Robin Cook - Blindsight

“Maybe I’d better just keep my trap shut,” said Lou.

Laurie glanced up at the clock on the wall. “I think we should get downstairs. I’m sure Vinnie has DePasquale on the table.” She gulped down the rest of her coffee and stood up.

Lou stubbed out his cigarette and hurried after her. Five minutes later they were back in their gowns, standing in front of the X-ray view box in the autopsy room, looking at the X-rays of Frank DePasquale. The AP and the lateral of the head showed the bright silhouette of the bullet resting in the posterior fossa.

“You were right about the location of the bullet,” Laurie said. “There it is in the base of the brain.”

“Gangland execution is very efficient,” Lou said.

“I can believe it,” Laurie added. “The reason is that a bullet into the base of the brain hits the brainstem. That’s where the vital centers are for things like breathing and heartbeat.”

“I suppose if I have to go, that’s one way I’d like it to be,” Lou said.

Laurie looked at the detective. “That’s a pleasant thought.”

Lou shrugged. “In my line of work you think about it.”

Laurie glanced back at the X-ray. “You were also right about its being small caliber. I’d guess a twenty-two or a twenty-five at most.”

“That’s what they usually use,” Lou said. “The more powerful stuff is just too messy.”

Laurie led the way to table six, where Frankie’s mortal remains were laid out. The corpse was slightly bloated. The right eye was more swollen than the left.

“He looks younger than eighteen,” Laurie said.

“More like fifteen,” Lou agreed.

Laurie asked Vinnie to roll the body over so they could look at the back of the head. With a gloved hand she parted his wet, matted hair and exposed a round entrance wound surrounded by a larger round area of abrasion. After taking some measurements and photographs, Laurie carefully shaved the surrounding hair to expose the wound completely.

“It was obviously a close-range shot,” Laurie said. She pointed to the tight ring of gunpowder stippling around the punched-out center.

“How close?” Lou asked.

Laurie pondered for a moment. “I’d say three or four inches. Something like that.”

“Typical,” Lou said.

Laurie took another series of measurements and photographs. Then, with a clean scalpel, she carefully teased bits of the gunpowder residue from the depths of some of the small stippled puncture wounds. By tapping the scalpel blade against the inside of a glass collection tube, Laurie preserved this material for laboratory analysis.

“Never know what the chemists can tell us,” she said. She gave the tubes to Vinnie to label.

“We need a break,” Lou said. “I don’t care where it comes from.”

When Vinnie was finished labeling the collection tubes, Laurie had him help her turn Frank back into a supine position.

“What’s wrong with the right eye?” Lou asked.

“I don’t know,” Laurie said. “From the X-ray it didn’t look like the bullet went into the orbit, but you never know.” The lid was a purplish color. Swollen conjunctiva protruded through the palpebral fissure. Gently, Laurie pulled up the eyelid.

“Ugh,” Lou said. “That looks bad. The first case had no eyes; this one looks like the eye’s been run over with a Mack truck. Could that have happened when he was floating around in the East River?”

Laurie shook her head. “Happened before death. See the hemorrhages under the mucous membrane? That means the heart was pumping. He was alive when this occurred.”

Bending closer, Laurie studied the cornea. By looking at the reflection of the overhead lights off its surface, she could tell that the cornea was irregular. Plus, it was a milky white. Reaching over to the left eye, she lifted its lid. In contrast to the right, the left cornea was clear; the eye stared blankly at the ceiling.

“Could the bullet have done that?” Lou asked.

“I don’t think so,” Laurie said. “It looks more like a chemical burn the way it’s affected the cornea. We’ll get a sample for Toxicology. I’ll look at it closely in sections under the microscope. I have to admit, I haven’t seen anything quite like it.”

Laurie continued her external exam. When she looked at the wrists, she pointed to them. “See these abrasions and indentations?”

“Yeah,” Lou said. “What’s that mean?”

“I’d say this poor guy had been tied up. Maybe the eye lesion was some kind of torture.”

“These are nasty people,” Lou said. “What irks me is that they hide behind this supposed code of ethics when in reality it’s just a dog-eat-dog world. And what really irks me is that their screwing around tends to give all Italian-Americans a bad name.”

As Laurie examined Frank’s hands and legs, she asked Lou why the Vaccarro and Lucia crime families were feuding.

“For territory,” Lou said. “They all have to sleep in the same bed, Queens and parts of Nassau County. They are forever at each other’s throats for territory. They are in direct competition for their drugs, loan-sharking, gambling clubs, fencing, extortion rings, hot car rings, hijacking… You name it and they’re into it. They’re forever fighting and killing each other, but it’s a Mexican standoff so in a way they also have to get along. It’s a weird world.”

“All this illegal activity goes on even today?” Laurie questioned.

“Absolutely,” Lou said. “And what we know about is just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Why don’t the police do something?”

Lou sighed. “We’re trying, but it ain’t easy. We need evidence. As I explained before, that’s hard to get. The bosses are insulated and the killers are pros. Even when we’ve got the goods on them they still have to go through the courts, and nothing is guaranteed. We Americans have always been so worried about tyranny from the authorities, that we legally give the bad guys the edge.”

“It’s difficult to believe so little can be done,” Laurie said.

“Something can only be done if we get hard evidence. Take Frank DePasquale here. I’m ninety-nine percent sure Cerino and his crew are responsible for whacking him. But I can’t do anything without some proof, some break.”

“I thought the police had informers,” Laurie said.

“We have informers,” Lou agreed. “But nobody who really knows anything. The people that could really point a finger are more scared of each other than they are of us.”

“Well, maybe I’ll come up with something with this post,” Laurie said, redirecting her gaze to Frank DePasquale’s corpse. “The trouble is that bodies in water tend to be washed of evidence. Of course, there is the bullet. At the very least I can give you the bullet.”

“I’ll take whatever I can get,” Lou said.

Laurie and Vinnie tackled the autopsy. At each step she explained to Lou what they were doing. The only difference between Frank’s autopsy and Duncan ’s was the way Laurie did the brain. With Frank she was meticulously careful to follow the bullet’s path. She noted that it never came near to the swollen eye. She was also careful not to touch the bullet with a metal instrument. Once she’d retrieved it, she put it into a plastic container to avoid scratching it. Later, after it was dry, she marked it on its base, then photographed it before sealing it in a small envelope. The envelope was then attached to a property receipt, ready to be turned over to the police, meaning Sergeant Murphy or his partner upstairs.

“It’s been quite a morning,” Lou said as they exited the autopsy room. “It’s been very instructive, but I think I’ll pass on your third case.”

“I was surprised you tolerated two,” Laurie said.