Robert Walker - Final Edge

"Where does the report say that?"

"Coroner's protocol here." He brought it on screen. "Chalked up to clumsy handling of the body, men holding onto wrists and ankles when moving her from bed to body bag. Called a coroner's contusion. They can tell if it occurred after death from the discoloration of the skin. There's a reason you grab the deceased under the arms, and there's a proper way to hold the ankles tucked against your body."

"Sounds like you've hefted a few."

"I have. Look here too, the broken neck-chalked up to what they call a coroner's fracture. Likely from the same manhandling. Not easy properly elevating and hauling deadweight."

"So you're suggesting the M.E. wrote off restraint marks to coroner transport wagon bruises?"

"Possibly, yes."

"Are you saying that the cops lied so they could get off duty on time? And that the M.E. helped them out?"

"No, no, no. I'm saying they made a tacit blanket assumption and acted on it, and they justified that assumption with their language on the report. They didn't he so much as they convinced themselves of what their eyes told them."

"So while the detectives on scene may have had misgivings, they all turned into smoke?"

"Look, I still have doubts about how Marilyn Monroe was supposed to've died. Why? The scene was too clean, too damned neat, and she lay posed in bed, her body recently washed clean and dressed for the coroner, dead of an overdose. But God forbid she be found under the bed. Gives a guy doubts."

"And I suppose you think Elvis still lives?"

"Only as an icon for his estate and his legions of fans. He lives in that he's still number one. But that's show biz. No, I can easily accept the prognosis of an overdose in Elvis's case."

"Why Elvis yes, but Marilyn no? Because the death scene was not doctored or candy-coated?"

"Exactly. Elvis, unlike the Queen of Hollywood, was found dead at the foot of his toilet. No posing of the body, no gussying it up. Now that's unquestionably an overdose no one had a hand in but Elvis-an honest-to-God unintentional suicide."

"You buy into Marilyn's having been murdered?"

"At least assisted into her overdose by someone. Most cops know the body would at least be half on, half off the bed, and not posed in a peaceful slumber against the pd- lows."

"Then you suspect Lauralie's desperate hunt for her birth mother all those years-"

"Desperate's not too far from determined, the word Mother Elizabeth used to describe her tenacity in the search for Mom and Dad."

"From the beginning, all that effort in order to kill Katherine?"

"Some reason, huh?"

Meredyth's mind filled with the thought. 'To search for so long, only to learn that no one was searching for her…"

"Sounds like a motive for anger, and take anger up a notch to hatred, ratchet it up to acting on your hatred, and whataya got?" he asked.

"Imagine, though, seeking out one's own mother for the express purpose of killing her. It's almost too much to comprehend."

"Yeah, but it'd make a hell of a movie of the week."

"Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances, a falling-out, an argument that escalated to…to murder."

"Or assisted suicide?" asked Lucas.

"All we know for sure is that Lauralie did find her mother," she replied, clenching a fist.

"And within weeks of finding Mom, the daughter is having Mom prepped for burial at Greenhaven Cemetery by Giorgio and Carlotta. Or we could give little Lauralie, poor orphaned child, the benefit of doubt."

"Perhaps…perhaps she got caught up with-"

"Crazy Joe Boyfriend? Who not only planned and executed the abduction and murder of Mira Lourdes, but who also offered her mother, and maybe is the brain who devised the eerie mailings to you and me, Mere. No, it has to be they're equally involved-her with a motive for vengeance, him with a means to that end and a skill for dissection."

"If she selected Mira as a victim because of Mira's name-Lourdes-if she did that, then perhaps she is directing all the traffic, planting the clues she wants us to find, planning the abduction, the murder, the mutilation…which begs the question-"

"— did she plan her own mother's death?" he finished.

"— and did she have help even then from the mysterious boyfriend? Damn, a person could go crazy trying to decipher what floats here and what doesn't."

"Easy, Mere."

"And I hate it…I hate the thought of my contributing to all this insanity, however unwittingly."

He lifted her off his desk and into his arms, holding her close. "I'd say let's talk to the investigators on Katherine Croombs's overdose case, but it'd likely be a waste of time. No one's going to admit to sleepwalking through a case."

"What about talking to the M.E. in charge of the death?"

"That'd be Dr. Lynn Nielsen, very sharp. No way she couldn't've had doubts, but she'd just come on-new woman on the totem pole. Perhaps she held back pursuing it as a result."

"Do you think she'd admit that?"

"No, not unless we can convince her of its relevance to what's going on now. Maybe then…"

"You mean it's worth a try?"

"Let's do it."

He made a call and Frank Patterson answered, telling Lucas that Nielsen had just put on her coat and disappeared into the elevator.

"Thanks, Doctor."

"Anything I can do for you, Detective?" But before Patterson could finish his sentence, Lucas had slammed down the phone, grabbed Meredyth by the hand, and rushed her out.

"Nielsen's on her way out of the building. Let's catch her."

When they found Dr. Lynn Nielsen, she'd already exited the elevator on the main floor, but she'd been held up by an intern from a lab who'd chased her down with a clipboard and a form she had to sign. Nielsen briskly signed, waved good night to the young intern, and made for the exit.

Lucas and Meredyth caught her on the stairs outside the precinct, one on each side, Lucas proposing they buy her dinner.

"What is it you two want from me?" she asked. "Come now. I know the American mind now. No such thing as a free lunch."

Lucas smiled and held up his hands as if caught. "Information on a case of yours that goes back to July 17th."

"That would be on file in the computer."

"A woman named Katherine Croombs."

"Croombs…Croombs…"

"Found in a state of alcoholic poisoning in which you noted two key elements that went ignored by your immediate supervisor, our Dr. Patterson, and the detectives on the case, who appeared in heat to sign off on it," Lucas explained.

She turned up her collar against the annoying drizzle, said nothing, and began skipping down the steps. Lucas and Meredyth followed.

"Do you recall the case?" asked Meredyth in her ear.

She stopped and looked into Meredyth's eyes. "Yes, I recall the one named Croombs. Acute liver damage, skin jaundiced to a tea-green color, other internal organs shriveled and saturated with the booze."

"Why do you recall her case so vividly, unless you have good reason to?" asked Lucas. "Say, because it haunts you?"

"I've said enough. Good night." She rushed for her car. They pursued.

"We suspect she was helped along that night toward her death. Dr. Nielsen," said Meredyth, catching her at her car.

Nielsen shakily worked to dig her key into the lock.

"We believe the woman's daughter not only killed her, Dr. Nielsen, but that she is involved in the mutilation murder of Mira Lourdes."

Nielsen had snatched her door open, about to leave, but this stopped her cold. She looked back at them. "The daughter? The two cases are somehow related? Everyone involved strongly encouraged me to believe the prevailing wisdom."

"Which was that the old woman died as she lived, OD-ing in a weekend war with her own worst enemy-her drunken self?" asked Lucas.