Polar Star Read Online Free PDF Page B

you using color or black-and-white?” Vainu asked.
    “Color,” Slava said.
    “On the forearms and calves,” Arkady continued, “indicate a pooling of blood, not bruising, probably from the position she was in after death. Indicate the same on the breasts.” On the breasts the blood under the skin looked like a second, liverish pair of areolas. He wasn’t up to this, Arkady thought; he should have refused. “On the left shoulder, left side of the rib cage and hip some faint bruises evenly spaced.” He used a ruler from the lab table. “Ten apparent bruises in all, about five centimeters apart.”
    “Could you hold the ruler a little steadier?” Slava complained and took another shot.
    “I think our former investigator needs a drink,” Vainu said.
    Silently Arkady agreed. The girl’s hands had the feel of cool, soft clay. “No signs of broken nails or any tissue under them. The doctor will take scrapings and examine them under a microscope.”
    “A drink or a crutch,” Slava said.
    Arkady took a deep pull on the Belomor before he opened Zina’s mouth wide.
    “Lips and tongue do not appear bruised or cut.” He closed her mouth and tilted her head to look down her nostrils. He squeezed the bridge of her nose, then pulled the eyelids up from elliptical irises. “Indicate discoloration in the white of the left eye.”
    “Meaning what?” Slava asked.
    “There are no signs of a direct blow,” Arkady went on. “Possibly shock from a blow on the back of the skull.” He rolled Zina onto her shoulder and pulled brine-stiffened hair from the nape of her neck. The skin there was bruised black. He took the clipboard from Vainu and said, “Cut her.”
    The doctor selected a scalpel and, still smoking a cigarettewith a long ash, made a slice the length of the cervical vertebrae. Arkady cradled the head as Vainu probed.
    “This is your lucky day,” the doctor said dryly. “Indicate a crushed first vertebra and base of the skull. This must be a little triumph for you.” He glanced at Arkady and then at the saw. “We could bring the brain out to make sure. Or crack the chest and examine the air passages for seawater.”
    Slava snapped a picture of the neck and straightened up, swaying a little as he stood.
    “No.” Arkady let her head settle on the block and closed her eyes. He rubbed his hands on his jacket and lit another Belomor from the last, sucking fiercely, then sorted through the clothes in the pan. If she had drowned there would have been ruptures in her nose and mouth; there would have been water in her stomach as well as in her lungs, and when she was moved she’d still be seeping like a sponge. Besides, Vladivostok had enough investigators and technicians who’d be happy to carve her up and analyze her down to her atomic elements. The pan held a red plastic shoe of Soviet manufacture, loose blue exercise pants, panties, white cotton blouse with a Hong Kong label and a pin that said, “IL.A.” An international girl. In a pocket of the pants was some sodden blue pasteboard that had been a pack of Gauloises. Also a playing card, the queen of hearts. A romantic girl, Zina Patiashvili. Also a sturdy Soviet condom. But a practical one too. He looked at her waxy face again, at the scalp already withdrawing from the black roots of her blond hair. The girl was dead, leaving her fantasy life behind. He always became angry at autopsies—at the victims as well as the murderers. Why didn’t some people just shoot themselves in the head the day they were born?
    The
Polar Star
was in a turn, trailing after its catcherboats. Arkady steadied himself unconsciously. Slava braced himself at the table while trying not to touch it.
    “Losing your sea legs?” Vainu asked.
    The third mate stared back. “I’m fine.”
    Vainu smirked. “At least we should remove the viscera,” he told Arkady.
    Arkady took the clothes from the pan. They were daubed with fish blood, torn here and there by fish spines, no more than