Last Man's Head (5 page)

TEN

It took Leroy
twenty minutes to make the nineteen miles from Clover Park to meet up with Russell Hobson.

The medical examiner was based in one of the criminal laboratories in the
Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center on Paseo Rancho Castilla, just west of Monterey Park, and adjacent to California State University. Since 2007, and after two years’ construction and costing slightly over $80 million, the imposing concrete and red brick building had been the home to the Los Angeles Crime Laboratories.

Leroy headed off the freeway and shortly pulled up at the barrier. Showed his identification to the guard who raised the barrier, and directed him over to a space. He walked quickly up the concrete steps to the main entrance. A uniformed officer was exiting the building and nodded to Leroy as they passed. Leroy returned the nod: the officer’s face seemed familiar, but he was unable to put a name to it. Their paths had obviously crossed in the past.

Once inside, he strode over to the four elevators: the doors for two of them were already opened. He stepped inside and jabbed at the 5 button. With a faint ping, the doors slid shut. He was momentarily on the fifth floor and walked down a corridor until he came to a white door with a plaque stating:

Laboratory 2

Dr Russell Hobson ME

Medical Examiner

Leroy pushed open the door and walked in. He had visited this laboratory many times before, and each time was taken back by the contrast between here and his own workplace.  His offices were untidy, with desks and chairs everywhere, paperwork and box files piled on top of filing cabinets, notice boards covered with sheets of paper of varying sizes and colours. Here everything seemed so sterile - which is how it should be, he always reflected – and calm: no frantic hustle and bustle, no phones ringing constantly.

The laboratory was decorated in white, and the tables, cabinets and cupboards were all a shiny stainless steel. On one side of the laboratory were two tables, each covered by a green rubber sheet. Leroy could tell that each of the two sheets was covering a body.

Over on the far side of the laboratory, taking up the whole length of the wall, were three wide windows, providing, as he knew from experience, a vista of the San Bernadino Freeway. By one of the windows, at a sink busy washing his hands, was a figure in a white lab coat. The noise of the door closing caused him to turn round. He grinned as he saw Leroy.

‘Well, you took your time,’ he laughed, drying his hands.

‘Very funny. There are such things as speed limits, you know,’ Leroy retorted as they shook hands.

‘Unlike you to observe them. How are you, Sam?’ Hobson asked. ‘How are you this fine Monday morning? Good weekend?’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘Didn’t your partner –
Quinn…?’

‘
Ray Quinn, that’s right.’

‘Wasn’t he getting married or something?’

‘Or something?’ Leroy laughed.

‘You know what I mean. Wasn’t he?’

‘Yes, he was. Yes, he did, I should say. That’s why I’m here on my own. He’s off on honeymoon. I was at his wedding as it happened when I got a call about these.’ He indicated over to the two tables. ‘You did call about these, didn’t you?’

‘These? Only one of them is yours, buddy.’

‘Don’t tell me. The other belongs to Bill Farmer over in Hollywood Division.’

‘How’d you know that?’

‘That’s why I had to leave the wedding early Saturday. Bill Farmer asked me to go over and look at the scene. Mine was the night before.’

Hobson nodded.

‘Well, that would make sense,’ he said as he took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘Were the crime scenes similar?’

Leroy rubbed the back of his neck.
‘Too similar to be coincidental. Two guys early middle age found dressed only in shorts – what do you think? Anyway, the preliminary examinations said they died of cardiac arrest, so at this stage we don’t even know if it
was
a crime scene.’

‘Oh, it was,’ said Hobson as he pulled back both sheets. ‘It
was
a crime scene.’

ELEVEN

Leroy looked down
at the faces of the two dead men below. Both were white, early thirties. He recognised both faces, one from the Century City parking lot, the other from the Hollywood back street.

‘The prelim exam said cardiac arrest. No suspicious circumstances, we guessed. After the first, that is.’

‘And after Farmer showed you this one?’

‘Thought it one hell of a coincidence to be sure, but that’s why I was waiting on you. Is Bill Farmer coming over, by the way?’

‘I called him after I had hung up on you. He’s tied up in court this morning, hoped to make it over later.’

‘Okay. So – are you telling me they didn’t die of natural causes, then? How come the prelim said cardiac arrest?’

Hobson took off his glasses, put them in his lab coat pocket, then perched himself on a stool.

‘Sam,’ he said, ‘cardiac arrest, heart failure: these occur every time someone dies. On death the heart stops. A prelim exam will only give you part of the picture; we have far more resources here than the guys on the ground. And if it hadn’t been a weekend, we could have gotten all the facts sooner. Maybe.’

Leroy leaned on a wall and folded his arms. ‘So what are you saying, Russ? It wasn’t natural causes?’

Hobson sat forward, rubbing his hands up and down his legs. ‘This is the – the sequence of events, as it were. They both died because their hearts failed. Right?’

Leroy nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘The next stage is to find out what caused the hearts to stop.’

‘With you so far.’

‘Sam, have you ever heard the expression
serotonin syndrome
?’

Leroy thought a moment. ‘At the back of my mind, yes, but…’

‘Well,’ Hobson continued, ‘serotonin syndrome is a drug reaction, potentially life-threatening, that can occur following therapeutic drug use, overdose of particular drugs, or the recreational use of some kinds of drugs. It’s not hit or miss: it’s predictable, and it’s the result of excess serotonergic energy at the central nervous system and peripheral serotonin receptors. Some in the profession prefer to call it serotonin toxidrome as it’s really a form of poisoning.’

‘I see. I think. So basically, it’s when someone has taken two different drugs at the same time, and they react.’

‘More or less, yes.’

‘So if someone had this – this syndrome: would they exhibit any symptoms?’

‘For sure, yes.  And quickly.  Very shortly after ingesting the second drug.  And there are a lot of symptoms: sweating, shivering, shaking, twitching. And that’s just a mild case. More seriously, we’re talking about high blood pressure, hyperthermia, hypervigilance, diarrhoea, nausea. And the body temperature generally rises to over 106.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Quite.’

‘So what sort of drugs could cause this state?’

‘The list is endless, Sam. It could be a massive amount of one drug, or a combination.’

‘Like what? Give me an example.’

‘Antidepressants, painkillers, stimulants, recreational drugs. Certain herbs, such as nutmeg.’

‘Shit. So what exactly is this – sero…?’

‘Serotonin. It’s a neurotransmitter, which means it’s an endogenous chemical that transmit signals from a neuron to a target cell across a synapse.’

‘Ah. Thought so,
’ Leroy lied.

‘Basically, Sam, it’s a chemical the body produces at certain times to produce a certain reaction, such as sleep, pain, appetite, depression.’

‘O-kay. I think I’m getting it.’

‘Good. Now, there’s no actual laboratory test for serotonin syndrome.’

‘Then how do you know…?’

‘Hear me out. There’s no specific test, and so
we look at a diagnosis of the symptoms and the person’s medical history.’

‘Not much use with a dead John Doe.’

‘Quite. But Toxicology were able to carry out screening tests on the blood and urine.’

‘And?’

‘In both cases, there were traces of drugs in both the blood and the urine.  Of both guys, though more in – your guy.’ Hobson rested the palm of one hand on the Century City corpse.

‘Right. Now we’re getting somewhere. What drugs were used, and how much?’

‘Well, as you might know, narcotics tests take the form of colour tests and crystal tests. These are really screening tests, then we carry out a GC-MS…’

‘Gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer…? Leroy said slowly.

‘Good boy. So you do listen.  Yes, you’re right: we carry out a GC-MS and another similar test and we are able to identify the narcotics in his body.’

‘Go on.’

Hobson picked up a printed report. Put his glasses back on.

‘First off: alcohol. Zero in both cases.’

Leroy said, ‘Go on.’

‘They found - in both bodies, although as I say slightly more in your guy’s – cocaine freebase, flunitrazepam, and lysegic acid diethylamide.’

Leroy whistled. ‘That’s one cocktail. Cocaine, rohypnol, and LSD. Am I right?’

‘Correct.’

‘So how much did they take? And isn’t one person’s tolerance different from another?  These guys look quite fit, young, strong.’

Hobson referred to the printout again.
‘Sam, don’t forget that it’s the reaction of the chemicals which causes seratonin syndrome.’

‘Yes, but surely they snorted more than a row.’

‘As far as the LSD is concerned: as you know, if you or I took say ten thousand micrograms, we’d go to the moon and back and be fine the next day. Kind of. We traced over a hundredth of a gram inside them.’

Leroy looked back at the bodies.
‘Christ. That would cost a fortune.’

‘I wouldn’t know, but I would guess you have a point. Same with the rohypnol and the LSD.’

Leroy said nothing.

‘One other thing,’ continued Hobson. ‘We also carried out trace evidence tests.’

‘Not many personal effects.’

‘No, there weren’t. We just tested their shorts and the bodies themselves.’

‘Powder on the nostrils, that type of thing?’

‘That’s one thing we looked for, yes, but that came up negative.  The shorts on one of them - Bill Farmer’s, I think – were soiled, but that’s a common symptom of seratonin syndrome.’

‘What did you find then?’

‘Both bodies were clean; well, for our purposes. Except in both cases, we found trace on their penises.’

‘Cocaine?’

‘No. It was basically
female DNA.’

‘So they got laid before death.’

‘Correct.’

‘Any idea how long before they died?’

‘DNA degrades quicker when wet. The fluid dried on them quite fast, so it’s preserved very well. All I can say it, it’s unlikely either of them took a shower between sex and death.’

‘Can’t you tell by checking the testicles?’

‘The level in both sets was low. But as a test, it’s not particularly conclusive, as different people refill at different rates. And the fact that we found a woman’s DNA there suggests to me they had oral sex, otherwise they would have used a condom.’

Leroy nodded thoughtfully.
‘I understand. But why did you say it had to be a crime scene. Couldn’t these two just have been to a party - albeit without alcohol – got stoned, very stoned, got laid, and suffered the cardiac arrest due to the drugs? Accidental death, though we can get the supplier.’

‘On the face of it, that seems possible. But at the end of the day, that’s your job isn’t it?’

Leroy nodded. ‘Yeah. My job. I think missing persons is the best first port of call.  See if we can ID any of these guys. Then maybe get their whereabouts.’

‘You going to liaise with Farmer?’ Hobson asked.

‘Guess so. He’s coming over later, you say?’

‘U-huh. When he’s done in court.’

‘Okay. I’ll give him a call in any case.’

‘Right.’

Leroy touched Hobson’s arm. ‘Thanks for that, Russ. Be in touch.’

‘It’s nearly lunchtime. You…?’

‘Some other time, buddy. Best get on with this.’

‘Surely. Take care now.’

‘See you.’

Leroy left the laboratory and made for the elevators. Back in the car, he turned on the engine. Looked though the windshield at the sun, high in the sky. So bright he had to squint.  Took out his phone and called Bill Farmer. The phone went directly to voicemail; presumably  Farmer was still in court.

Leroy pulled out of the space and, deep in thought, headed slowly for the main road.

TWELVE

As Leroy turned
off Butler Avenue at the entry to the parking lot behind Police Headquarters, he recognized the vehicle leaving. ‘Oh shit,’ he muttered as Captain Patterson stopped his car and wound down his window. He did the same.

‘How are the enquiries going?’ Patterson asked. Leroy knew perfectly well the enquiries he was referring to but pretended not to.

‘Which enquiries, sir?’

‘You were taking another look at some of the unsolveds still on your books,’ Patterson replied. It always amused Leroy how if a case was successfully solved it was always on
our
books, and if it all went tits up or was unsolved, it was always on
your
books.

‘I’ve made a start on the first. Street person found dead in the restroom in
Clover Park. Been over the scene -’

‘Street person? You sure you have your priorities right, Sam? I’m sure some of the other cases are more pressing.’

‘I agree it’s pretty low down the food chain, sir. Two priority points out of ten, I guess. Nevertheless, it is worth looking at again, even if only for a day or so. If you recall, we only spent a two days making enquiries. If the vic had been say a WASP, then -’

Patterson cut in with, ‘Yes, well; don’t
wa- spend too much time on it.’

‘As it turns out, sir, I got called away from the park. Hobson over at the crime lab wanted to see me about the John Doe we had in
Century City Friday night.’

‘The guy in the parking lot?’

‘That’s the one. And the one Bill Farmer had in Hollywood the next day.’

Patterson frowned. ‘What does Farmer’s case have to do with it?’

‘They’re virtually identical. Two men more or less the same age found dead and almost naked. Both had had sex recently and both were filled with a cocktail of drugs.’

‘Drugs?’

‘Yeah. Coke, rohypnol and LSD.’

‘Hmm. Any sign of third party involvement?’

‘Well, apart from the sex and whoever gave or sold them the drugs, no. Not as yet.’

‘Hmm,’ Patterson repeated.

‘And it was a woman,’ Leroy added.

‘A woman?’

‘Yes. It was a woman they had both had sex with. Unprotected, obviously.’

‘Yes, of course. Otherwise, we’d never know. Same woman?’

‘Not established yet, sir.’

‘I see.’ Patterson looked round and saw another car behind him also waiting to exit the lot. ‘Well, keep me up to date, won’t you? Actually Perez - Lieutenant Perez – is back tomorrow, so once you’ve appraised him of things, he will keep me up to date.’

With that, Patterson wound the window up and drove off.

‘Asshole,’ Leroy muttered and moved the Taurus to his space. Once inside, he made his way to his desk, slumped into the chair and switched on his computer.

‘Hey there, Sam,’ said a voice behind him. Leroy swivelled round and saw Detective Eliza Domingo sitting at a desk in the corner.

‘Hey,’ replied Leroy. ‘Didn’t see you there.’

‘Sorry to hear about…you know.’

‘About what?’

Domingo shuffled in her chair. ‘About you not getting the Lieutenant post.’

‘Oh, everybody’s heard then. I didn’t think anyone even knew I’d put in for it.’

‘Come on, Sam. You know what it’s like here.’

‘Sure. Anyway, Perez’ll do a good job.’

‘Yeah. Right.’ Dead-pan, Domingo returned her gaze to her monitor screen, then glanced at Leroy and smirked.

Leroy grinned back at her and turned back to his screen. He keyed in his personnel number and password. At once a pop up appeared reminding him that he had to change his password in three days.

‘Jesus,’ he whispered, clicking on the
OK
button. The LAPD database opened. First, Leroy went to the reports of his and Farmer’s bodies. He reread the preliminary examination reports, then notice
s
that Hobson had already updated the system with his full report.

‘You’re on the ball, Russ,’ he said out loud. He clicked on the folder for Hobson’s report on the
Century City victim, and read the report. Then did the same for the second case. In both cases, there was very little to add to what Hobson had told him verbally earlier in the day.

‘Going to get a coffee, Sam,’ said Domingo who was now standing in front of his desk. ‘Want one?’

He looked up. ‘Yeah, thanks. Cream and sugar.’

‘Coming up.’ She wandered out of the office.

‘Liza?’ he called out. ‘Just realised I haven’t eaten today. Could you bring me back a sandwich?’

‘Sure. What do you want?’

‘Oh, anything. Cheese, bacon..?’

‘Really. Anything.’ Leroy turned back to his screen and read Hobson’s reports again. When Domingo returned, he was searching the database for missing person reports.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Forget it.’ She rested her hand on his shoulder and went back to her desk. Leroy frowned. There was nothing on the two reports about either of the victim’s wearing a wedding band. Not that the absence meant anything striking. Not every married man wore one, and a man living with a partner would be missed.  And it was possible that they might have removed a wedding band before going to a sex and drugs party; in that case there would probably be a white ridge on the finger. Leroy’s problem would be if the guy was single, living alone. It could be days before anyone reported him missing.

Leroy clicked on the folder icon and the missing persons database opened. He tabbed down the
Date Reported
column until he reached the date for the previous Monday. Then he slowly moved the cursor down over the entries, searching for matches.

‘I wonder.’ He clicked on the fifth entry down. It was for a man from
Culver City, born thirty years ago. Leroy tabbed down to a photograph. ‘Damn,’ he muttered. The photographs were no match.  The same again for the next entry. And the next. And the next.

Domingo called out, ‘What are you looking for, Sam? Anything I can help with?’

He swung round again. ‘No, I’m okay, thanks. Just searching the MPU database to see if I can come up with names for the John Doe I got last Friday. And Bill Farmer’s up in Hollywood.’

‘You had a John Doe on Friday?’ Domingo asked.

‘Yeah. And the next night, Bill Farmer up in Hollywood Division caught one in a back alley. Asked me to take a look at it on account of the circumstances being so similar to mine. Had to miss half of Quinn’s wedding to get up there.’

‘Both men?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, both men,’ he replied as he swung back to his desk. ‘Mid thirties.’

‘Only wearing shorts, cause of death as yet not ascertained?’

Leroy pushed back against the desk, moving his chair back three feet as it swung back round to face Domingo.

Domingo looked up from her screen.

‘We had one last night.’