Sara Paretsky - Sisters on the Case

Noriega’s flash goes off. Rosen wobbles. ‘‘You okay?’’ he says. Rosen doesn’t look okay. She’s got this pasty look on her face. She’s tough as nails with this rep of chewing up rookie homicide detectives and spitting them back to narcotics, and he for sure doesn’t want to go back there.

‘‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I be okay?’’ She wipes the oily sweat off her face with a tissue. Okay if being fucking pregnant again is okay.

‘‘Looks like all that’s missing are the cows,’’ Noriega says. He snaps what may or may not be the path to the vic made by the perp and/or the fire marshal and the EMTs.

Dr. Larry Vander Roon from the ME’s office appears on the stairs. He’s overweight and only months from retirement, but everyone else is busy. He could do without this, but they can’t do without him. They don’t have enough on staff. Cutbacks all the time, now they’re talking about his retirement as attrition. If it was up to him, he wouldn’t retire. It’s Joanne who wants it. She’s got her eye on a condo in Fort Myers. What the hell would he do there, sit by a pool and listen to the jabber? Not him.

When he gets to the top of the stairs, the sun bakes right down on him. It’s an oven up here. The body is going to stink something awful, the corruption difficult. Give him a winter body anytime.

The meadow is green, almost lush in the late morning heat. The sun is high and there are no clouds to offset the glare. A faint breeze barely moves the blades of tall grass and the wildflowers. The footfalls of the fire marshal and the two EMTs are unmistakable, marking a passage of approximately twenty feet from the top of the stairs to the body. It is understood that this may have obscured the path left by the killer, should this prove to be a homicide.

Because of this probability, the body has been left uncovered.

Scattered along the way from the top of the stairs to the body are various articles of clothing. A black T-shirt lying on a clump of daisy-like wildflowers, black pants and a stained white blazer closer to the body. A lacy black bra and black bikini panties, tossed to the right and to the left. Noriega marks each spot.

The vic is female, late twenties, early thirties, slim, long blond hair. Her eyes half-open slits, one side of her face obscured by dried brown blood, purple bruising. She is naked, brutally beaten. Rigor has set in.

Noriega snaps dozens of pictures of the vic from all angles, then circles around taking care where he steps, taking more photos of the area. He narrowly misses tripping over an empty wine bottle. ‘‘Wine bottle. Empty.’’

‘‘Mark it.’’

He drops a marker, slings his camera over his shoulder, and sketches out the scene in his notepad. The air reeks with decomposing body smells.

Molly Rosen steps aside so Larry Vander Roon can get to the body. She calls down to the patrol officers. ‘‘I want the body isolated and this whole area of the High Line around the body, a block both ways, uptown and downtown, cordoned off.’’

‘‘She was spotted by Chopper 6 at nine twenty this morning,’’ Rosen says. ‘‘The fire marshal got here first, then the EMTs, who pronounced her. They flipped her over on her back.’’

‘‘I can see that. Lividity’s on her butt.’’ Vander Roon is old-school. Gloves on, he crouches beside the body, nostrils twitching. ‘‘Poor little thing.’’ He takes his thermometer from his bag, rolls the body onto her side.

‘‘We’ve got her clothes, tossed around like someone was having a good time.’’

Vander Roon grunts. ‘‘Value judgment?’’ He checks the vic’s eyes for hemorrhages.

‘‘Not me, Larry. Just an observation.’’

He squints up at her. ‘‘You look a little green around the gills, Rosen. You-?’’

‘‘Larry, just deal with the vic.’’ Regrets the snappish tone. ‘‘Sorry. Can you estimate time of death?’’

Vander Roon shifts his weight. His bad knees will have him limping when he gets up. ‘‘Some of this is old stuff.’’

‘‘Antemortem?’’

‘‘That and ante antemortem. I gotta get her on the table.’’ He checks the reading on the thermometer. ‘‘Given loss of body heat, even taking into account roasting up here, the stage of rigor, lividity, I’d say twelve to fourteen hours.’’

‘‘Gunshot wound? Asphyxial? What? Beating? That head wound looks bad.’’

‘‘Even minor head wounds bleed a lot. Like this one.’’

‘‘Can you tell if she died here or was dumped?’’

‘‘She died here.’’

‘‘Found something,’’ Noriega says. ‘‘Looks like what’s left of a pill. You want to see it up close?’’

‘‘Let’s have a look,’’ Vander Roon says. He removes his gloves and drops them into a container in his bag. ‘‘Give me a hand, will you, Rosen?’’

Molly takes his elbow and he leans into her. The old guy weighs a ton. Good thing she’s a big girl. ‘‘Mark the place and bring it here,’’ she tells Noriega. ‘‘Then see if anyone even vaguely of her description’s been reported missing.’’

Vander Roon looks at the mashed remains of a pill in Molly’s palm. ‘‘If it’s hers, and it’s important, we’ll find it in the tox screen.’’

Molly’s cell rings. ‘‘Rosen.’’ She sees Crime Scene unloading their gear in the parking lot. ‘‘Crime Scene just got here.’’

‘‘I’ll stick around,’’ Vander Roon says. ‘‘When they’re through, my people will take her away.’’

‘‘Noriega, you, too. When the body is removed, get pictures of the area around and under where she was.’’ Molly’s distracted, phone to her ear. ‘‘What? Where? Okay, I’m on my way.’’ She pockets the cell. ‘‘Patrol found two EDPs on 14th under the viaduct fighting over a woman’s purse.’’

Emotionally Disturbed Persons.

Zachary lives in a cardboard box under the viaduct. He’s been on the street in New York since he left the VA hospital in Baltimore. Tossed the pills they gave him for the voices the minute he got out. Can’t rememberhow he ended up in New York, but what the fuck difference does it make anyway? He’s got a home here, fixed up real nice, with a mattress he found outside a brownstone on 20th. He sits all day in front of the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd. That’s his place. People put money in his bowl, which says Purina. He gets real mean if someone tries to move in on him.

Sometimes when it’s real hot, he climbs the fence to the High Line and sleeps in the grass. The grass is sweet. But then it’s not. He smells it. He goes looking for it, though he doesn’t want to. He never leaves his platoon, even when it’s real bad. He isn’t going to run now. It’s a girl. Not a gook neither. They took her out. She smells like Nam. Rotting dog meat. Nothing he can do. He backs away and falls on his ass. Lays still a long time, waiting for the blast. Nothing happens. He sits up and there it is. A purse. He grabs it up and takes off.

When he gets to his crib, there’s filthy bare feet sticking out of it, laying on his mattress. He goes nuts. It’s that acidhead been hanging out under the viaduct.

‘‘Hey!’’ He kicks the feet hard. ‘‘Get the fuck outa my crib.’’

The feet pull back. Otherwise, nothing. Zachary reaches into his box and grabs one skinny ankle and pulls the piece of shit outa his crib. ‘‘What the fuck you doing?’’

‘‘You wasn’t using it,’’ the acidhead screams, scrambles to his feet. He calls himself Shane. Mooches from the moochers. He’s twelve when his mother remarries. Every time his stepfather gets him alone, the slug sucks his dick and more. First chance Shane gets, he cleans out all the cash in the house and leaves. He hangs in the Port Authority the first winter turning tricks. Hash, acid, even coke, easy to come by. A rap-per faggot drops some acid on him once outside a Village club. The AIDS killed that life, but he’s managing. Finds plenty to eat out of the trash baskets, still turns a trick now and then.