Cause of Death (4 page)

I pulled off the dead man's mask, emptied it of water, and laid it next to his hooded head with its straying long wet hair. It was then I knew him, despite the deep oval impression etched around his eyes. I knew the straight nose and dark mustache framing his full mouth. I recognized the reporter who had always been so fair with me.

"Okay?" One of the rescuers shrugged.

I gave them an okay, although I could tell they did not understand the importance of what I had just done. My reason was cosmetic, for the longer the mask caused pressure against skin fast losing elasticity, the slighter the chance that the indentation would fade. This was an unimportant concern to investigators and paramedics, but not to loved ones who would want to see Ted Eddings' face.

"Am I transmitting?" I then asked Ki Soo and Jerod as we bobbed in the water.

"You're fine. What do you want done with all this hose?" Jerod asked.

"Cut it about eight feet from the body and clamp off the end," I said. "Seal that and his regulator in a plastic bag."

"I got a salvage bag in my BC,- Ki Soo volunteered.

"Sure. That will work."

After we had done what we could, we rested for a moment, floating and looking across muddy water to the johnboat and the hookah. As I surveyed where we had been, I realized that the screw Eddings' hose had snagged on belonged to the Exploiter. The submarine looked post-World War II, maybe around the time of the Korean War, and I wondered if it had been stripped of its finer parts and was on its way to being sold for scrap. I wondered if Eddings had been diving around it for a reason, or if after death, he had drifted there.

The rescue boat was halfway to the landing on the other side of the river where an ambulance waited to take the body to the morgue. Jerod gave me the okay sign and I returned it, although everything did not feel okay at all. Air rushed as we deflated our BCs, and we dipped back under water the color of old pennies.

There was a ladder leading from the river to the dive platform, and then another to the pier. My legs trembled as I climbed, for I was not as strong as Jerod and Ki Soo, who moved in all their gear as if it weighed the same as skin.

But I got out of my BC and tank myself and did not ask for help. A police cruiser rumbled near my car, and someone was towing Eddings' johnboat across the river to the landing. Identity would have to be verified, but I had no doubt.

"So what do you think?" a voice overhead suddenly asked.

I looked up to find Captain Green standing next to a tall, slender man on the pier. Green was apparently now feeling charitable, and reached down to help. "Here," he said.

"Hand me your tank."

"I won't know a thing until I examine him," I said as I lifted it up, then the other gear. "Thanks. The johnboat with the hose and everything else should go straight to the morgue," I added.

"Really? What are you going to do with it?" he asked.

"The hookah gets an autopsy, too."

"You're going to want to rinse your stuff really good," the slender man said to me as if he knew more than Jacques Cousteau, and his voice was familiar. "There's a lot of oil and rust in there."

"There certainly is," I agreed, climbing up to the pier.

"I'm Detective Roche," he then said, and he was oddly dressed in jeans and an old letter jacket. "I heard you say his hose was caught on something?"

"I did, and I'm wondering when you heard me say that."

I was on the pier now and not at all looking forward to carrying my dirty, wet gear back to my car.

"Of course, we monitored the recovery of the body." It was Green who spoke. "Detective Roche and I were listening inside the building."

I remembered Ki Soo's warning to me and I glanced at the platform below where he and Jerod were working on their own gear.

"The hose was snagged," I answered. "But I can't tell you when that happened. Maybe before his death, maybe after."

Roche didn't seem all that interested as he continued to stare at me in a manner that made me self-aware. He was very young and almost pretty, with delicate features, generous lips and short curly dark hair. But I did not like his eyes, and thought they were invasive and smug. I pulled off my hood and ran my fingers through my slippery hair, and he watched as I unzipped my wet suit and pulled the top of it down to my hips. The last layer was my dive skin, and water trapped between it and my flesh was chilling quickly. Soon I would be unbearably cold. Already, my fingernails were blue.

"One of the rescuers tells me his face looks really red," the captain said as I tied the wet suit's sleeves around my waist. "I'm wondering if that means anything."

"Cold livor," I replied.

He looked expectantly at me.

"Bodies exposed to the cold get bright pink," I said as I began to shiver.

"I see. So it doesn't-"

"No," I cut him off, because I was too uncomfortable to listen to them. "It doesn't necessarily mean anything".

Look, is there a ladies' room so I can get out of these wet things?" I cast about and saw nothing promising.

"Over there." Green pointed at a small trailer near the administration building. "Would you like Detective Roche to accompany you and show you where everything is?"

"That's not necessary."

"Hopefully, it's not locked," Green added.

That would be my luck, I thought. But it wasn't, and it was awful, with only toilet and sink, and nothing seemed to have been cleaned in recent history. A door leading to the men's room on the other side was secured by a two by-four with padlock and chain, as if one gender or the other were very worried about privacy.

There was no heat. I stripped, only to discover there was no hot water. Cleaning up as best I could, I hurried into a sweat suit, after-ski boots and cap. By now it was one-thirty and Lucy was probably at Mant's house. I hadn't even noted the tomato sauce yet. Exhausted, I was desperate for a long hot shower or bath.

Because I could not get rid of him, Green walked me to my car and helped place my dive gear into the trunk. By now the johnboat had been loaded on a trailer and should have been enroute to my office in Norfolk. I did not see Jerod or Ki Soo and was sorry I could not say good-bye to them.

"When will you do the autopsy?" Green asked me.

I looked at him, and he was so typical of weak people with power or rank. He had done his best to scare me off, and when that had accomplished nothing he had decided we would be friends.

"I will do it now." I started the car and turned the heat up high.

He looked surprised. "Your office is open today?"

"I just opened it," I said.

I had not shut the door, and he propped his arms on top of the frame and stared down at me. He was so close, I could see broken blood vessels along his cheekbones and the wings of his nose, and changes in pigmentation from the sun.

"You will call me with your report?"

"When I determine cause and manner of death, certainly I will discuss them with you," I said.

"Manner?" He frowned. "You mean there's some question that he's an accidental death?"

"There can and will always be questions, Captain Green.

It is my job to question."

"Well, if you find a knife or bullet in his back, I hope you'll call me first," he said with quiet irony as he gave me one of his cards.

I drove away looking up the number for Mant morgue assistant and hoping I would find him home. I did.

"Danny, it's Dr. Scarpetta," I said.

"Oh, yes, ma'am," he said, surprised.

Christmas music sounded in the background and I heard the voices of people arguing. Danny Webster was in his early twenties and still lived with his family.

"I'm so sorry to bother you on New Year's Eve," I said, "but we've got a case I need to autopsy without delay. I'm on my way to the office now."

"You need me?" He sounded quite open to the idea.

"If you could help me, I can't tell you how much I would appreciate it. There's a johnboat and a body headed to I the office as we speak."

"No problem, Dr. Scarpetta," he cheerfully said. "I'll be right there."

I tried my house, but Lucy did not pick up, so I entered a code to check the answering machine's messages. There were two, both left by friends of Mant, expressing their sympathy. Snow had begun drifting down from a leaden sky, the interstate busy with people driving faster than was safe. I wondered if my niece had gotten delayed and why she hadn't called. Lucy was twenty-three and barely graduated from the FBI Academy. I still worried about her as if she needed my protection.

My Tidewater District Office was located in a small, crowded annex on the grounds of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. We shared the building with the Department of Health, which unfortunately included the office of Shell Fish Sanitation. So between the stench of decomposing bodies and decaying fish, the parking lot was not a good place to be, no matter the time of year or day. Danny's ancient Toyota was already there, and when I unlocked the bay I was pleased to find the johnboat waiting.

I lowered the door behind me and walked around, looking. The long low-pressure hose had been neatly coiled, an d as I had requested one severed end and the regulator it was attached to were sealed inside plastic. The other end was still connected to the small compressor strapped to the inner tube. Nearby were a gallon of gasoline and the expected miscellaneous assortment of dive and boat equipment, including extra weights, a tank containing three thousand pounds per square inch of air, a paddle, life preserver, flashlight, blanket and flare gun.

Eddings also had attached an extra five-horsepower trolling engine that he clearly had used to enter the restricted area where he had died. The main thirty-five-horsepower engine was pulled back and locked, so its propeller would have been out of the water, and I remembered this was the position it was in when I saw the johnboat at the scene.

But what interested me more than any of this was a hard plastic carrying case open on the floor. Nestled in its foam lining were various camera attachments and boxes of Kodak 100 ASA film. But I saw no camera or strobe, and I imagined they were forever lost on the bottom of the Elizabeth River.

I walked up a ramp and unlocked another door, and inside the white-tiled corridor, Ted Eddings was zipped inside a pouch on top of a gurney parked near the X-ray room.

His stiff arms pushed against black vinyl as if he were trying to fight his way free, and water slowly dripped on the floor. I was about to look for Danny when he limped around a corner, carrying a stack of towels, his right knee in a bright red sports brace from a soccer injury that had necessitated a reconstruction of his anterior cruciate ligament.

"We really should get him in the autopsy suite," I said.

"You know how I feel about leaving bodies unattended in the hall."

"I was afraid someone would slip," he said, mopping up water with the towels.

"Well, the only someones here today are you and me."

I smiled at him. "But thank you for the thought, and I certainly don't want you to slip. How's the knee?"

"I don't think it's ever going to get better. It's already been almost three months and I still can barely go down stairs.

"Patience, keep up your physical exercise, and yes, it will get better," I repeated what I had said before. "Have you rayed him yet?"

Danny had worked diving deaths before. He knew it was highly improbable that we were looking for projectiles or broken bones, but what an X-ray might reveal was pneumothorax or a mediastinal shift caused by air leaking from lungs due to barotrauma.

"Yes, ma'am. The film's in the developer." He paused, his expression turning unpleasant. "And Detective Roche with Chesapeake's on his way. He wants to be present for the post."

Although I encouraged detectives to watch their cases autopsied, Roche was not someone I particularly wanted in my morgue.

"Do you know him?" I asked.

"He's been down here before. I'll let you judge him for yourself."

He straightened up and gathered his dark hair into a ponytail again, because strands had escaped and were getting in his eyes. Lithe and graceful, he looked like a young Cherokee with a brilliant grin. I often wondered why he wanted to work here. I helped him roll the body into the autopsy suite, and while he weighed and measured it, I disappeared inside the locker room and took a shower. As I was dressing in scrubs, Marino called my pager.

"What's up?" I asked when I got him on the phone.

"It's who we thought, right?" he asked.

"Tentatively, yes."

"You posting him now?"

"I'm about to start," I said.

"Give me fifteen minutes. I'm almost there."

"You're coming here?" I said, perplexed.

"I'm on my car phone. We'll talk later. I'll be there soon.

As I wondered what this was about, I also knew that Marino must have found something in Richmond. Otherwise, his coming to Norfolk made no sense. Ted Eddings' death was not Marino's jurisdiction unless the FBI had already gotten involved, and that would not make sense, either.