Purity in Death (In Death #15)(13)

"Then it didn't kill him."

"He's dead as the rest of your guests."

Morris completed his Y cut. "Only way a noncontact zap with a uniform stunner would take out a man, crazy or not, would be if said potential crazy man had a respiratory or neurological condition of such seriousness that the electronic jolt acerbated it and led to termination."

It was exactly what she'd wanted to hear. "If that's the case, it's not actually a termination by maximum force."

"Technically, no. However-"

"Technically will do. Be a pal, Morris, take a look at him. It's Trueheart."

Morris looked up and shoved the goggles up. "The kid with the peach fuzz on his face that looks like a screen ad for toothpaste?"

"That's the one. He's in Testing. IAB's next. And something doesn't hang about the way this went down. He could use a break."

"Let me look him up."

"He's over there. Number four in line." She jerked a thumb.

"Let me pull the report up."

"I can-"

"Let me read it" Morris cut her off with a wave of the hand and moved over to the data center. "Name of crazy dead guy?"

"Cogburn, Louis K."

Morris called up the field report As he read, he hummed to himself. It was some catchy little tune, vaguely familiar to her. And it started playing around in her head in a way that told her it would be stuck there for hours.

"Illegals dealer," Morris began. "Could've been over-sampling, heart or neurological damage possible. Bleeding from ears, nose, broken blood vessels in the eyes. Hmm."

He moved to the table where Louie K. was laid out, skinny and naked. He refit the goggles, lowered his face so close to Louie's it looked as though he was about to kiss the dead.

"Record on," he said and began to dictate preliminary data, visual findings.

"Well, let's open him up, see what we see. You going to hang for this?"

"Yeah, if it's quick."

"One doesn't rush genius, Dallas." He picked up a skull saw, set it to whirl.

Eve often wondered why anyone chose this particular line of work, or how they could be so cheerful when going about it. At least the air in the room was cool, she thought and wandered over to study the offerings of the little fridgie. She settled for a tube of ginger ale before walking back to Morris.

"What do you-"

"Ssh!"

She scowled, but subsided. Morris was usually chatty when he worked. In this case he went about the job in silence, referring to the inside of Cogburn's skull, to the computer imagery on the screen beside the table.

She studied it herself, but saw nothing but shapes and colors.

"You do a medical search on this guy?"

"Yeah. He hasn't been in for any sort of work or check in a couple of years. Nothing popped."

"Oh yeah, something popped. His brain, and no standard stunner did this damage. No tumor that I can see. No clotting. If it was an embolism there should be . . . What we've got is severe intercranial pressure. His brain's massively swollen."

"Preexisting?"

"I can't tell, not yet. This is going to take time. Fascinating. Pop's just what this brain did. Like an over-inflated balloon. I can tell you that in my opinion this wasn't done by any weapon. It's internal."

"Medical then."

"I'm not going to confirm that. I'm going to run some tests." He shooed her away. "I'll contact you when I have something solid."

"Give me something."

"I can tell you it appears this guy's brain was in serious condition, an ongoing condition prior to any act by your officer last evening. What happened here didn't happen as a result of a stun. It didn't happen if he'd stuck a police issue laser in the guy's ear and blasted away. I can't say if the stun caused some sort of chain reaction that led to early termination. But from the looks of this brain, this guy would've been dead within an hour. I'll let you know when I figure out how and why. Now go and let me work."

***

Eve bypassed the seal on Cogburn's apartment. The stench, the stale, trapped heat punched like a dirty fist when she opened the door.

"God. That's foul."

"Oh yeah." Peabody turned her head, sucked in what she imagined was her last easy breath, then followed Eve inside.

"Go ahead and open the window while we're in here. It's got to be better than working in a closed box."

"What are we looking for?"

"Morris's prelim is leaning toward preexisting condition. We may find something in here to verify that, to indicate he was self-medicating. The place looks like he was off, sick. That's what struck me from the first. He's a creep, but a tidy, organized creep. Keeps his nest neat ordinarily. But the last several days, he's falling down on the domestic front. Keeping up with his business though. You're sick, you're hot, you're irritable. Neighbor hassles you, you crack. Makes better sense."

"But, well, it doesn't really matter why Cogburn had batting practice on his neighbor."

"It always matters why," Eve answered. "Ralph Wooster's dead, and Cogburn's paid for it. But it matters why."