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“What’s that?”
“Polish for what you’d call a hodgepodge. If you prefer something romantic, mélange. See you when I see you. Bye.”
Milo clicked off and ran his hands over his face, like washing without water. “If it was me alone, I’d turn around, traffic be damned. But she recommends you be there.”
I said, “I’ll call Robin and let her know.”
CHAPTER
17
The freeways were cruelly jammed so Milo took a seventy-eight-minute slog to East L.A. on side streets. Twenty more minutes were added by a stop at a food truck at Olympic and Alvarado where he scored a monumental burrito big enough to require a building permit.
Demolition took place in stages, during red lights.
When we arrived, my nose had saturated with the aroma of refried beans and shredded pork. He parked in the open lot behind the coroner’s, checked his face in the rearview, wiped salsa from around his lips, and said, “Here we go. Mélange.”
—
The L.A. County Medical Examiner’s office, known to those who work there as the crypt, sits on North Mission Road at the bottom edge of the USC Medical School–County Hospital complex. I’d taught a few courses at the med school but until I met Milo, I’d never ventured to the U-shaped stucco building. The color is that grayish beige that identifies generations of L.A. government structures. There’s solidity to the design, a curious blankness that fails to mask its function.
Two stories are visible aboveground but plenty goes on below. Square-edged columns separate the short arms of the U. Both are accessed through gleaming glass doors. The right-hand door lets you into what you’d imagine: refrigerated closets where bodies are stacked like firewood; spillover corpses lying on gurneys in the hall; brightly lit rooms filled with stainless steel where bodies are taken apart and interpreted; the offices of those who cut and probe and squint into microscopes.
To the left is administrative space: clerical offices and a check-in counter where next of kin fill out forms, wait to collect belongings, and arrange for body transport. A lot of weeping goes on in the left-hand space. For some reason, little black flies like to congregate just outside the left-hand doors, as if summoned to remind visitors what to expect.
As we headed for the clinical wing, I saw a young, grim-faced couple get out of an SUV and trudge toward the left. The woman clutched papers. Both she and the man looked shell-shocked. Maybe here to see about a parent. Or a child.
I’ve accompanied parents seeing about the remains of their children. Give me gurneys and autopsies and even decomp, any day of the week.
—
Basia Lopatinski, M.D., Ph.D., was in her office, a small, windowless space not far from the dissection rooms.
She’s somewhere in her forties, five-two and slender with soft brown eyes, feathered blond hair, full lips, and a wide smile that nearly bisects a triangular face when she turns up the wattage. Today she wore a gray cashmere dress kicked up by a gold silk scarf artfully knotted.
Trained in Warsaw, she’d had to endure a probationary period before being hired on. Last year she’d been promoted to deputy coroner, the county exhibiting a burst of atypical wisdom.
She’s single, rides horses for recreation, and that’s about all I knowabout her, personally. Work-wise, she’s brilliant, inevitably cheerful and tireless, never hides behind jargon.
She hugged both of us and settled behind a desk piled neatly with files. “Good to see you guys.”
“Same here,” said Milo. “You scared me with that ‘interesting’ bit.”
Basia let the grin spread. “As the psychopaths like to say, it is what it is.”
Lifting the thickest file, she hefted but didn’t open.
“First, your female victim, Ms. Gannett. No big surprises there, well nourished and in good health before the murder. Death from blood loss caused by a single incised wound to the left side of the neck. Likely a right-handed assailant coming from behind. The carotid and jugular were both severed and when I retracted the skin flaps, some spine was immediately visible.”
“Deep cut,” said Milo.
“Deep and inflicted with considerable force,” said Basia. “That could imply rage but the lack of overkill makes me wonder. Alex?”
I said, “Maybe focused rage. Stew on it, devise a plan, put it into action.”
Basia considered that. “So you’re okay with premeditation despite use of an opportunistic weapon?”
Milo flourished a hand at me.
