Page 48 of The 24th Hour
She found Bunny straightening up in the autopsy room.
“Bunny. Have you seen Dr. G.?”
“He just texted me. He’s parking his car.”
“Good.”
Claire was eager to compare notes with the good doctor.
CHAPTER 61
DR. HUMPHREY GERMANIUK was not just a highly regarded medical examiner, but he’d taught at UCLA Medical School before joining the medical examiner’s office. After retiring from teaching, he came back to the ME, night shift, and he and Claire were friends.
He was just coming through the ambulance bay when Claire said, “Thanks, Bunny. Put in for overtime. Dr. G. will take it from here.”
Bunny didn’t have to be told twice. She went to the ladies’ room and came out shortly in street clothes, hair loose around her shoulders, lip gloss. As she left the ME’s office, Claire and Dr. Germaniuk both wished Bunny a good night.
Claire gave Dr. G. a couple of minutes to gown up, then open his office door and ask her what was lying in wait for him. She got right to it. “I left Jamie Fricke’s files on your desk. A million dollars for your thoughts.”
He said, “You look tired, Claire.”
“Is that your professional opinion or a little help from my friend?”
“Both,” said Dr. G.
Claire nodded. “I hear you. I’m a brain wreck. Come with me, Dr. G. If you don’t mind,” she said, going through the swinging doors to the cold storage room. She opened Fricke’s drawer and slid his body out.
“What do you think of this here?” Claire asked Dr. G., unwrapping Fricke’s hand with great care. Dr. G. cleaned his thick, black-rimmed glasses and, when James Fricke’s right hand had been entirely freed from the bandage, peered at the dead man’s hand.
Claire told him her theory of the injury and Dr. G. looked closely at Fricke’s skinned knuckles.
“Hmm. It sure looks like he got a punch in before the curtain dropped. You swabbed it?”
“I swabbed the hell out of it,” said Claire. “I’ve got the swabs packaged and I called Hallows to make sure he gives it priority treatment. Rapid DNA could be back tonight.”
Dr. G. nodded approvingly.
Claire went on. “Contents of the box for the lab: fluids from the tox screen, clothes bagged, fingernail scrapings, slugs, all in the carton under the reception desk with the swabs, five of them in individual tubes. Loomis is careful. I just hope they come early tonight.”
“I’m taking over, okay, Claire?”
“Triple okay,” she said. “If the lab calls back with the DNA, wake me.”
“You’re off duty, Claire. I’m in charge and I’m not going to let you down.”
CHAPTER 62
BAO WAITED WITH Joe in his car parked on the shoulder of Turquoise Way three hundred yards downhill from the blue house. The road was flanked by homes with small yards overlooking the steep hillside below.
Bao was focused on Thordarson and Wooten’s threat-catcher program. She hadn’t found a match from Eastern Europe to San Francisco but was not giving up.
Joe was fixated on the east side of the sorry-looking blue house at the top of the road. At nearly five in the afternoon, the sky was overcast, building up to a soaking rain. The target house was dark and silent, shadowed by its taller neighbors, trees, and the darkening sky.
A little while earlier, Joe had peered into the house through a gap in a window shade. He’d counted five, possibly six, fit young men sleeping on the floor and sofa. But there could be others in the adjacent, windowless room. Joe pictured what else he’d seen—the array of computers on the dining tableand the box of .40-caliber ammo on the windowsill. And it was the second item that was keeping him in the car.
He checked his watch again to see how much time had elapsed since Steinmetz’s assistant had told him that backup was on the way. It seemed like half a lifetime passed before Bao looked up from her phone and turned to Joe.
“Incoming backup,” she said.