Red Hook Read Free

about right.”
    The back of the dead man’s neck was purple, a different tint from the bruises. Jack pushed a finger into the flesh and pulled it back. The spot momentarily whitened. He knelt down and pulled, the back of the T-shirt up: same purple discoloration, same white spot when pressed.
    “The body was moved postmortem,” Jack said. “How do I know?”
    Daskivitch frowned again. “Uh, lividity, right? After the blood stopped circulating, it would have pooled in the lowest parts of the body. That should be his side, not the back.”
    “Good.” Jack turned to Alvarez. “Could these blows to the face have done him in?”
    The forensics man stared down thoughtfully. “I think that was just a warm-up.”
    “Help me here,” Alvarez said to Jack. They rolled the body over and Alvarez pulled aside the plaid shirt. The T-shirt underneath was stained with a big patch of rust-colored blood. There was no blood on the ground, confirmation that the body had been moved.
    Alvarez rolled the T-shirt up the victim’s chest. “There you go.”
    At first Jack didn’t see what he was talking about, but then Alvarez pressed down on the corpse’s side, opening the thin ugly slit of a stab wound. Jack pressed his hands against the spiky grass and squeezed his eyes shut. Sweat beaded his upper lip.
    “You okay?” Alvarez asked.
    Jack nodded, but swallowed, fighting the bile rising in his throat. His head swam and he was afraid he might black out.
    “Jack?” Daskivitch said.
    Weakly he shook his head, lurched to his feet, staggered a few yards away, and heaved up his guts.
    He took a deep breath and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, ashamed to turn around. A veteran getting queasy over such a well-preserved corpse—it was as pathetic as a surgeon fainting over a nosebleed.
    He patted the sweat from his forehead, straightened up, and turned back to the other detectives. They seemed to have trouble meeting his eyes.
    “Whew. Must’ve been something I ate. Bad shrimp, maybe.”
    “What is it with you and the stabbings?” Alvarez said quietly.
    Jack looked up sharply. “Why don’t you mind your own fucking business!”
    “Whoa.” Alvarez raised his hands.
    Daskivitch’s eyes widened. The kid had seen the veteran lose his lunch; now he was losing his cool. Jack cleared his throat. “Sorry. I just got a little dizzy, is all. I’ll be fine.”
    The forensics man shrugged, then knelt down by the corpse and started doing something unpleasant with a thermometer.
    Jack turned away, queasy again. He glanced at Daskivitch, alert to any condescension or contempt.
    The kid just looked concerned. “You sure you’re okay?”
    “Yeah. Let’s just drop it, all right?”
    Daskivitch nodded and looked away.
    “Okay,” Jack said, taking charge again, “the vic died somewhere else and was shlepped here. He could have been carried from the bridge, but that’s a long way and there’s no stairs. I think they just chucked him over the fence, and he got snagged on the other side.”
    “They?”
    “One guy could never have gotten him over. So—first of all, they would’ve had to untangle him from the wire. Then they’d have to carry him down to the water. The question is, why didn’t they finish the job?”
    “You think somebody eyeballed them from the bridge?”
    “Too far. The sightlines are crap.”
    He looked down at the water. “At least the scubas will be glad they don’t have to go in.” Once he’d seen a couple of miserable Harbor Scuba Unit divers kneeling by a hydrant near the canal as they hosed off a thick layer of scum and muck. Perhaps they were remembering a scuba whose mask had slipped off while he was down: the poor bastard inhaled a mouthful of typhus and cholera and ended up in intensive care.
    Daskivitch grimaced. “A few minutes in that poison would strip a body like frikkin’ piranhas.”
    Alvarez pulled out a couple of paper bags and taped them over the victim’s hands. If the man had died