“Okay,” I said. “Again: I know this is hard, and I appreciate your candor. To get started I’ll need copies of both autopsy reports, coroner’s and independent. I’d also like to speak with your attorney.”
“We’ll arrange it,” Liz said.
“Thank you. Do you have any questions for me?”
“We just want to know what happened to Adam.”
“Of course. As long as you understand that I may not be able to tell you that with certainty. Or that I might come to the same conclusion as the police.”
“We’re not afraid of the truth,” Rick said.
“Great,” I said. “Then we’re on the same page.”
Regina and I walked the flagstone path to our cars.
“Thanks for backing me up,” I said. “Let’s find a place to sit and talk it through.”
She checked her watch. “No can do. Client in thirty. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Are you serious?”
“Maybe Thursday.”
“Goddammit, Regina.”
“Listen, Poirot. Some of us are busy.”
Chapter 3
Like any members of the public, the Valoises had been issued an abridged, sanitized version of the official coroner’s report, minus the photographs and phone calls, statements and transcripts, false starts and second thoughts and watercooler consultations.
What remained was a bureaucratic magic trick — events unmoored from time and rearranged, a dying man’s pain and fear distilled down to generic, searchable terms.
A computer’s dream.
A parent’s nightmare.
I sat at my desk and scrolled through the PDF.
At 2133 on July 4, 2026, 911 received a call directing them to a body in Coyote Hills Park, lying on the mudflats where Alameda Creek drained into San Francisco Bay. Fremont Fire discovered the partially decomposed remains of an adult male, who was pronounced dead based on obvious signs. At 2354, a patrol officer for East Bay Regional Parks District PD contacted the Alameda County Coroner’s Bureau for removal.
Deputy Sheriff / Coroner Katherine Davenport had responded.
Good old Kat.
She’d joined the bureau a few years before I’d left. I considered myself a sort of mentor to her. We’d lost touch but I thought of her fondly.
Still pulling graveyard shift. Poor kid.
I read on.
Signs of trauma included injury to the left side of the head and — unmentioned by Rick — slash marks to the torso.
The decedent, Adam Bentley Valois, was thirty-three years old at time of death, a white male with blond hair and blue eyes. He was unmarried, not a military veteran. His occupation was given as videographer. His legal next of kin, Richard and Elizabeth Valois, had been notified by Detective G. Kinney, EB Regional Parks District PD #129, at 1030 on July 5. DNA confirmed the decedent’s identity on July 12.
Cause of death, drowning.
Manner of death, undetermined.
I turned to the autopsy protocol, written by Dr. Judith Bronson, MD.
I hadn’t seen Judy since the night she and I sat together on a public panel that ended in a riot. Shortly thereafter she’d departed the employ of the county. I recalled hearing something about a move to New Zealand.
Nice to know she was back in town.
Adam Valois’s autopsy had taken place on July 7, 2026, beginning at 1000 hours. At that moment, with positive identification pending, the toe tag still read John Doe.
Assisting Dr. Bronson was Sheriff’s Technician Rebecca Sullivan.
Sully. Another blast from the past.
EBRPD detectives Gary Kinney and Tiffany Reuss were in attendance to observe.
As I read, I felt myself transported. I was standing in the morgue, work boots heavy on my feet, breath hot inside my mask; the musty brine of solvents and the churn of freezer compressors.
The decedent was a well-developed, well-nourished, light-complexioned adult male weighing 188 pounds and measuring seventy-one inches. Items of clothing on the body were photo-documented. There were no items of jewelry. A tattoo three centimeters in diameter was visible on the left pectoral.
The larger muscle groups of the neck and jaw were flaccid, non-blanching lividity was posterior, the body was cold to the touch.
Limbs, torso, and face exhibited signs of animal depredation. Skin slippage involved the feet, face, and hands, precluding identification through fingerprints.
They had floated away to make a meal for fish.
Four parallel incisions, fifteen to twenty-three centimeters long, two to nine centimeters deep, and spaced approximately five centimeters apart, ran diagonally along the posterior torso and right flank, exposing subcutaneous fat and muscle.
Propeller wounds.
The head injury was above the left ear, a split laceration caused by blunt force trauma. While the skull appeared intact on palpation, radiography revealed a hairline fracture.
The narrative traveled over the body’s surfaces.
Scalp and hair, what was left of them. Eyes.
His nose had been chewed on. The right earlobe was missing.
Mouth and teeth and mucosa; neck and chest. Vertebrae visible through the slashes.
Putrefaction was evident.
There ended the external exam.
I saw the scalpel flash; heard the saw whine; felt the table vibrate as blade touched sternum.
The body, opening to reveal its inner workings.
Adam Valois’s heart was normal and weighed 307 grams. His stomach contained 90 cc of turbid brown fluid intermixed with non-defined food-like materials. The intestines, liver, spleen, adrenals, pancreas, and kidneys were normal. The bladder contained 15 cc of urine. The testicles were normal for age.
The lungs, though.
Swollen and congested with fluid.
Pink froth, the hallmark of drowning, filled the upper airways.
The hyoid bone thyroid cartilage, and cricoid cartilage were all intact without fracture or adjacent soft tissue hemorrhage. He hadn’t been strangled.
A small hemorrhage lay beneath the skull fracture. Not good, but not enough to kill him outright, and the froth indicated that he had been alive when entering the water, fighting for air. As to whether the injury had been a significant contributor — when it had occurred, what had caused it — the protocol was silent.
Toxicology had gone out to FML Inc., a third-party lab contracted by law enforcement agencies nationwide — Quest Diagnostics for dead people. The acronym stood for Forensic Medical Laboratories, but around the bureau it had morphed into a running joke.
Where the hell is my tox screen? It’s been fifteen weeks.
Fuck My Life!
Rick Valois’s memory once more proved selective.
The report listed ketamine metabolites in Adam’s blood — plus alcohol, cannabis, and three prescription drugs: escitalopram, trade name Lexapro, the Millennial Multivitamin; midazolam, trade name Versed, given to calm jitters before a medical procedure; cyclobenzaprine, trade name Flexeril, a common muscle relaxant.
No single finding stood out. A thirty-three-year-old with a history of anxiety was a likely candidate for SSRIs or a benzo. A gym rat might feel stiff every so often. Weed and liquor were legal. As I’d told the Valoises, even ketamine could be used therapeutically.
But all six together twanged my antennae. Each had a sedative effect, ranging from subtle to bone-crushing. I couldn’t imagine a legitimate reason to combine them.
Plenty of illegitimate reasons, though.
I finished the official report and clicked over to the independent autopsy.
In my coroner days I’d been leery of private labs. Invariably they receive damaged goods: a body that’s been moved, sliced up, sampled, stitched, frozen, thawed. Grieving families are starved for new information, creating a powerful business incentive.