From Potter's Field Read Free Page B

around with their two-liter bottles of Pepsi, smiling at the television cameras. Friggin' unbelievable.' He slid a pack of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket.

    'I thought you were doing better with your smoking,' I said.

    'I am. I get better at it all the time.'

    'Marino, it isn't something to joke about.' I thought of my mother and her tracheotomy. Emphysema had not cured her habit until she had gone into respiratory arrest.

    'Okay.' He came closer to the table. I'll tell you the serious truth. I've cut it down by half a pack a day, Doc.'

    I cut through ribs and removed the breastplate.

    'Molly won't let me smoke in her car or house.'

    'Good for Molly,' I said of the woman Marino began dating at Thanksgiving. 'How are the two of you doing?'

    'Real good.'

    'Are you spending Christmas together?'

    'Oh yeah. We'll be with her family in Urbana. They do a big turkey, the whole nine yards.' He tapped an ash to the floor and fell silent.

    'This is going to take a while,' I said. 'The bullets have fragmented as you can see from his films.'

    Marino glanced around at the morbid chiaroscuro displayed on light boxes around the room.

    'What was he using? Hydra-Shok?' I asked.

    'All the cops around here are using Hydra-Shok these days. I guess you can see why. It does the trick.'

    'His kidneys have a finely granular surface. He's very young for that.'

    'What does that mean?' Marino looked on curiously.

    'Probably an indication of hypertension.'

    He was quiet, probably wondering if his kidneys looked the same, and I suspected they did.

    'It really would help if you'd scribe,' I said.

    'No problem, as long as you spell everything.'

    He went to a counter and picked up clipboard and pen. He pulled on gloves. I had just begun dictating weights and measurements when his pager sounded.

    Detaching it from his belt, he held it up to read the display. His face darkened.

    Marino went to the phone at the other end of the autopsy suite and dialed. He talked with his back to me and I caught only words now and then. They drifted through the noise at my table, and I knew whatever he was being told was bad.

    When he hung up, I was removing lead fragments from the brain and scribbling notes with a pencil on an empty, bloody glove packet. I stopped what I was doing and looked at him.

    'What's going on?' I said, assuming the call was related to this case, for certainly what had happened tonight was bad enough.

    Marino was perspiring, his face dark red. 'Benton sent me a 911 on my pager.'

    'He sent you what?' I asked.

    That's the code we agreed to use if Gault hit again.'

    'Oh God,' I barely said.

    'I told Benton not to bother calling you since I'm here to tell you the news in person.'

    I rested my hands on the edge of the table. 'Where?' I said tensely.

    'They've found a body in Central Park. Female, white, maybe in her thirties. It looks like Gault decided to celebrate Christmas in New York.'

    I had feared this day. I had hoped and prayed Gault's silence might last forever, that maybe he was sick or dead in some remote village where no one knew his name.

    'The Bureau's sending a chopper for us,' Marino went on. 'As soon as you finish up this case, Doc. We gotta get out of here. Goddam son of a bitch!' He started pacing furiously. 'He had to do this Christmas Eve!' He glared. 'It's deliberate. His timing's deliberate.'

    'Go call Molly,' I said, trying to remain calm and work more quickly.

    'And wouldn't you know I'd have this thing on.' He referred to his dress uniform.

    'You have a change of clothes?'

    'I'll have to stop by my house real fast. I gotta leave my gun. What are you going to do?'

    'I always keep things here. While you're out, would you mind calling my sister's house in Miami? Lucy should have gotten down there yesterday. Tell her what's happened, that I'm not going to make it down, at least not right now.' I gave him the number and he left.

    At almost midnight, the snow had stopped and Marino was back.