Blood Sunset Read online

  ‘Thanks for what you said to him,’ she said finally. ‘I’ve been putting in for permanent day shift since we got the news on Dad.’

  I shrugged. At least I was good for something.

  ‘No, I really appreciate you forcing his hand like that. Just tell me what’s going on here, will ya? Last I heard it was a clean-cut OD. Now you’re in there sounding like Tina and Ike.’ She nudged me playfully with her hip. ‘You wanna fill me in before your date this morning?’

  ‘It’s not a date.’

  ‘The morgue, huh? Classy stuff, Rubes. All that cold stainless steel. You bring sexiness back into the office. I like it.’

  I knew she was trying to cheer me up, so I tried to satisfy her with a smile. Behind her, Eckles had the phone cradled between his ear and shoulder, scribbling on a pad.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said. ‘I feel about as welcome as a fart in a phone box.’

  We headed down the St Kilda Esplanade and followed it towards the city. I used the time to tell Cassie everything I knew so far. By the time I’d finished we were outside the coronial complex in Southbank. I leant over and rummaged through the glove box for a packet of antihistamine.

  ‘Headache?’ she asked.

  ‘Nah, hayfever. Bloody bushfires,’ I said, popping out a tablet and washing it down with the water I’d bought earlier. ‘Now, if you don’t want to come in, that’s fine. This could be a bad one. Everything up until now suggests the kid was abused. I’m not expecting to hear any different once I go inside.’

  ‘Hey, I worked a six-month secondment in the Rape Squad before I landed this gig, remember?’

  I was about to ask what she was worried about, when I realised. ‘It’s Eckles, isn’t it? You’re worried if you help me, you’ll be tarred with my brush.’

  Cassie looked embarrassed.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen. I made the mistake, not you. If the shit rolls downhill, it’ll stop at my desk. It won’t go any further.’

  After a long moment, she got out of the car, defiant. ‘Eckles can go to hell. Let’s do this.’

  At the entrance, I had to speak into a voice panel before the door clicked open. Inside, the foyer was dark and silent, reception desk empty. At half-past eight on a Saturday morning I figured cranky-pants was probably home in bed.

  ‘This way, officers,’ a voice called from behind us.

  We swivelled around to see Matthew Briggs, the forensic technician, standing at the end of the foyer, beckoning us to a doorway. An overhead light silhouetted his lean frame against the dark hallway behind. He wore a green medical gown and white gumboots and his pasty face glowed in the light, like a ghost.

  I thanked him for his help in having Boyd’s autopsy rescheduled, but he walked ahead without reply, probably still annoyed. We went past the coronial library, down another hall and through a set of sliding doors, where a harsh smell of disinfectant filled the air. At the end of the corridor Briggs opened a door and gestured for us to enter.

  The room was carpeted, with a table and chairs in the centre and two viewing windows on each wall. Through the glass was an autopsy suite similar to a hospital operating theatre. On the other side of the window, Dr Julie Wong, wearing a green hospital gown and white gumboots like Briggs, held an X-ray slide up to a viewing box. Wong was a gentle woman of Singaporean descent; I’d known her since my time in the former Drug Squad when several criminals – and some cops – had ended up on this very table. Her accent had an American hint to it, a product of an affluent upbringing and education in the US.

  Behind her, a body lay on a stainless steel table, covered in a blue sheet. I tapped on the glass and nodded when she turned around.

  ‘Morning, officers,’ she said, her voice robotic through the intercom. Setting the X-ray down on a counter, she lifted her facemask. ‘You know the drill. Take a seat at the table and watch, or grab yourselves a gown and boots if you want to come inside.’

  I looked at Cassie and raised my eyebrows. She shrugged indifference, so I leant into the microphone and told Dr Wong we’d come in. After we’d gowned up, Briggs ushered us into the autopsy room. The musty smell of cold flesh, formaldehyde and disinfectant assailed us. I took slow breaths, getting used to it.

  ‘I’ve just finished the prelim on your boy,’ Wong said, then looked at Cassie. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.’

  I introduced Cassie, and there was a brief moment of confusion when she went to shake Wong’s hand but stopped when she saw the blue gloves. Instead they just nodded to each other.

  ‘Will that be all, doctor?’ Briggs asked from the doorway.

  ‘Oh, yes. Thank you, Matthew.’

  When Briggs was gone I asked what his problem was.

  ‘He’s been here all night working on this,’ said Wong. ‘We’ve both worked hard to get the prelim done by today. Shall we get on with it?’

  Cassie opened her notepad, and so did I. ‘Thank you, doctor. We appreciate it.’

  ‘Well, as you know, overdoses like this rarely raise any eyebrows, but your list of anomalies intrigued me and I cancelled two social appointments. I don’t normally do that.’ She waited a beat to emphasise her point. ‘Tox screens normally take up to three weeks. Lucky for you, my husband is the chief pathologist here. He had them put through blood samples late last night. No urine, but I had initial results waiting on my desk when I arrived at five this morning. I’ll get to those in a moment.’

  Again she paused. This was the game. They fed you pieces at a time, keeping you interested, making you hang on every word.

  ‘After seeing as many ODs as I have, you tend to get an idea about the typical victim. This boy doesn’t quite fit.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Cassie asked. ‘He was a street kid.’

  Dr Wong gestured to the body. ‘Not all of them end up in here, detective. Those that do are generally of a specific profile. Above the age of twenty-five, mostly hard-core users with all the physical signs of addiction and the lifestyle it carries. I’m not saying this boy didn’t die of a drug overdose. There are indications of haemorrhaging around both the left and right ventricles, indicating cardiac arrest.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Heroin, like any opiate, is a depressant, in that it slows the central nervous system. This boy’s slowed down so much he eventually ceased breathing and his heart literally stopped beating. This is consistent with most of the overdose cases I see. However, let me refer to my notes.’

  We followed her to a counter in the corner and waited while she flipped through a notepad.

  ‘Ah, yes, here we go. This one had a full meal in his stomach. No analysis on the contents yet but it looks to me like a souvlaki. Secondly, I only found one needle mark. No other abscesses. Maybe we’re looking at a relapse, which is common after a period of abstinence. Tolerance goes down, risk of overdose goes up. Was he incarcerated recently?’

  I knew why she was asking. Prison was often the only time these people abstained from drug use. I told her Boyd hadn’t been inside for more than a year and that all indications were that he was clean, of his own volition.

  ‘Well then, perhaps that’s something else to add to your anomalies,’ she said.

  I nodded. ‘What else, doctor?’

  ‘The liver. I’ve sent it off for testing but it appeared healthy to me. Even in kids this young, a lifestyle of drug and alcohol abuse can cause damage to the liver that is immediately recognisable to the naked eye.’

  I wrote it all down then asked about the toxicology report.

  ‘It’s only the initial findings,’ Wong said, ‘but very interesting. The report’s on my desk. I’ll go get it. Back in a minute.’

  While she was gone I walked over to the X-ray viewing box and studied a slide of what I recognised to be a human arm. The second slide depicted a rib cage and the third, a leg. Something about the third image intrigued me and reminded me of what I wanted to ask. I turned the light off as I heard Wong’s footsteps. She came back i
nto the room carrying a single page in her hand.

  ‘I have percentage breakdowns of different substances here, detectives. They are in the usual denominations of blood concentration,’ she said, putting on a pair of rimless glasses to decipher her notes. ‘I’ll start with blood alcohol concentration. You said you found a beer bottle lid in his trousers?’

  I nodded.

  ‘That fits here. Results indicate a BAC of 0.01, meaning he only drank a little, or he finished drinking some time before he died.’

  I made a notation in my daybook. Last drink – where?

  ‘There were also moderately high levels of opiates in his blood,’ Wong continued. ‘This is where it gets odd. Normally when I see these cases, tox screens indicate a level of morphine of around 0.02 milligrams per litre of blood or higher. In this case the blood concentration is less than half that.’

  ‘So what are you saying, doctor?’ Cassie asked. ‘The heroin didn’t kill him?’

  ‘I guess you could say he had a little help from an old friend,’ said Wong, looking grim. ‘Gamma hydroxy butyrate.’

  Cassie and I both nodded. GHB was popular in the party scene and probably responsible for more overdoses than any other drug besides heroin.

  ‘It’s a strong anaesthetic,’ Wong went on. ‘High levels here too: 0.3 mil per litre. I read some medical literature before you came in this morning and I’m starting to think this may be the best indicator of how this boy died. The general consensus is that anyone with this level of GHB in his or her blood would lose consciousness very soon. If not revived, and their airways were obstructed, they would die.’

  I wrote while she spoke, not fully absorbing the meaning of her words until she finished. When I realised what she was implying, a large piece of the puzzle fell into place.

  ‘You’re saying he was incapacitated,’ I said. ‘With this much GHB in his system he wouldn’t be able to walk or talk, much less get a fit ready and shoot up.’

  ‘Somebody juiced him up then made it look like a heroin overdose,’ Cassie agreed.

  ‘That’s one assumption,’ Dr Wong said as she folded the report away. ‘GHB is a strong depressant. Mix it with another depressant like alcohol or heroin and it multiplies the effect on the central nervous system.’

  Again I thought about the beer lid and a series of images played in my mind. Boyd meeting up with the killer, accepting a beer, possibly in a private residence or somewhere away from prying eyes. The killer squirting GHB into the beer, waiting for Boyd to lose consciousness, before taking him out to a waiting car, driving him to the loading bay at the rear of Café Vit, injecting him with heroin and leaving him to die. It was a stretch, but possible.

  ‘This kid didn’t stand a chance,’ I said, looking down at the body of Dallas Boyd. ‘Whoever did this knew what they were doing.’

  ‘Quite right, detective. I’d say he would’ve been dead within half an hour of ingesting the GHB and five minutes after the heroin.’

  ‘Would the GHB have killed him anyway?’ asked Cassie.

  ‘Good question. My answer is yes, unless he received medical attention or was left in a recovery position to maintain airways. Why?’

  ‘Says something about the killer, I s’pose.’

  Cassie left it at that but I was intrigued. I’d first met Cassie while she was a constable in the uniform section. Even back then I’d admired her ability to think objectively, ask the right questions. Her promotion to the CIU had only sharpened this skill.

  Moving on, I asked Dr Wong if the X-rays on the viewing box were Boyd’s.

  ‘Yes, they’re from the deceased. Do any of your inquiries thus far lead you to believe this boy was abused?’

  I nodded.

  ‘X-rays offer vital information in these instances,’ Wong explained, turning the viewing box on. ‘Even if they offer no insight into the way a person has died, they can usually tell us a lot about how a person lived.’

  We all stared at the three images in silence.

  ‘I want to start by saying I’ve consulted your department on hundreds of cases over many years where there were multiple bone fractures. A classic example is road trauma. As you would know, victims of road fatalities often have extensive injuries, but they are invariably fresh and don’t show signs of healing.’ Wong screwed up her nose in frustration, as though she was having difficulty explaining herself. ‘Look, I’m not sure about you two, but I have children, which only makes this one harder. Let me just show you what I mean.’

  I looked over at Cassie, who’d folded her arms against her chest, as if bracing herself for what was coming.

  ‘I’m not a radiologist, but I don’t need to be to see what’s going on here. These are just three slides that tell the story of what this boy endured in his short life. I’ve taken many more images, and you’ll get it all in my report, but basically what you have here is a pattern of tremendous skeletal trauma and prolonged physical abuse spanning many years.’

  A sharp pain stretched from my shoulder to my chest, as though I knew all along it would lead to this. That a story of horror would emerge.

  ‘Bones heal themselves, provided they’re set properly,’ Wong continued. ‘But like skin burns, bones that have been broken or fractured will often leave behind lesions that look like this.’ She used a pen to point to the ribs on the second slide. ‘Ribs are difficult to set, so are often left to heal on their own.’ Running the pen around the rim of each rib, she indicated faint lines crossing the ribs. ‘These are old fractures that have healed imperfectly. There are literally dozens of them on the ribs. More can be seen on the extremities. Look at this one, for instance.’

  She moved back to the first slide, the right arm, and ran the pen down the humerus bone. ‘This one here looks like a longitudinal spiral break. You can see the lesion is faint, but there just the same.’

  I edged in next to Cassie for a closer look. A faint white line wrapped around the bone in a jagged spiral pattern.

  ‘These injuries are sometimes seen in serious sporting mishaps,’ Wong explained. ‘Like when a footballer is heavily tackled and lands on his arm.’

  ‘This isn’t a sporting injury though, is it?’ Cassie said.

  ‘Well, the answer to that depends on what version you want: the courtroom or the gut?’

  ‘The gut will do, doctor.’

  ‘Remember Jason Tarper?’

  We both nodded. Jason Tarper was a two-year-old boy who’d been found dead in his mother’s car in Shepparton, about six years before. It was a hot day and the boy had been left in the back seat. Word from detectives investigating the case was that the mother had left him in there deliberately because she was sick of his crying, a theory they were never able to prove. There were allegations of physical abuse, also unproven. As far as I knew, the parents were still alive and had had three more children in the years since the trial.

  ‘I worked the autopsy on that case,’ Wong said, nodding to the X-ray on the light box. ‘And this spiral fracture is a dead ringer. Back then we had a team of radiologists examine it and they theorised on a twisting motion. Let me demonstrate.’

  She took my arm and stretched it behind my back, twisting it until the pain registered and I pulled away.

  ‘Imagine dragging a child down a hallway like that,’ she said slowly. ‘No wonder the boy wouldn’t stop crying.’

  She frowned and I knew she was thinking about the toddler in Shepparton as much as she was Dallas Boyd. I had my own demons, cases I’d never forget. Cases where evil had prevailed. Clearly it was the same for Wong.

  ‘It’s a similar story with your boy here,’ she said, snapping out of the trance. ‘The bone literally shatters. As you can imagine, an injury like that would have caused tremendous pain and taken months to heal.’

  Cassie had turned away from the slides. I wanted to ask if she was all right but thought it might embarrass her. Instead I studied the third slide of Boyd’s leg.

  ‘Have a look at this one,’ Wong said, ste
pping in beside me. ‘This is the femur, the largest bone in the body and the hardest to break.’

  I stared at a blister-like lesion in the centre of the upper thigh. ‘What would cause an injury like this?’

  She shrugged. ‘Something hard and blunt, probably a single blow.’

  ‘Like a bat?’

  ‘Again, I couldn’t go up in court for it, but I’d say that’s a good possibility.’

  I turned to the outline of Boyd’s body under the sheet. The GHB might’ve stopped his heart beating, but I knew his dying had started many years before.

  ‘This is what I’m telling you,’ Wong concluded. She stepped over to the autopsy table and held her hands over Dallas Boyd’s body like a priest giving the last rites. ‘This boy lived in constant pain for many of his early years. Most people break only one or two bones, if any, in their entire lifetime. I haven’t finished yet, and already I’ve counted more than thirty-five separate fracture lesions.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Cassie said from behind me.

  I thought of the pain I’d lived with since the shooting, and tried to imagine this boy living in pain every day of his life.

  ‘Is this recent?’ I asked, pointing at the femur bone. ‘I mean, how long since these have all healed?’

  ‘You’re asking all the right questions, detective, but they’re not easy to answer, not without appropriate time.’

  ‘A guess?’

  ‘I’d say well over six years since the last break, which may suggest the abuse ceased some time ago, but I’ll be keeping the body for further analysis. I’ll also bring in a radiologist for this.’

  That fitted with Dallas Boyd having been in state care since he was ten. I wrote it all down. ‘Anything else?’

  Dr Wong walked back to the counter and went over her notes again. I stayed by the body, lifted the sheet and stared at the pale face of the boy I’d found dead against the bin. Dallas Boyd was at peace now and no longer in pain.