“Well, sorr-?ee. I spend my day in the morgue,” said the medical examiner. “I grab all the warm I can get.”
They ordered cocktails. Nikki went for a Campari and soda, craving something dry, sparkling, and, most of all, cold. Her friend stuck with her usual, a bloody Mary. When it came, Nikki observed that it was an ironic favorite for a coroner. “Why don’t you break out, Lauren? This isn’t Sunday brunch. Get one of those sake-?tinis or a sex on the beach.”
“Hey, you want to talk ironic drinks, that would be it. In my line of work, sex on the beach is usually what led to body under the pier.”
“To life,” said Nikki, and they both laughed.
Meeting her friend for a drink after work once a week was more than just cocktails and chill time. The two women had hit it off right away over Lauren’s first autopsy, when she started at the M.E.’s office three years ago, but their weekly after-?work ritual was really fueled by their professional bond. Despite cultural differences—Lauren came out of the projects in St. Louis and Nikki grew up Manhattan middle-?class—they connected on another level, as professional women navigating traditional male fields. Sure, Nikki enjoyed her occasional brew at the precinct-?adjacent cop bar, but she was never about being one of the fellas, any more than she was about quilting bees or Goddess book clubs. She and Lauren clung to their camaraderie and the sense of safety they had crafted with each other, to have a time and place to share problems at work, largely political, and, yes, to decompress and let their hair down without having it be in a meat market or at a stitch and bitch.
Nikki asked, “Mind a little shop talk?”
“Hey, sister, on top of being cold all day, the people I hang out with don’t do much talking, so whatever the subject, bring it.”
Heat wanted to discuss Matthew Starr. She told Lauren she now understood how the victim got those torso bruises. She bullet-?pointed her sessions with Miric and Pochenko, concluding by saying she had no doubt the bookie had his muscle man encourage the real estate developer to “prioritize” the repayment of his gambling debt. With experience talking, she added that, thanks to lawyers and stonewalling: Good luck making a case. What she wanted to know was if Lauren recalled any other marks that might be read as a separate event from the Russian’s work-?over?
Lauren Parry was a marvel. She remembered every autopsy the way Tiger Woods could tell you every golf shot he made in every tournament—as well as his opponent’s. She said there were only two relevant indicators. First, a pair of uniquely shaped contusions on the deceased’s back, an exact match to the polished brass flip handles on the French doors leading to the balcony, probably where he was pushed outside with great force. Heat recalled Roach’s tour of the balcony crime scene and the powdered stone under the spot where the door handles had impacted the wall. And second, Starr had grip marks on both upper arms. The medical examiner air-?demoed a thumb in each armpit, hands wrapped around the arms.
“My guess is it wasn’t much of a fight,” said Lauren. “Whoever did this picked up the victim, slammed him through those doors and then tossed him backwards to the street. I examined his legs and ankles closely and I’m certain Mr. Starr never even touched the railing when he went over.”
“No other chafing or cuts, no defensive wounds or marks?”
Lauren shook her head. “Although, there was one irregularity.”
“Out with it, girl, next to inconsistency, irregularity is the detective’s best friend.”
“I was detailing those punch bruises, you know the ones with the probable ring mark? And there was one that was an exact match for the others but no ring mark.”
“Maybe he took it off.”
“In the middle of a beating?”