Page 7 of View from Above
He directed his attention into the street as cars whipped past. Acceptance lightened the shadows under his eyes, and the tension in her jaw released. A ping sliced through the silence between them, and Payton reached for his phone. Glancing at the screen, he let the man who’d showed an ounce of concern for her at the elevators slip away. In its place, the investigator she needed to direct her through this case. “Get in the car. We’re taking a field trip.”
“Where?” Mallory surrendered her position at the hood of the SUV and climbed into the passenger seat.
“The morgue.” He hit the ignition button, and the engine growled to life a second time. Mallory quickly fastened her seat belt as he pulled into traffic. “Dr. Moss has an ID on the body from this morning.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Virginia Green.
The medical examiner had confirmed the jumper’s identity through DNA, prints, and dental records despite the damage done to the fifty-five-year-old woman’s remains. But even more impressive, Dr. Moss had established cause of death.
Payton automatically stopped outside the double steel doors leading into the exam room and slipped his jacket free. Hanging it on the hook provided inside the left locker, he reached for a box of booties and handed it off to Mallory. “We’re required to suit up. Personal protective gear ensures we don’t bring anything into the examination room that might skew the results of any autopsies.”
“Makes sense.” She followed his lead, stripping out of her jacket and collecting the thin suit waiting inside. The fabric rustled softly before she heeled off her boots and slid her socked feet inside. “I take it you’ve done this more than a few times.”
“Every time I’m here or I enter a death scene.” He threaded his legs into the oversized slots and shoved his arms through the sleeves. In less than two minutes, they were ready. Payton handed off a mask for her face and secured his own. “You get used to it after a while.”
Mallory regarded the mask for a moment, as though trying to convince herself this was where she needed to be all over again. She took it from him with gloved hands and wound the straps behind her ears. “Makes me wonder what else you get used to in your line of work.”
Nothing he’d ever want her to see.
Payton shouldered into the examination room, immediately slapped across the face with a combination of chemicals and putrid decomposition. The first few times had triggered his gag reflex, despite the help of the mask, but today’s putrefaction had reached an all-time high. “Dr. Moss, you’ve been busy.”
“You have no idea.” Dr. Moss surveyed her steel, clinical kingdom. Overseeing a staff of forensic pathologists required to respond quickly to conduct autopsies and other post mortem investigations after a homicide, a drowning, or any other circumstances not immediately discernible at the scene, the ME had to keep her cases straight and her orders clear. Fifteen thousand people died in King County every year. Of those, nearly four thousand occurred within Seattle PD’s jurisdiction, and two thousand of those ended up here at Harborview Medical Center’s morgue for investigation. But over the past few months, Dr. Moss seemed to make it a personal mission to write the final chapter of every single one of them herself. “Last night’s delivery is the usual assortment of drug overdoses, car accidents, and suicides. No murders today, but there’s always hope for this afternoon.”
The pathologist’s attempt at sarcasm hit wrong.
“Dr. Moss, this is Mallory Kotite.” Payton motioned to the nauseous-looking woman at his side. “She’s aiding me in the investigation into our recent body drop and has developed a lovely shade of green in her face.”
“Nice to meet you.” Mallory moved to shake but thought better of it as she seemingly remembered they were all wearing gloves for a reason.
“Vicks?” Dr. Moss unpocketed a small blue jar of vapor rub from her lab coat and offered it.
Mallory glanced between the ME and him, clearly thrown off guard. “I don’t… I don’t have a cold.”
“Works to dull the smell.” Payton struggled to contain the amusement curving his mouth higher as he took Dr. Moss’s offering and applied a thin coating of rub beneath his mask. His first time at an autopsy as a rookie had resulted in him contaminating evidence with his breakfast. “Helps with the nausea, too. Just swipe a bit under your nose.”
“Oh.” She took the jar. Embarrassment chased the sick color from her face and replaced it with a beautiful pink up her neck and across her cheeks. “Thank you.”
“You said you had something for me.” Payton handed back the vapor rub.
“I do.” Dr. Moss rounded toward an adjustable slab steel table attached to a massive sink. An electric scale hung off the right, similar to those found in the grocery store, but Payton knew all too well what kind of offerings were set in this bowl. Metal mixing bowls, tubes of varying lengths and fibers, medical instruments, and a bottle of Ajax cleaner completed the collection of tools used to uncover the secrets of death. The pathologist pulled the sheet concealing the deceased’s remains to expose the sallow-looking woman underneath. Her makeup had been removed from the mess of her face, the blood cleaned away, her clothing and jewelry stripped, and she’d recently obtained three neat rows of black sutures beginning at both shoulders and meeting over her sternum. Dr. Moss handed off the file she’d constructed on the deceased. “Meet Virginia Green, our jumper from this morning. Once I got all of her makeup off and her clothing bagged, my external examination didn’t reveal much apart from the obvious lacerations sustained as she fell through the tree at the scene, but I can tell you she was alive before she hit the ground. Her heart was still pumping blood to her wounds. She would’ve died of blunt force trauma as soon as she hit the ground.”
“Witnesses at the scene didn’t report any screams or sounds of an argument.” Pressure built behind his sternum as Payton registered Mallory’s reaction. She’d been so convinced this woman’s death had something to do with her father’s investigation, he wasn’t sure she could see any other result. “You think she went off that roof under her own influence?”
“I can’t say for sure. Here. I almost missed this beneath her hairline.” Dr. Moss pressed one hand into the deceased’s right shoulder and used her other to twist Virginia Green’s head to the opposite side. “I’ve sent blood samples to the toxicology lab. It’ll take a few days to narrow down exactly what she’s been drugged with, and your crime scene techs will have to confirm my theory, but I don’t think she was alone up there.” The medical examiner centered a gloved a finger over a distinct speck, barely discernible between a cluster of moles. “See?”
No. Not moles.
Payton took a step closer. Was that… “Are those needle marks?”
Dr. Moss brought dark brown eyes to his. “I’ve counted five so far. All of varying ages. This one here is the most recent. I’d say within minutes of her death.” She released her hold on the deceased. “From the angle of the punctures, it would be impossible for Mrs. Green to do it to herself. She was being drugged.”
“Right up until her death.” Shit. He shut down the urge to tally what he could’ve done better at the scene this morning. He’d followed procedure. Assume homicide until told otherwise. With any luck, Trooper Wells had a complete list of names and faces to go with them from the crowed and CSU had good news. They’d start there. Mallory had been right all along. Virginia Green’s death had been staged to look like a suicide. The needle marks, the sedative—this was starting to look like homicide. What else had she been right about? “Someone dosed her then threw her off the roof. The woman probably didn’t even know what was happening.”
“Dr. Moss, your office processed another suicide victim four weeks ago. A man who’d jumped off the roof of his law firm.” Mallory’s voice wavered, but something in her expression told Payton she wouldn’t crack. Not here. Not now.
“Kotite.” Understanding and apprehension combined into a volatile glance from the pathologist. He’d brought a deceased’s family member into the morgue and into a possible homicide investigation while keeping Dr. Moss in the dark. There was a reason the ME’s office had family members of the dead identify their loved ones remains through photos rather than in person. No telling what they would do. “I recognized the name. I’m sure this particular case is hitting close to home for you. I’m sorry for your loss. Truly.”