'I knew that,' she said. 'You don't have to show me your ID.' She smiled, revealing teeth that were unreasonably white. They gleamed like polished porcelain, and Lee found himself staring at them, unable to look away.
'How did you-'
'Oh, please,' she said. 'I've been around them long enough to be able to spot one at a hundred paces.'
'Oh, okay,' Lee said. 'I just saw you testify in court, and-'
'Oh? Are you on that case?'
'No, no. I just had some time to kill-but that's not important. I want to ask you something.' In this light, her eyes were the color of roasted almonds, and rimmed with thick, dark lashes. 'Would you-would you possibly be willing to help identify a body?'
She cocked her head to one side and shifted her backpack to the other shoulder. 'Well, that's what I do. Do you mean right now?'
'Are you finished testifying?'
'Yes.'
'Then right now-unless you have other plans.'
She laughed. 'They can wait. You seem very anxious to have your answer. Where is this body?'
'At the medical examiner's office.'
'Okay-I have some time to kill, too, actually,' she said, putting on her coat and gloves. Her hands were small and fine, delicate as the hands of a child, with perfectly manicured pink fingernails. He couldn't imagine those hands in a laboratory, handling the gruesome remains of murder victims. 'When did this body turn up?' she said, buttoning her coat.
'I just found out about it.'
'One of your cases?'
'Sort of. It-it may be my sister.'
She stopped midway through putting on her second glove. 'Oh my God. What happened to her?'
'That's what I'm trying to find out. She disappeared five years ago.'
'I'm so sorry to hear it. I hope I can be of some help.'
'Thanks.'
'Okay, let's go,' she said.
'What about-?' Lee said, glancing toward the bathroom.
'It can wait.'
As they left the courtroom a brisk wind was blowing from the west, and Lee pulled his coat tighter around his neck. He looked at Katherine Azarian, who had flung a hand skyward in hopes of snagging one of the yellow cabs barreling up Center Street. Even flagging a cab, she looked confident, authoritative.
She glanced at her watch. 'This is a lousy time to try for a cab. I think we should take the bus. It's not far.'
'Okay.'
'There's a stop for the M15 right around the corner at Chatham Square.'
He followed her, bent forward against the wind, past the Tombs, with their stark vertical stone walls, the long grim columns rising like the Death Star from the streets below. They hurried past the statue of Lin Zexu, the Fujian hero who defied the British, standing tall on his pedestal in the center of the square. He looked cold, draped in his gray granite robes, gazing northeast toward the rising sun, his stone face shielded by a broad-brimmed hat. Across from the statue stood the Republic National Bank, with its flashy red-tipped pagoda, marking the entrance to the heart of Chinatown. Another time, he might have thought it charming, but right now, to Lee, the color red only evoked one thing: blood.
Chapter Seventeen
The medical examiner's office was housed in a stolid, bland structure typical of the 1960s genre of institutional buildings. Dull and functional, its rectangular glass windows were bordered by metal rims set in a featureless brick facade.
Just down the block from the Victorian opulence of Bellevue Hospital, with its dark red brick, heavy, ornate balustrades, and carved gargoyles hanging from ivy-covered eaves, the ME's building was like the prim Lutheran cousin who came to visit for the weekend and ended up staying.
They entered the lobby, with its scuffed yellow plastic chairs and cheap carpeting. Within these bland walls were the laboratories and autopsy rooms filled with corpses of people who had been drowned, poisoned, shot, stabbed, beaten, and hacked to death.
The desk attendant wasn't sure which direction to send them, so they headed for the main autopsy room.
