really, that is not what I meant.’
‘That’s exactly what you meant. Stupid-ass Eckels goes and tells you I stepped up to the plate, and you assume the only reason a man would help you out is if he’s looking to hit that. Well, don’t think I didn’t get the same flack around the house. That, or they figured I was somehow sympatico with you because of the number of times I’ve heard bullshit behind my back. Affirmative-action hire. Diversity detective.’
‘And that’s not it either?’
‘Nope.’
‘So this is just going to remain a lifelong mystery? D.B. Cooper, Jimmy Hoffa, and why J. J. Rogan rescued Ellie Hatcher?’
His smile faded as he turned onto First Avenue. ‘I trust my instincts about people. I thought Eckels sticking you with Winslow sucked, and I thought it was going to cost the squad a good cop. And let’s just say I haven’t always had the easiest time with partners myself.’
It was the closest she was going to get to an answer, at least for now. ‘So you saved me,’ she said in a fairy-tale voice.
‘If you want to think of it that way.’
‘I do.’
‘All right, then. Can I listen to my radio now?’
‘You may.’
He turned up the volume and began moving with the beat again. ‘And I’m sorry to break this to you, Hatcher, but I really am spoken for. I was just telling my girl last night you and I were getting on good.’
Ellie looked out the window and bopped her head a little, too.
The Manhattan office of the chief medical examiner was located on First Avenue and Thirtieth Street, just north of the Bellevue Hospital Center. As they rolled past the canopied glass entrance of the hospital’s new addition, they caught a glimpse of the original building’s historic facade, still standing behind the modern entrance.
Bellevue Hospital is the site of the nation’s first ambulance service and maternity ward and the oldest public hospital in the state. But outside of New York, it’s known for one thing and one thing only: its crazies. Ellie had lived in the city for ten years now, but it was still hard for her to hear the word Bellevue without envisioning a stringy-haired man in a straitjacket screaming like a hyena.
Rogan found a spot on the street in front of the ME’s office. When they stepped out of the car, the sun was peeking out through a break in the clouds above them, and the air was still.
They made their way through the building’s glass doors and up to the fourth floor. A clerk at the front window checked their shields, buzzed them through to the back, and pointed them in the direction of a stocky man standing at a nearby desk, dictating into a digital voice recorder. He had brown curly hair and a graying beard, and wore a white lab coat over khakis and blue sweater. He held up one finger while he completed his thought, then flipped a button to turn off the recorder.
‘J. J. Rogan, right?’
Rogan accepted his handshake. ‘You’ve got a good memory, Doc. This is my partner, Ellie Hatcher.’
‘Richard Karr,’ the man said, extending his hand. ‘We spoke on the phone. First murder case?’
‘Second,’ Ellie said, ‘but close enough.’
‘All right, well, our first one all together, then. Let’s hope I can help you out. Now when you called, Detective, you said our young Miss Hart was nineteen years old and was last seen alive at a nightclub last night at two thirty a.m., correct?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s consistent with my best estimation of her time of death. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet.’ Corpses began to stiffen about three hours after death, due to changes in the muscles’ biochemistry. ‘I found undigested pasta. You said she last ate at ten o’clock?’
‘That’s when her friends say they finished eating.’
‘Again, it’s consistent. Digestion was well past the gastric phase, and into the duodenum –’
‘She was killed sometime between three and five this morning?’ Ellie asked, cutting to the chase. Chelsea’s friends last saw her dancing at two thirty; her pallor was gray by the time Ellie saw her at five thirty. It only stood to reason.
‘Sorry, some of the detectives are more dazzled by the science than others,’ Dr. Karr said. ‘Okay, so, on to some other findings, then. You probably already know this too, but Miss Hart appears to have taken full advantage of the libations at said club. She had a blood alcohol content of point-two-six.’
‘Drunk times three,’ Ellie said.
‘Three and a quarter, to be precise. Now, it takes the liver sixty to ninety minutes to metabolize the alcohol in a single serving of liquor, so the body’s BAC actually continues to rise during that time before it starts to dissipate. Depending on how long she was drinking –’
‘Her friends say she had an early drink before dinner,’ Ellie cut in, ‘but then the real partying started around ten. She was definitely still drinking at ten thirty, and the club closed at four.’
Karr nodded, looking up to the ceiling as he ran the numbers. ‘Very well, then. Assuming she continued her consumption, I’m probably correct that she was still on the upswing at the time of death. With a body weight of only a hundred and twenty-two pounds, my best guess is she must have consumed nine or ten drinks over the course of the night.’
Ellie shook her head at the stupidity of it all. Attractive girl, scantily clad, underage. Blasted out of her mind. Wandering the streets of Manhattan alone in the middle of the night. A few times a year, a handful of girls were killed after making the identical mistake. And no one seemed to learn.
‘Plus we’ve got the tox screen. Positive for crystal meth.’
That one caught Ellie by surprise. She liked to think she could spot a liar, and none of the usual red flags went up with Chelsea’s friends. They’d been clear: no sex, no drugs.
‘Can you tell how recent?’
‘She used within four hours of her death.’
Add methed up to attractive, scantily clad, underage, and drunk. Ellie couldn’t think of a more dangerous combination.
Rogan cut in with a question of his own. ‘CSU thought the vic was killed off-site and then moved to the East River scene.’
‘Oh, yes. Certainly. As you might know, it’s the power of the beating heart that keeps our blood cells and platelets all mixed together in our vessels.’ He pantomimed a mixing gesture with his hands. ‘So once the heart stops beating, and the mixer loses its power, the red blood cells begin to settle with gravity. That’s what causes the telltale discoloration of lividity – that look of a layer of grape jelly beneath the skin.’
‘And the discoloration on Chelsea?’ Ellie asked.
‘Her body may have been found propped up in a seated position, but the grape jelly was on her back.’
It
