Tess Gerritsen: Peggy Sue Got Murdered

It was time for the hands-on part of the job-the part one never saw on Quincy . Occasionally, the answers fell right into place with a first look. Time of death, cause of death, mechanism and manner of death-these were the blanks that had to be filled in. A verdict of suicide or natural causes would make Beamis and Shradick happy; a verdict of homicide would not.

This time, unfortunately, M. J. could give them no quick answers.

She could make an educated guess about time of death. Livor mortis, the body's mottling after death, was unfixed, suggesting that death was less than eight hours old, and the body temperature, using Moritz's formula, suggested a time of death of around midnight. But the cause of death?

"Nothing definitive, guys," she said. "Sorry."

Beamis and Shradick looked disappointed, but not at all surprised.

"We'll have to wait for body fluids," she said.

"How long?"

"I'll collect it, get it to the state lab today. But they've been running a few weeks behind."

"Can't you run a few tests here?" asked Beamis.

"I'll screen it through gas and TL chromatography, but it won't be specific. Definitive drug ID will have to go through the state lab."

"All we wanna know," said Shradick, "is whether it's a possible."

"Homicide's always possible." She continued her external exam, starting with the head. No signs of trauma here; the skull felt intact, the scalp unbroken. The blond hair was tangled and dirty; obviously the woman had not washed it in days. Except for postmortem changes, she saw no marks on the torso either. The left arm, however, drew her attention. It had a long ridge of scar tissue snaking down it toward the wrist.

"Needle tracks," said M. J. "And a fresh puncture mark."

"Another junkie," sighed Beamis. "There's our cause of death. Probable OD."

"We could run a fast analysis on her needle," said M. J. "Where's her kit?"

Shradick shook his head. "Didn't find one."

"She must've had a needle. A syringe."

"I looked," said Shradick. "I didn't see any."

"Did you find anything near the body?"

"Nothing," said Shradick. "No purse, no ID, nothing."

"Who was first on the scene?"

"Patrolman. Then me."

"So we've got a junkie with fresh needle marks. But no needle."

Beamis said, "Maybe she shot up somewhere else. Wandered into the alley and died."

"Possible."

Shradick was peering at the woman's hand. "What's this?" he said.

"What's what?"

"She's got something in her hand."

M. J. looked. Sure enough, there was a tiny fleck of pink cardboard visible under the edge of her clenched fingers. It took two of them to pry the fist open. Out slid a matchbook, a glossy pink affair with raised gold lettering: "L'Etoile, fine nouvelle cuisine. 221 Hilton Avenue."

"Kind of out of her neighborhood," Beamis remarked.

"Hey, I hear that's a nice place," said Shradick. "Not that I could ever afford to eat there myself."

M. J. opened the matchbook. Inside were three unused matches. And a phone number, scrawled in fountain pen ink on the inside cover.

"Think it's a local number?" she asked.

"Prefix would put it in Surry Heights," said Beamis. "That's still out of her neighborhood."

"Well," said M. J. "Let's try it out and see what happens." As Beamis and Shradick stood by, she went to the wall phone and dialed the number. It rang, three times, four. An answering machine came on, the message spoken by a deep male voice:

"I'm not available at the moment. Please leave your name and number."

That was all. No cute music, no witty remarks, just that terse request, and then the beep.

M. J. said, "This is Dr. Novak at the Albion medical examiner's office. Please call me at eight-seven-nine, six-four-four-oh. It's in regard to a…" She paused. She couldn't exactly say she had a corpse that he might know. Instead she said, "Just call me. It's important." Then she hung up and looked at the two cops. "Now we wait and see what happens."

For the next few hours, nothing much did happen. Beamis and Shradick left on another call, and M. J. completed her external exam. She found no apparent injuries to explain the victim's death. With needle and syringe, she collected body fluids for analysis: blood from the subclavian vein, vitreous fluid from the eye, urine through the lower abdominal wall. All these she deposited in glass test tubes, some to be sent to the state lab, some reserved for preliminary tests she herself would run. She decided an autopsy could wait. There was no sense doing one if it wasn't necessary. If the body fluids showed toxic drug levels, she would have her answer. For now, the body would go into cold storage, to be listed under the name: Jane Doe 373-4-3-A.

At eleven o'clock, while M. J. was at her desk, the phone rang. She picked it up and answered: "Dr. Novak, Assistant ME."

"You left a message," said a man. She recognized at once the voice from the answering machine. Its deep timbre was now edged with anxiety. "What's this all about?" he demanded.

M. J. at once reached for pen and paper. "Who am I speaking to?" she asked.

"You should know. You called me ."

"I just had your telephone number, not a name-"

"And how did you get my number?"

"It was written on a matchbook. The police brought a woman into the morgue this morning, and she-"

He cut in: "I'll be right there."

"Mister, I didn't catch your-"

She heard the click of the receiver, then a dial tone. Jerk , she thought. What if he didn't show up? What if he didn't call back?

She dialed Homicide and left a message for Beamis and Shradick: "Get your butts back to the morgue." Then she waited.

At noon, she got a buzz on the intercom from the front desk. "There's a Mr. Quantrell here," said the secretary. "He says you're expecting him. Want me to send him down?"

"I'll meet him up there," said M. J. "I'm on my way."

She knew better than to just drag a civilian in off the street and take him straight down to the morgue. He would need a chance to prepare for the shock. She pulled a white lab coat over her scrub suit. The lapel had coffee stains, but it would have to do.

By the time she'd ridden up the basement elevator to the ground floor, she'd rearranged her hair into a semblance of presentability and straightened her name tag. She stepped out into the hallway. Through the glass door at the end of the corridor she could see the reception area with its couch and upholstered chairs, all in generic gray. She could also see a man pacing back and forth in front of the couch, oblivious to her approach. He was nicely dressed, and didn't seem like the sort of man who'd be acquainted with a Jane Doe from South Lexington. His camel-hair jacket was perfectly tailored to his wide shoulders. He had a tan raincoat slung over his arm, and he was tugging at his tie as though it were strangling him.

M. J. pushed the glass door open and walked in. "Mr. Quantrell?"

At once the man turned and faced her. He had wheat-colored hair, perfectly groomed, and eyes a shade of which she'd never seen before. Not quite blue, not quite gray, they seemed as changeable as a spring sky. He was old enough-his early forties perhaps-to have amassed a few character lines around those eyes, a few gray hairs around his temples. Under more relaxed circumstances, it would have been a pleasure to look at that face, but what she saw there now, in his gaze and the set of his jaw, was pure tension.

"I'm Dr. Novak," she said, holding out her hand. He shook it automatically, quickly, as though to get the formalities done and over with.

"Adam Quantrell," he said. "You left that message on my answering machine."

"Why don't we go down to my office? You can wait there until the police-"

"You said something about a woman," he cut in rudely. "That the police brought in a woman." No, it wasn't rudeness, M. J., decided. He was afraid.