“There’s not much of a story,” Arnold said, finishing up with a case file and putting it on the to-do pile. “I mean, it was fished out of the water around Governors Island, which isn’t all that unusual. What’s unusual about it is that those who have seen the body claim it should be an exhibit in the Museum of Modern Art. The corpse’s supposedly an unbelievable mass of tattoos from around his neck down to his ankles and wrists, and everything in between. I actually haven’t seen it yet, but that’s how it’s been described. When I finish here, I’m going to take a peek.”
“Can you tell the ethnicity?” Laurie questioned.
“Asian.”
“What’s the apparent cause of death? Drowning?”
“No. The description in the case file is multiple GSW. The MLI wrote that she thought someone had opened up with a machine gun from behind because there were as many as a dozen entrance wounds.”
“Wow. Whoever killed him wanted him dead,” Laurie commented as she recalled a similar case she’d seen in a pathology journal of a Japanese man with astounding tattoos who’d been shot multiple times and beheaded with a classical Japanese samurai sword called a katana. As described in the article, the man had been killed along with a number of others during a turf war between rival Yakuza families in Tokyo, Japan.
Laurie glanced over at Lou’s sleeping form, becoming progressively curious why he would make the effort to come in for a floater. She doubted it was the tattoos. She imagined whatever it had been that had caught his attention must have been compelling since it required him to stay up all night two days in a row. “Why did Detective Captain Soldano come in with the body? Did he say?”
“I’m sure it’s because he’s interested in the autopsy. Why specifically, I have no idea. Why don’t you ask him?”
Sipping her hot coffee, Laurie strolled over to Lou and gazed down at him. He looked equally as tired as he had the previous morning, if not a bit more. Again, he was not snoring but breathing very rhythmically and deeply. Remembering Jack’s comment about Lou being better off the sooner he got into a real bed, she reached out and placed her hand on top of his. Lou had his hands resting on his chest, fingers intertwined.
“Lou!” Laurie called softly, trying to wake him as gently as possible.
“It’s me, Laurie,” she said, continuing to gently shake his hands. She watched as his eyes opened and went from confusion to recognition within a second or two. Then he pulled his feet from the radiator and sat up straight.
“Do you want a little coffee?” Laurie asked, straightening up.
“No, thanks,” Lou managed. “Just give me a second.”
“You don’t need a doctor to tell you this habit of no sleep isn’t good for you. Talk about burning the candle at both ends!”
Lou blinked his eyes a few times and then took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “I’m firing on all cylinders. Where’s Jack?”
“He’s riding his bike this morning. I came by cab, and there was no traffic. God willing, he’ll be here in a few minutes. I don’t even want to think about the alternative. Can’t you get him to stop?”
“I’ve tried,” Lou said with frustration. “Hey, did you see what I came in with?”
“I assume you mean the floater. I haven’t seen the body, but Arnold here described it.”
“It’s unbelievable.”
“So I’ve been told. But I assume the tattoos are not what brought you in.”
“Heavens, no,” Lou said with a short laugh. “I’m in here with the concern that there might be some kind of underworld war in the making, particularly with some of these newer Asian and Russian gangs moving in and bumping up against each other. Business is not great for normal people these days, and when normal people suffer, so do the gangs, and they can get at each other’s throats. It’s standard policy to notify me if the Harbor Control Unit picks up any bodies that suggest a professional hit. The harbor is a key dumping spot December through March, when the ground up in Westchester or over in Jersey is too hard to dig.”
“Okay,” Laurie said. “Are you here to watch the autopsy, and if so, do you want me to do it, or do you want to wait for Jack?”
“It certainly doesn’t matter to me. I’d be thrilled if you’d do it. The sooner, the better.”
“Arnold!” Laurie called out. “Would it be all right with you if I do the detective’s case?”
“Absolutely,” Arnold said. “And that will be it for you. It’s a light day, and besides, I owe you.”
Laurie was about to complain that she wanted more cases until she stopped herself, remembering what she wanted to do vis-à-vis yesterday’s case, especially since she found it rather coincidental that she was doing autopsies on two unidentified Asians back-to-back.
“Vinnie!” Laurie called. “How about lending me a hand? I know Marvin isn’t in yet, but you are available. I also know you like working with Jack, but maybe he could survive for one day without your guidance. We need to start the autopsy on this floater right now to get Captain Soldano home as soon as possible.”
Still hiding behind his newspaper, Vinnie closed his eyes and gritted his teeth at Laurie’s request for his help. He felt like such a coward. Instead of coming forward to talk about the disturbing meeting he’d had with the Vaccarro henchmen, he’d followed their orders about the threatening letter. To avoid detection, he’d typed the letter on the mortuary tech’s monitor but transferred it to a USB storage device on his key chain before deleting it. He printed it at a nearby Kinko’s. To be safe rather than sorry he’d brought some latex rubber gloves so as not to leave any latent prints on the sheet or the envelope. Back at OCME, still wearing the latex gloves and avoiding being seen by the receptionist or anyone else, he slipped the envelope under the double doors into the foyer. To get back in, he’d run around the corner, entering through one of the receiving bays where the bodies were brought in.
“Vinnie!” he heard Laurie call again but much closer. Slowly he lowered his paper. Laurie was standing directly in front of him. “Didn’t you hear me?” she questioned with mild irritation.
Vinnie shook his head.
Laurie repeated herself about starting the floater.
Resigned, Vinnie stood up and tossed his paper onto the chair behind him.
“Take Captain Soldano downstairs and get him set up. Then put up the floater. I’ll be running up to my office but will be down shortly. Got it?”
Vinnie nodded, feeling like a traitor. He couldn’t look Laurie in the eye. The problem was that he knew too much about the Vaccarro group, and he certainly did not put it past them when they had threatened to drive out to his house and watch his girls come home from school. He felt he was between a rock and a hard place.
As Vinnie led the way down to the morgue, he looked back at Lou and wondered what the detective was thinking. The last time Vinnie had been forced to do a favor for Paulie Cerino, Detective Soldano had been the one who found out about it. So Vinnie was appropriately terrified that he’d be the number-one suspect if Laurie ignored the threat and turned the letter over to the authorities, meaning the chief, Harold Bingham, something Vinnie expected she would do. All Vinnie could do was hope that the threatening letter would be considered an outside job, not an inside one.
Up in her office, Laurie closed the door, turned on her computer monitor, and proceeded to hang up her coat. Then she quickly changed into green scrubs before pulling on a Tyvek suit over them. As soon as the monitor came on, she got on the Net and looked up the article she’d remembered about the murdered Yakuza member. What she wanted to do was skim the autopsy finding, which she did rapidly. With that quickly accomplished, she left her office and descended down to the pit.