The Jury Master (9 page)
He turned right on Sixth Avenue, pulled into the alley, parked behind the two-story brick-and-stucco building with smoked-glass windows, and stepped out. Waves of heat rose from the parking lot blacktop in ghostlike shimmers. He was sweating before he pulled open the unlocked metal security door and climbed the rear stairwell. The staff would be gone. At the top of the stairs he pushed open an interior door to an air-conditioned office and the blasting beat of U2. He cut through the receptionist’s area, down a narrow hallway, and detected the visceral smell of an autopsy in progress, which reminded him of the way liver tasted.
Dr. Peter Ho sat on a wheeled stool, hunched over a body still partially wrapped in a dark green body bag. He bit the end of a high-powered laser light with his teeth, freeing his hands to manipulate clamps and forceps to hold back flaps of skin. Ho was the picture of concentration, except that every few seconds he would beat the stainless steel medical instruments on the edge of a nearby pan to the rhythm of his favorite band.
Molia slowed his approach, stepping lightly, and reached out and gripped Ho’s shoulder.
The county coroner sprang to his feet as if the stool had ejected him, shooting it halfway across the linoleum floor. He spit the laser light into the open chest cavity. The reflector on his forehead shifted off-kilter, and his glasses, perched on the bridge of his nose, fell dangling by a chain around his neck.
Ho gasped, catching his breath, his face flushed. “Damn it, Mole. I’ve asked you not to do that.”
Molia retrieved the stool, laughing. “Didn’t think I was one of your patients sneaking up on you, did you, Peter?” He would have tired of the gag but for Peter Ho’s animated reaction. A portly Asian man with a fleshy face, Ho would never admit it, but Molia was convinced that the Jefferson County Coroner was afraid of the dead. It was like a mechanic being afraid of cars.
“You keep doing that and you’ll
be
one of my patients.” He exhaled again. “You’re going to give me a fucking heart attack.”
“Can’t a guy just drop by to say hello?”
“You want to drop by? Drop by through the front door like a normal person so I can hear the damn bell ring.” Ho readjusted the reflector back to center.
Molia raised a hand to deflect the glare of light. “Back door is closer to the parking lot. Besides, you couldn’t hear the bell over this noise, and we both know I’m not normal.”
“U2 is not noise, and I agree—you are far from normal.”
Molia sat on the stool and slid next to the corpse’s covered head. “You should really lock the back door, Peter. It could be a real security issue. People could sneak in here on you.” He picked up a sharp-looking two-pronged instrument and pointed it for emphasis.
Ho took the forceps. “Funny. Thanks, that was sterilized.” He dropped the tool into a metal tray. “From now on, I’m going to personally see that Betty locks that damn door every night before she goes home.”
“I’m sure she will,” Molia said. Betty never did. He raised the cloth draped over the corpse’s head. “This guy don’t look too good, Pete. I think you lost him.”
Ho pulled the cloth back. “Little respect for the dead. And you wouldn’t look too good either if someone plugged you with a twelve-gauge.”
“Hunting accident?”
“Kitchen accident. That’s the wife’s story anyway, and so far she’s sticking to it. Apparently it’s just a coincidence she shot him the same afternoon she learned he was sneaking out with the grocery clerk at the local Winn-Dixie.”
Molia tilted his head to the side and made a clicking noise with his tongue. “Ah! Bagging a grocery clerk. That’s a switch.”
Ho did a drum roll on a nearby metal pan. “Bud-dum-bum. Don’t quit your day job. You’d starve. Sheriff says she walked into the house and dropped him right on his sandwich.” Ho pointed to the man’s shirt. “Still had mayonnaise on his shirt when they brought him in.” Ho removed the latex gloves and wiped his hands on the rubber apron. “Thanks for the body this morning, pal. Maybe I can return the favor—inject you with hepatitis or something.”
When Molia delivered the body of Joe Branick earlier that morning Ho had not yet arrived at the office. “Something going on?”
Ho mimicked him. “Something going on? . . . Like I said, you’d starve.” He walked to a white porcelain sink to wash his hands. “People are bugging the crap out of me; that’s what’s going on. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“The Justice Department?”
“For one. Family. Reporters.” He dried his hands with a paper towel, threw it in the garbage, and reached behind his back to untie the apron, draping it on a hook by a door before disappearing into his office. A few seconds later the music stopped, and Ho returned with a manila file, wearing a black T-shirt with the image of U2’s lead singer, Bono. “Hand-delivered.” He held up stationery faxed by the Department of Justice and lifted the half-lens glasses onto the bridge of his nose. “Branick, Joe. He is to be released without inquiry by the medical examiner. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.” He closed the file and looked at Molia over the top of his lenses. “That means me. That means no autopsy. That means I get to go home and watch Jason pitch tonight.”
“They have a game tonight?”
“Maggie asked me to remind you. Why don’t you at least get a calendar?”
“You think the guy killed himself?” Molia asked.
“Wouldn’t know. Haven’t gone near the body. Now I don’t have to.”
“But he’s still here?”
Ho pointed over his shoulder with disinterest at a stainless steel cold box with multiple drawers. “In the reefer. They’re coming for him first thing in the morning. The papers are all signed.” He walked to a table beneath shelves filled with thick textbooks on pathology, anatomy, toxicology, and forensic medicine.
“If you knew they were going to shut you down, why did you start the paperwork?”
“Wasn’t going to, but the sister called from Boston. High-powered lawyer type barking out orders. Said she wanted to know the exact cause of death, and she meant exact. So I started the paperwork. Then I got the call from Mr. Jones telling me to apply the brakes. The fax followed. I assume you got one as well since you were next on his list of friends to spread his charm and warmth.”
“Wait a minute.” Molia got off the stool. “The sister said she wanted the results pronto; did she say why?”
“Nope.”
“Then the Justice Department tells you to stop?”
“Yep.”
“But offers no explanation.”
“Nope.” Ho turned off the lights to his office. “Guess they didn’t have confidence in this country doctor, y’all.”
Ho was from Philadelphia, and as “country” as Molia. “Did you call her back?”
“The sister? What for?” Ho walked across the room and turned off the overhead light above a metal tray table. “I don’t care. Let somebody else do the carving.”
“Why is the Justice Department involved, Peter?”
Ho shrugged. “He was a friend of the president.”
“Yeah, that’s what they’re saying. But they’re handling this one like he didn’t kill himself. Jones lost his composure with me—”
“There’s a surprise.”
“And started throwing words around like ‘investigation.’ Why would they be investigating a routine suicide?”
Ho turned off the light and walked past him. “Don’t know.”
“And Jones said his orders came from the president.”
Ho paused. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
Ho dismissed it with a wave of the hand. “They were friends. The president has a personal interest in this one, and the family never wants to believe a relative killed himself. You know that.”
“My gut’s bothering me.”
“Your gut is bothering you because you eat garbage. I hope I never have to cut you open. Probably find tin cans and a license plate.”
“There was no call from dispatch that night, Peter. There was no nine-one-one reporting a dead body. I checked.”
Ho thought about that for a moment. “So how did Coop find out about it?”
“Good question. And I have a theory, but let’s assume for a moment that he wasn’t supposed to find out about it. Let’s say he stumbled onto something he wasn’t supposed to stumble onto. That changes our conversation with Jones considerably, doesn’t it?”
Ho’s face strained as if he were computing a mathematics equation and disliking every minute of it. Then he shook his head as if to erase the whole thought. “You’re jumping to a conclusion. There are no facts . . . Come on, the Justice Department? Why the hell would they be involved in something . . . This is ridiculous.”
“That’s my point. They wouldn’t be involved if it
was
a suicide.” Molia let the inference pique Ho’s interest. The only way to find out if it was a suicide was to do an autopsy.
“Easy way to find out.”
“Yeah?”
“
If
I were to do anything, which I’m
not.
” Ho slipped on a lightweight windbreaker with “Charles Town Little League” stenciled across the chest above the word “Dodgers.”
“You’re not curious?” Molia asked.
Ho moved to the table and zipped up the bag, preparing to put the body back into the reefer for the night. “Not enough to get my tit in a wringer over it. I received my walking papers, Mole. So did you. Let the Justice Department figure it out. If he didn’t kill himself, they’ll know soon enough.”
Molia spoke to Ho’s back. “You’re probably right. It’s probably nothing. Just one big coincidence—like the Winn-Dixie guy and the baggage checker.” He turned and started down the hall. “I’m around this weekend. Give me a call. We can take the boys fishing.”
Ho let out a burst of air, like a whale purging its blowhole. “Son of a . . . Why do you do this to me? You know I’m going to have to try to find out now.”
Molia smiled. Ho was the kind of guy who picked up a novel and read the last page first. “Can it be done without someone knowing about it, Peter?”
“You that worried?”
“I just see no reason to arouse suspicion.”
He thought for a moment. “To a degree. It wouldn’t be too difficult with a gunshot wound—take a small piece of skin with powder burns from the temple, cross it with the burns on the fingers and powder residue under the nails, check the trajectory of the bullet, take a little blood to check for chemicals. It’s not foolproof by any means, but it’s safe. No one would know anything had been done.”
“How long would it take?
If
you were to do it.”
“They’re coming for the body in the morning. Is it really that important, Tom?”
“It might be.”
Ho removed his windbreaker and walked back to the sink to retrieve his apron, swearing under his breath, though it was halfhearted and forced. “You explain it to Jason.” He lathered his hands with soap, like a man trying to take off his own skin. “He’s going to be mad at me for missing his game.”
“I’ll have Maggie videotape the game. How long are we talking until we get something?”
Ho grabbed more paper towels. “I’ll drop the blood off at the lab tomorrow. The results will take at least a couple of days. Blood tests could take ten days or longer. You want me to put a rush on it?”
Molia shook his head. “No. I’ll just have to wait. Patience is a virtue, right?”
“Not for you.”
“Thanks, Peter.” He started again for the hallway but stopped at another thought. “What name will you use for the lab tests? You can’t run them under his name.”
Ho snapped on gloves, opened the green body bag covering the corpse on which he had been working, and flipped over a yellow tag attached to the toe. “Dunbar, John.”
He looked up at Molia. “I’m going to need the ballistics test. Without it the powder burns won’t be much help.”
“See what I can do.” Molia walked down the hall.
“And use the front door from now on!” Ho yelled.
Then he walked back into his office, cranked the music, and went to the stainless steel reefer to pull out the body inside the door labeled “Branick, Joe.”
S
LOANE LEANED AGAINST
the cedar siding outside his apartment door, struggling to catch his breath. Perspiration ringed his sweatshirt and dripped from his forehead and temples. Two doors down, the locksmith’s drill hummed as he installed a dead bolt on Unit 6, working his way toward Sloane’s apartment at the west end of the building. Word of the break-in had spread, and Sloane’s older tenants had expressed concern.
He pushed open the door, dropped his MP3 and miniature headphones on the tile counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, and pulled a jug of cold water from the refrigerator, drinking from it in gulps, the overflow spilling from the corners of his mouth. Outside the kitchen window, seagulls swarmed a man and woman walking along the beach, tossing bread scraps in the air. Sloane heard the birds cawing through the open sliding glass door in the living room.
After leaving the office he felt the need to exercise. His ankle remained sore, but mostly if he moved laterally. It seemed to loosen up as he jogged along the coastline, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones moaning in his ears. He thought of people he hadn’t seen or talked to in years; faces from his childhood and school years flashed at him like a slide show put to music. He was so preoccupied that by the time he stopped to turn around he had run nearly five miles, with only one way back.
He popped the cap back on the jug of water and returned it to the fridge. Melda had left a plastic bowl sitting atop a handwritten note:
For you to be home. So glad.
Melda
He unsealed the bowl and scooped two fingers of chicken in mushroom sauce over rice into his mouth as Bud jumped onto the tile counter. Sloane held out his fingers. The cat sniffed them, then turned with disinterest and walked off.
“Typical. A year ago you would have eaten it out of the Dumpster. Now you’re a connoisseur.”
He resealed the lid and replaced the bowl in the fridge. Then he grabbed an ice bag from the freezer and rummaged in a drawer under the counter for the roll of duct tape. In the living room he sprinkled fish food in the tank and watched the grouper dart ahead of the angelfish to get at the tiny shrimp. Sloane had bought the tank on impulse; fish seemed the right pet for a bachelor living near the ocean. He set down the ice bag, tore a strip of tape with his teeth, and set to the task of salvaging a seat cushion so he’d at least have a place to sit and ice his ankle when he heard the familiar three soft knocks on his door.
