When I see people order big slabs of liver in restaurants, I almost have to dive for the door. Especially if it’s even the slightest bit pink.”
The odor intensified as organs were exposed, and I leaned back.
“You smelling it?” Danny asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said.
Roche retreated to his distant corner, and now that Marino had had his fun, he walked over and stood next to me.
“So you think he drowned?” Marino quickly asked.
“At the moment I’m not thinking that. But certainly, I’m going to look for it,” I said.
“What can you do to figure out he didn’t drown?”
Marino was not very familiar with drownings, since people rarely committed murder that way, so he was intensely curious. He wanted to understand everything I was doing.
“Actually, there are a lot of things I’m doing,” I said as I worked. “I’ve already made a skin pocket on the side of the chest, filled it with water and inserted a blade in the thorax to check for bubbles. I’m going to fill the pericardial sac with water and insert a needle into the heart, again to see if any bubbles form. And I’ll check the brain for petechial hemorrhages, and look at the soft tissue of the mediastinum for extraalveolar air.”
“What will all that show?” he asked.
“Possibly pneumothorax or air embolism, which can occur in less than fifteen feet of water if the diver is breathing inadequately. The problem is that excessive pressure in the lungs can result in small tears of the alveolar walls, causing hemorrhages and air leaks into one or both pleural cavities.”
“And I’m assuming that could kill you,” he said.
“Yes,” I said. “That most certainly could.”
“What about when you come up and go down too fast?”
He had moved to the other side of the table so he could watch.
“Pressure changes, or barotraurna, associated with descent or ascent aren’t very likely in the depth he was diving.
And as you can see, his tissues aren’t spongy as I would expect them to be were he a death by barotraurna. Would you like some protective clothing?”
“So I can look like I work for Terminex?” Marino looked in Roche’s direction.
“Just hope you don’t get AIDS,” Roche wanly said from far away.
Marino put on apron and gloves as I began explaining the pertinent negatives I needed to look for in order to also rule out a death by decompression or the bends, or drowning. It was when I inserted an eighteen-gauge needle into the trachea to obtain a sample of air for cyanide testing that Roche decided to leave. He rapidly walked across the room, paper rattling as he collected his evidence bag from a counter, “so we won’t know anything until you do tests,” he said from the doorway.
“That’s correct. For now his cause and manner of death are pending.” I paused and looked up at him. “You’ll get a copy of my report when it’s complete. And I’d like to see his personal effects before you leave.”
He would come no closer, and my hands were bloody.
I looked at Marino. “Would you mind?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
He went to him, took the bag and gruffly said, “Come on. We’ll go through it in the hall so you can get some air. ” They walked just beyond the doorway, and as I continued to work, paper rattled some more. I heard Marino drop the magazine from a pistol, open the slide and loudly complain that the gun had not been made safe.
“I can’t believe you’re carrying this thing around loaded,” Marino’s voice boomed. “Jesus Christ! You know, it’s not like this is your firiggin’ lunch in a bag.”
“It’s not been processed for prints yet.”
“Well, then you put on gloves and dump the ammo like I just did. And then you clear the chamber, the way I just did. Where’d you go? The Keystone Police Academy where they also must have taught you your gentlemanly manners?”
Marino went on, and it was now clear to me why he had taken Roche into the hall, and it wasn’t for fresh air. Danny glanced across the table at me and grinned.