Killer Physique (A Savannah Reid Mystery) (10 page)

“Since when would something like that bother Dr. Liu? If there’s anybody who’s used to al that blood and guts and murder crap, it’s her. A ruling of homicide never bothered her before.”

“That’s true. Oh, wel , we’l be finding out soon enough.”

By the time they had caught up to the doctor, al three were at the far end of the pier. She was standing with her hands on the railing, staring out at the horizon, where thick storm clouds had gathered, obscuring the distant islands and staining the sea a dark indigo.

Savannah shivered, feeling a slight chil that had little to do with the brisk ocean breeze.

“Hey there,” she said, as they approached the coroner. “Fancy meeting you out here, instead of back there at the old coal mine.” Dr. Liu turned to face them. She glanced around and, seeing no one else nearby, she took off her sunglasses. Her eyes looked troubled as they locked with Savannah’s.

“I’m meeting you here,” she began, “because, wel , I’m not real y meeting you. Got it?”

“Are you saying,” Dirk replied, “this little impromptu rendezvous never happened?”

“Something like that.”

“No problem,” he said. “You got it.”

“What’s up?” Savannah asked.

Dr. Liu leaned back against the railing as though she were exhausted. Savannah registered the fact because she couldn’t recal a time when she had ever seen the doctor weary. Savannah had always thought of her as a person with boundless energy.

“It’s this autopsy,” she replied. “I’ve never had one like this before.”

“Like what?” Savannah asked.

“Like one that has me total y stumped.” She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “I have at least half a dozen parties breathing down my neck, pushing me for an answer, and I have nothing to tel them. I’ve finished the autopsy, we got the lab results back in record time, and stil , I have absolutely no idea what kil ed Jason Tyrone.”

She turned to Dirk and poked him in the chest with her forefinger. “And if you tel anybody what I just said, I wil get you. I mean it. I’m a medical examiner, and you don’t mess with a medical examiner, because they know fifty ways to kil you and get away with it.”

“A lot like a CSI lab tech,” he mumbled, reaching down and gently moving her pointing finger aside. “I hear ya. Don’t worry about it. On your bad side is the last place I wanna be, believe me.”

Savannah thought of what he had said back at the house about being afraid of Dr. Liu, and she nearly laughed. But she sensed that the coroner wasn’t in the mood for humor of any kind right now.

“I thought you said he died of brain hypoxia,” Savannah offered, trying to help.

“He stopped breathing, and his brain died of oxygen deprivation, that’s true. But I can’t find one reason why he would stop breathing. And there has to be a reason. There has to be one, and dammit, I can’t find it.”

Dr. Liu turned to face the ocean once again, her elbows on the railing. Savannah and then Dirk did the same, taking similar positions on either side of her.

Savannah looked down at the turbulent waters that were crashing against the barnacle-encrusted pilings below. She sensed the same kind of agitation in the spirit of the woman standing next to her and felt bad for her longtime friend.

Dr. Jennifer Liu was an amazing coroner. Everyone knew it, including the good doctor, and she took great pride in her wel -earned reputation.

“Doesn’t that happen once in a while?” Savannah asked. “Aren’t there cases, from time to time, that nobody can solve?”

“It doesn’t happen to me!” Dr. Liu shot back, her dark eyes flashing. “Not to me!”

“There’s a first time for everything. Maybe your luck just ran out,” Dirk said gently. He reached over and put a comforting hand on her wrist, but she shook it off and folded her arms across her chest.

“It’s got nothing at al to do with luck. It has to do with hard work and dedication and the fact that I’m damned good at what I do.”

“Of course you are,” Savannah told her. “You’ve always done an awesome job for the people of this county. If this case is a problem for you, it would be for anybody.”

She paused, letting her words soak in for a moment before she continued. “Tel us what you’ve got and—”

“—and the two of you are going to figure it out, when I can’t figure it out myself?”

“No-o-o,” Savannah said, forcing herself to sound patient, whether she felt it or not. “Of course the two of us won’t be able to figure it out, if you can’t. But maybe while you’re explaining it al to us, you might think of something you haven’t before.” To Savannah’s surprise, Dr. Liu’s eyes fil ed with tears. “I’m sorry, you guys. I know I’m out of line. You’re just trying to help, and I appreciate it, whether I’m acting like it or not.”

Once again Dirk reached over and put his hand on her arm. And this time she didn’t brush it away. “Don’t worry about it, kiddo,” he said. “It’s a difficult case, al the way around. And we’re al running on little or no sleep, so we’re entitled to be a little out of sorts.” Savannah patted her on the back. “Tel us what you do have.”

Dr. Liu drew a deep, shuddering breath, and the negative emotions seemed to slide off her face and were replaced with a stoic, neutral expression.

Savannah watched and felt encouraged. The doc was in “professional mode” now. And that was a great improvement—as Savannah knew, al too wel , from personal experience.

When your emotions were too high, you couldn’t think. And a situation like this required clear, rational thought.

“Jason Tyrone was basical y a healthy young man,” Dr. Liu began. “Other than the things I showed you—some minor cel damage to the heart and the liver—there were no remarkable pathologies. Nothing was real y al that wrong with him.”

“Then what’s your ruling going to be?” Savannah asked.

“Official y, I’m determining the manner of death to be accidental. The cause of death: cardiovascular complications as a cumulative result of lethal polypharmacia.”

Savannah ran the words through her head, but couldn’t make sense of what she’d heard. “What’s pol y-farm . . . whatever you said?”

“Heart damage from too many years of taking too many drugs—anabolic steroids, diuretics, painkil ers.”

“Could it have been another kind of drug overdose?” Dirk asked. “The usual suspects, like cocaine, heroine, meth . . . something like that?”

“The blood work was al negative for recreational drugs. But like I said before, he had plenty of prescription and over-the-counter drugs in his system. His stomach showed some damage, probably due to heavy NSAID painkil er usage. It isn’t that uncommon with someone who works out and pushes their body to the extreme the way he did.”

Dirk nodded. “Al that weight lifting—he was bound to have some aches and pains.”

“He also had some carisoprodol in a system,” Dr. Liu said.

“What’s that?” Dirk wanted to know.

“A muscle relaxant,” she replied. “Doctors prescribe it sometimes when a patient complains of muscle spasms and soreness. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, and at that dosage, certainly not lethal.”

“What about those pain patches that were on his nightstand?” Savannah suggested.

“You mean the Lido-Morphone?”

Savannah nodded.

“Yes,” the doctor said, “that showed up in the blood work, too. But like everything else, the quantities fel within the normal range. There wasn’t one single red flag.”

“Could it have been an overdose of steroids?” Savannah asked. “Like maybe he just took too many al at one time.” Dr. Liu shook her head. “Like I told you before, overdosing on anabolic steroids isn’t that common. Which is not to say that they aren’t dangerous.

But the damage they do is usual y more insidious and occurs over a period of time. I’m sure people have died as a result of abusing steroids. But frankly, they’re more likely to be murdered or commit suicide while in the throes of what’s commonly cal ed ’roid rage.” Savannah stared out into the turbulent water, considering everything she’d just been told. She could certainly see why Dr. Liu was frustrated.

When she thought of Jason Tyrone—a seemingly perfect physical specimen—just dropping dead for no apparent reason, her own sense of justice cried out in indignation.

It just wasn’t fair!

Of course, she had learned the lesson many times over that life was far from fair. But she had never learned how to accept the fact with grace.

When bad things happened to seemingly good people—and other life lessons had taught her to always insert that “seemingly” qualifier—she couldn’t help herself; she got angry. And if there appeared to be no avenue to justice, or even a rational explanation for the tragedy, she got royal y mad.

“This would bother me anyway,” Dr. Liu was saying, “no matter how famous the deceased might or might not be. But it doesn’t help having everybody from the SCPD to the governor’s office breathing down my neck, demanding answers.”

“Frankly, it riles me somethin’ fierce,” Savannah said, “when they make a way bigger fuss over celebrities than regular folks.” Dirk added, “Me too. When did you ever get blood work back that quick?”

“Never. Not once in my career. It’s usual y days, even weeks. Never hours.”

Dirk ran his hand over his face, and it occurred to Savannah that it had been a long time since she had seen him look so weary. And she knew it was more than just the missed night of sleep.

She knew that he, like she, wanted to do the right thing by their friends. And besides the more personal reasons, both she and Dirk had a fierce sense of justice. They would chase a bad guy to Hades—and had more than once—rather than let him get away with some nasty crime.

But she also knew this case had come at a bad time. Dirk was feeling a lot of pressure over meeting his biological parents for the first time. Far more, she was sure, than he was even saying.

She determined, then and there, to get him home and in bed as soon as possible. They were both in desperate need of an extended time in Slumberland.

“This is going to ruin that kid’s reputation forever,” Dirk said. “Last night he was king of the world, superhero to mil ions and al that. But as soon as your report gets out, he’l just be a fool who kil ed himself by doping.” Dr. Liu whirled on him, her eyes blazing. “Dammit, Coulter. Don’t you think I’ve thought of that? Believe me, I don’t like this any more than you do.” Savannah turned to Dr. Liu. “What can we do? How can we help?”

The coroner thought her answer over careful y. Final y, she said, “I had to release the body to the funeral home. There’s nothing more I can do at this point. Now it’s up to you.”

“Okay,” Dirk said. “I’m not making any guarantees that we’re going to come up with anything better than what you have.”

“But we’l try,” Savannah quickly added. “We’l do our best.”

“Thank you.”

Dr. Liu reached out, laced her right arm through Dirk’s and placed her left hand on Savannah’s. “If you think this was a murder—and I know you do, because I do, too—then investigate it as a homicide. See what you can uncover.”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Savannah told her. “Try not to feel so bad about it. You’ve done your best.”

“You just let us take it from here,” Dirk said. “And we wil keep you posted al the way.”

“Thank you, Dirk,” she said, as she gave Savannah’s hand a companionable squeeze. “I wish I could help you more. I’m ashamed that I can’t. And if somebody kil ed that beautiful young man, and they get away with it, because of my incompetence . . . I’m tel ing you, it’l haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Chapter 10

By the time Savannah and Dirk returned to the forensics lab, Savannah was in the mood to commit homicide herself.

She had no particular victim in mind. She just hated the world in general.

Someone out there was conspiring to ruin her life and doing a darn good job of it. They were preventing her from sleeping, eating a decent meal, and taking a much beloved rose-scented bubble bath, and on a more practical note, they were keeping her from scrubbing her house from top to bottom in preparation for her in-laws’ visit.

“I know what we promised Dr. Liu,” she told Dirk, as they trudged across the parking lot to the little white door with its county seal, “and of course, we’l keep our word and fol ow through. But frankly, I don’t have time to conduct any kind of serious, ful -fledged homicide investigation right now. I need to be painting the downstairs bathroom, washing and ironing the kitchen curtains, and scrubbing the grout on the backsplash tile.” Dirk shot her a worried scowl. She had seen a lot of that particular grimace lately. He donned it any time the topic of home improvement came up.

Too bad, she thought. Wait till he gets a load of his honey-do list. Then he’ll have something to frown about.

“I doubt my parents are going to notice your backsplash grout,” he said, as he punched the doorbel button and rang the obnoxious buzzer.

“Your mom’s a retired nurse,” she replied. “They’re very clean, nurses. I’l betcha her house is spotless. You could probably eat right off her kitchen floor.”

“Fortunately, we have plates, so you don’t have to sterilize your kitchen floor.”

“But this is the first time I’ve ever had in-laws. The first time I’ve ever met my in-laws. I want to make a good impression.” He sighed, and for a moment she could see traces of fear, maybe even a bit of terror, in his eyes. “You want to make a good impression? How do you think I feel? Meeting your parents for the first time in your life when you’re in your forties? No stress there.” She shifted the plastic container containing the cookies to one arm, and with her free hand she reached up to stroke his cheek. “You’re gonna do just fine, sugar. Just fine. They’re gonna be so proud when they see what a big, strong, good man you’ve turned out to be.” He grinned, a tremulous little smile, then chuckled nervously. “I hope you’re right.”

“I’m always right.” She gave him a wink. “And if we could just start every argument with that as a given, think of al the time we’d save.” This time Eileen didn’t bother to interrogate them over the speaker before opening the door. She even had a bit of a smile—or at least her perpetual frown was less pronounced—when she looked down and saw the container of cookies under Savannah’s arm.