Sue Grafton - N Is For Noose

"In what respect?"

"I assume you're sizing me up, trying to figure out how much you want to tell."

"Yes, I am," she said. "Tom confided in me and I take that seriously. I mean, even if he's dead, why would I betray his trust?"

"That's up to you. Maybe this is unfinished business and you have an opportunity to see it through for him."

"This is not about Tom. This is about his wife," she said.

"You could look at it that way."

"Why should I help her?"

"Simple compassion. She's entitled to peace of mind."

"Aren't we all?" she said. "I never met the woman and probably wouldn't like her even if I did, so I don't give a shit about her peace of mind."

"What about your own?"

"That's my concern."

That was as much as I got out of her. By the time we'd walked as far as the wharf, the rain was beginning to pick up again. "I think I'll peel off here. I'm a block down in that direction. If you decide you have more to tell me, why don't you get in touch."

"I'll think about that."

"I could use the help," I said.

I trotted toward home under a steadily increasing drizzle that matted my hair. What was it with these people? What a bunch of anal-retentives. I decided it was time to quit horsing around. I ducked into the apartment long enough to run a towel through my hair, grab my handbag and umbrella, and lock up again. I retrieved my car and drove the ten blocks to Santa Teresa Hospital.

I caught Dr. Yee on his way to the parking lot. I'd left the VW in a ninety-minute spot at the curb across from the hospital emergency room and I was circling the building, intending to enter by way of the main lobby. Dr. Yee had emerged from a side door and was preparing to cross the street to the parking garage. I called his name and he turned. I waved and he waited until I'd reached his side.

Santa Teresa County still utilizes a sheriff-coroner system, in which the sheriff, as an elected official, is also in charge of the coroner's office. The actual autopsy work is done by various forensic pathologists under contract to the county, working in conjunction with the coroner's investigators. Steven Yee was in his forties, a third-generation Chinese American, with a passion for French cooking.

"You looking for me?" He was easily six feet tall, slender and handsome, with a smooth round face. His hair was a straight glossy black streaked with exotic bands of white that he wore combed straight back.

"I'm glad I caught you. Are you on your way home?

I need about fifteen minutes of your time, if you can spare it."

He glanced at his watch. "I'm not due at the restaurant for another hour," he said.

"I heard about that. You have a second career."

He smiled with pleasure, shrugging modestly. "Well, the money's not great, but I make enough here. It's restful to chop leeks instead of… other things."

"At least you're skilled with a boning knife," I said.

He laughed. "Believe me, nobody trims meat as meticulously as I do. You ought to come in some night. I'll treat you to a meal that'll make you weep for the pure pleasure."

"I could use that," I said. "You know me and Quarter Pounders with cheese."

"So what's up? Is this work?"

"I'm looking for information about a man named Alfie Toth. Are you familiar with the case?"

"Should be. I did the post," he said. He hooked a thumb in the direction of the building. "Come on back to my office. I'll show you what we have."

"This is great," I said happily, as I followed him. "I understand Toth's death may be related to a suspected homicide in Nota Lake. One of the sheriff's investigators there was working on the case when he died of a heart attack a few weeks back. His name was Tom Newquist. Did he get in touch with you?"

"I know the name, but he didn't contact me directly. I spoke to the Nota Lake coroner by phone and he mentioned him. What's your connection? Is this an insurance claim?"

"I don't work for CF these days. I've got an office in Lonnie Kingman's law firm on Capillo."

"What happened to CF?"

"They fired my sorry butt, which is fine with me," I said. "It was time for a change so now I'm doing mostly freelance work. Newquist's widow hired me. She says her husband was stressed out and she wants me to find out why. Nota Lake law enforcement's been very tightlipped on the subject and the cops here aren't much better."

"I'll bet."

When we reached the elevator, he punched the Down button and we chatted idly of other matters as we descended into the bowels of the building.

Dr. Yee's office was a small bare box down the hall from the morgue. The ante-room was lined with beige filing cabinets, the office itself barely large enough for his big rolltop desk, his swivel chair, and a plain wooden chair for guests. His medical books had been moved to the shelves of a freestanding bookcase and the top of his desk was now reserved for a neat row of French cookbooks, trussed on either side by a large jar of murky formalin in which floated something I didn't care to inspect. He was using a gel breast implant as a paperweight, securing a pile of loose notes. "Hang on a second and I'll pull the file," he said. "Have a seat."

The chair was stacked with medical journals so I perched on the edge, grateful Dr. Yee was willing to trust me. Dr. Yee was never careless with information, but he wasn't as paranoid as the police detectives. He returned with a file folder and a manila envelope and took his seat in the swivel chair, tossing both on the desk beside me.

"Are those the photographs? Can I see?"

"Sure, but they won't tell you much." He reached for the envelope and extracted a set of color photographs, eight-by-ten prints showing various views of the scene where Alfie Toth had been found. The terrain was clearly rugged: boulders, chaparral, an ancient live oak. "Toth was identified through his skeletal remains, largely dental work. Percy Ritter's body in Nota Lake was found in much the same circumstances; same MO and a similar remote locale. In both cases, it took a while before anyone stumbled across the remains."

I paused, staring at one close-up view with perplexity, not quite sure what I was looking at; probably the lower half of Alfie Toth's body crumpled on the ground. The pelvic bones appeared to be still joined, but the femur, tibia, and fibulas were tangled together in a heap, like bleached kindling. The haphazard skeletal assortment looked like a Halloween decoration badly in need of assembly.

Dr. Yee was saying, "Ritter's mummified body was found fully clothed with various personal items in his pockets… expired California driver's license, credit cards. Identification was confirmed by his fingerprints, which had to be reconstituted. Must have been dry out there because bacterial growth and putrefaction are halted when the body moisture diminishes below fifty percent. Ritter's flesh was as stiff as leather, but Kirchner managed to retrieve all but the right-hand thumb and ring finger. Ritter'd had his prints in the system since 1972. What a bad ass. Real scum."

"I didn't know you could salvage prints like that."

He shrugged. "You sometimes have to sever the fingers first. To rehydrate, you can soak 'em in a three percent lye solution or a one percent solution of Eastman Kodak Photo-Flo 200 for a day or two. Another method is to use successive alcohol solutions, starting at ninety percent and gradually decreasing. With Ritter, the first presumption was of suicide, though Kirchner said he had big doubts and the county sheriff did, too. Keep in mind, there wasn't any suicide note at the scene, but there was also no environmental disorder and no signs of trauma on the body. No fractured hyoid to suggest cervical compression, no evidence of knife wounds, skull fractures, gunshot-"