“Out of the papers.”
“Yeah. He also hints there was a real squeeze to roll with the party line.”
“Squeeze from whom?”
“He don’t say.”
“Did he disagree with the task force’s finding?”
A full minute passed as Skinny picked through Rinaldi’s notes.
“Not straight out. But I can tell from his wording he thought something didn’t smell right.”
“What does he say?”
Slidell has an annoying habit of sidestepping questions.
“I’ve gotta do some canvassing on a domestic. Soon as I’m back, I’ll pull the original case file.”
“How’s Detective Madrid?” I asked.
Following Rinaldi’s death, Slidell had been assigned a new partner. Feeling he needed a tune-up in the area of cultural diversity, the department had paired him with a woman named Theresa Madrid. Boisterous, bodacious, and weighing almost as much as Skinny, Madrid referred to herself as a double-L: Latina lesbian.
Madrid turned out to be a crackerjack detective. Despite Skinny’s initial horror, the two got along well.
“Get this. The broad’s on frickin’ maternity leave. Can you believe it? She and her partner adopted a kid.”
“You’re working solo?”
“Ain’t it grand.”
As before, Slidell disconnected without an
The phone was still pressed to my ear when it rang again.
“Just finished the autopsy on your John Doe.” Larabee’s voice sounded odd. “Damned if it makes sense to me.”
“YOU WANT DETAILS OR THE SHORT VERSION?”
“Short.”
“The guy had lesions in his airways and pulmonary edema. The organs were pretty far gone, but I saw hints of multifocal ulceration and hemorrhage in the gastric and small-intestinal mucosa.”
“Meaning he died of natural causes?”
“Meaning his lungs were full of fluid and something was screwing with his vascular system. But it’s not that simple. He’d also taken a blow to the left side of the head, resulting in hemorrhage into the temporal lobe.”
“The man either fell or was struck.”
“If the tox screen comes back negative, MOD goes down as undetermined.” Larabee used the acronym for one of the five categories of manner of death: natural, homicide, suicide, accidental, or undetermined.
“So how’d the guy end up in a barrel of asphalt?”
“In my report I’ll note suspicious circumstances.”
“What about ID?”
“Nothing. Even though you think it’s unlikely the PMI works, I’m following up on Raines. According to the wife, his last dental checkup was in 2007. The dentist died in 2009, and no one knows what happened to his files.”
“Any hit on the prints?”
“No. The landfill guy’s not in any system.”
I told Larabee about my conversations with Wayne Gamble and Skinny Slidell. “I suppose the John Doe could be Cale Lovette.” I didn’t really believe it.
“Your age estimate looks pretty solid. At least dentally, the landfill guy looks older than twenty-four. How about you get Lovette’s profile, maybe a photo, then check the John Doe’s skeletal markers, try to narrow the range?”
“Today?”
“Galimore phoned twice this morning. The folks at the Speedway are pissing their shorts for resolution on this.”
My eyes met Birdie’s. The cat was giving me an accusatory look. I think.
“Is Joe working this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there shortly.” Resisting the impulse to sigh theatrically.
“You’re a trouper.”
I checked my list of incoming calls, scrolled down, hit dial. I’d been on the phone so long, the handset was now the same temperature as my liver.
Wayne Gamble answered after two rings. Background noise told me he was still at the track.
