resulting increase in paperwork, conflicts of authority, and rivalry for leads and evidence and glory. The DA would want in on this, big time. There'd be publicity and publicity-seeking and political pressure, and scapegoating when things didn't gowell.
And one other problem as well, Moreminded himself.
Melrose brought itup before he said it: "Yeah, the control nut, the Howdy Doodykiller. But they caught that guy, three-four months ago. Down in the city."
Mo looked at O'Connor, dead and grotesquely serene on the wall like the limp Jesus of the pieta.
Then he heard people in the hall, and there was Angelo Antonelli, the deputy medical examiner. Behind him came Marsden, and then a jump suited woman carrying a big aluminum equipment case, and a couple of other evidence techs. And then it was just time to rock and roll.
4
" Y O, MO, " ANGELO SAID brightly. "Hey, I was just looking at X your pal, what'd you guys call him—Big Willie. They gonna give you grief or what?" He winked at Marsden and said for his benefit, "Tell you what I'll do, I'll sign off it was accidental death. Hit his head in the tub or something."
"Not funny," Marsden said."Don't even joke about that." The irritated skin next to his nose was bright red and looked painful.
Mo saw Angelo once in a while over drinks over at The Edge, and before his relationship with Carla had turned into a minefield they'd even gotten together a couple of times with Angelo and his girlfriend as a foursome. He was small and wiry, dark-haired, with the luscious big eyes and long, dark lashes of a stereotypical Italian Renaissance lover. His job was slicing up people who'd been killed by all kinds of gruesome means; he worked in a labyrinth of gray tile floors with drains in them, brushed-chrome refrigerators, and savage-looking medical equipment. You'd expect him to be ghoulish, secretive, but in fact Angelo loved his job, loved his customers and his colleagues, maintained a relentlessly cheerful disposition. He was an avid whistler and often peeled off cheerful ditties as he burrowed into the abdominal cavities or brain cases of murder and accident victims.
When he saw O'Connor, Angelo's face registered a look of surprise and gleeful anticipation. By his seriously nasty look, Marsden recognized the Howdy Doody MO and the problems this would entail.
Angelo and his assistant looked over the body. Angelo was a stickler for detail, using a hand held tape recorder to record his observations here just as he would dictate what he saw and did back at the morgue when he got around to cutting. They took an air temperature reading and a basal body reading, tested the degree of rigor, measured the area of lividity patches, picked at spots of dried blood and saved it in glassine envelopes, went over every inch of skin with an illuminated magnifier, bagging up hairs, fibers, dandruff, dirt.
At last they put paper bags over the hands and with Mo's help cut the body down and lowered it onto a gurney. The assistant bagged the cut-off lines and nylon handcuffs as they came free. It was an awkward process, figuring how to keep O'Connor in place until all the cords were cut and then manhandling an inert, 170-pound, naked adult male who was frozen in such a position. The neck cord was really slicing into the creased skin there. Angelo supervised as the three of them leaned and strained: "There . . . Hold it! . . .Wait—there, now push a little. Lift . . . Lemme just get—no, hold it!" Mo had felt the curiously heavy, pliant stiffness of corpses before, but this was particularly unsettling. Dancing with a dead man. When they cut the wires holding the wrists, the arms dropped forward a few inches and bobbed on the remaining elasticity of their sinews, like somebody playing monster to scare some kitchened they laid him on his back on the gurney, he kept that same position, head still forward and held well off the pad, arms up at head height, and worst of all, legs up at the spread knees and
And one other problem as well, Moreminded himself.
Melrose brought itup before he said it: "Yeah, the control nut, the Howdy Doodykiller. But they caught that guy, three-four months ago. Down in the city."
Mo looked at O'Connor, dead and grotesquely serene on the wall like the limp Jesus of the pieta.
Then he heard people in the hall, and there was Angelo Antonelli, the deputy medical examiner. Behind him came Marsden, and then a jump suited woman carrying a big aluminum equipment case, and a couple of other evidence techs. And then it was just time to rock and roll.
4
" Y O, MO, " ANGELO SAID brightly. "Hey, I was just looking at X your pal, what'd you guys call him—Big Willie. They gonna give you grief or what?" He winked at Marsden and said for his benefit, "Tell you what I'll do, I'll sign off it was accidental death. Hit his head in the tub or something."
"Not funny," Marsden said."Don't even joke about that." The irritated skin next to his nose was bright red and looked painful.
Mo saw Angelo once in a while over drinks over at The Edge, and before his relationship with Carla had turned into a minefield they'd even gotten together a couple of times with Angelo and his girlfriend as a foursome. He was small and wiry, dark-haired, with the luscious big eyes and long, dark lashes of a stereotypical Italian Renaissance lover. His job was slicing up people who'd been killed by all kinds of gruesome means; he worked in a labyrinth of gray tile floors with drains in them, brushed-chrome refrigerators, and savage-looking medical equipment. You'd expect him to be ghoulish, secretive, but in fact Angelo loved his job, loved his customers and his colleagues, maintained a relentlessly cheerful disposition. He was an avid whistler and often peeled off cheerful ditties as he burrowed into the abdominal cavities or brain cases of murder and accident victims.
When he saw O'Connor, Angelo's face registered a look of surprise and gleeful anticipation. By his seriously nasty look, Marsden recognized the Howdy Doody MO and the problems this would entail.
Angelo and his assistant looked over the body. Angelo was a stickler for detail, using a hand held tape recorder to record his observations here just as he would dictate what he saw and did back at the morgue when he got around to cutting. They took an air temperature reading and a basal body reading, tested the degree of rigor, measured the area of lividity patches, picked at spots of dried blood and saved it in glassine envelopes, went over every inch of skin with an illuminated magnifier, bagging up hairs, fibers, dandruff, dirt.
At last they put paper bags over the hands and with Mo's help cut the body down and lowered it onto a gurney. The assistant bagged the cut-off lines and nylon handcuffs as they came free. It was an awkward process, figuring how to keep O'Connor in place until all the cords were cut and then manhandling an inert, 170-pound, naked adult male who was frozen in such a position. The neck cord was really slicing into the creased skin there. Angelo supervised as the three of them leaned and strained: "There . . . Hold it! . . .Wait—there, now push a little. Lift . . . Lemme just get—no, hold it!" Mo had felt the curiously heavy, pliant stiffness of corpses before, but this was particularly unsettling. Dancing with a dead man. When they cut the wires holding the wrists, the arms dropped forward a few inches and bobbed on the remaining elasticity of their sinews, like somebody playing monster to scare some kitchened they laid him on his back on the gurney, he kept that same position, head still forward and held well off the pad, arms up at head height, and worst of all, legs up at the spread knees and
Similar Books
The Chase, Volume 2
Jessica Wood
Alpha Male Incorporated Under Your Protection
Marie Rochelle
The French Mistress
Susan Holloway Scott
Uncaged Love Volume 5
J. J. Knight
Nerd Gone Wild
Vicki Lewis Thompson
Outmatched in October (Spring River Valley Book 10)
Clarice Wynter
You're Still the One
Annabel Jacobs
The Great Wide Sea
M.H. Herlong
Siberian Red
Sam Eastland