Soft Case (Book 1 of the John Keegan Mystery Series) Read online

speedometer, and saw the needle pinned cleanly on ‘30’. idiot. Some people are beyond help, and Rick chartered that group.

  It was nearly 10:30 when we made it to the hospital. We entered the emergency room, a brightly lit room with white walls and a white tile floor. If you were tired, and needed a jolt, the emergency room was the place to go. Maybe that was their first technique in reviving the dead, hitting them with enough fluorescent light to illuminate your average ballpark. My eyes shot wide open from the light and, through the glare, I noticed your usual emergency room occupants. A teenage kid held what looked like a cut thumb, a woman cried in the corner, probably waiting for news on her husband, and about four people looked to be in various states of pain. Two of them looked like they just had their asses kicked. All in all, it was a pretty quiet night for St. Mark’s ER.

  We went through the doorway to the main hospital, flashed our badges to the security guard, and made our way to Mullins’ temporary resting place. We passed through two sets of double doors, and found the room with four metal tables, only one occupied by a body. Now, if you read the way I do, I strongly suggest you put down that bean burrito, have a glass of water to wash whatever you ate down, and try to relax. This isn’t going to be pretty.

  The room, unlike the morgue, smelled of death. Between the chemicals and the rotting bodies, the smell is most reminiscent of when I leave Chinese food in the refrigerator for too long. Oh, and throw in a little spoiled milk. Not sour milk, but the kind that comes out in chunks in your morning coffee. That’s pretty much the smell of the place. Real pleasant.

  The smell only started the fun. Mullins’ body rested on a metal table, in clear view. Hovering over the body of the former Mr. Mullins was Dr. Siebling, a squat man with very little black hair and thick glasses. I’d met him a few times before, and thought him a pretty decent guy. He had brains, that’s for sure, and I came to value his opinions in his area of expertise. That didn’t happen with me too often, as you can probably tell. I got the feeling, however, that he didn’t like cops coming to his workplace, so I always kept the questions to a minimum.

  “New York’s ‘Finest’ coming down to take a look at our esteemed Mr. Mullins,” he said in his low voice. I always had to strain to hear him. “I don’t think there’s much I can tell you, other than the fact that he’s dead.” He liked to joke around, it seemed.

  “I figured that much,” I said, moving around the table to get a look at the body. Mullins’ face was almost completely smashed in from the impact. The skull had fractures at the forehead and left temple. I knew this because along with the deep red blood coming from those spots, I saw little chunks of grey. Yup, brains. His car, though expensive, was old, and didn’t have air bags. Poor guy. He had incisions on his neck, and part of his esophagus was visible, probably from glass, I assumed. There looked to be food oozing out of there, but that was illogical. Still made me want to puke.

  His hair was caked with blood. I thought right there that this was no way to commit suicide. He might have died instantly. That I would have to find out. But it must have been painful, regardless. I looked at a man who had life by the balls. He had everything. Why would he want to kill himself? Did he have some sort of closet problem, like child molestation? I’d seen some pretty powerful guys off themselves for such things, but from what I knew about Mullins, he didn’t fit the profile. It may just have been an accident, but something at the scene had caused the uniforms to say otherwise.

  “He died from severe head and brain damage. Actually, he probably died a minute or so after impact. Tough to tell right now, but that’s how it seems.” That meant he suffered during that time.

  “You testing for drugs, alcohol?” Rick asked.

  “Have to. Should have results in a few minutes actually. Coltrain wanted me to do it for him, considering that I was doing all this work.” Bryan Coltrain was the city Medical Examiner, and he usually went through such tests. I was sure he would be on the way to the morgue, eagerly awaiting the body. Spooky.

  “Nice of you. Got anything else?” I asked. Vomit had started to form in the back of my throat, or stomach acid, or part of the cheeseburger. Talking became difficult.

  “Well, his palms are cut up too, which would indicate that he covered himself before impact. Not sure what that means.”

  “Could mean he didn’t mean to kill himself,” Rick said.

  “Or, it could mean that this was an accident,” I said, after swallowing hard. Both of them looked at me.

  “There were no skid marks, John,” Rick said. “Didn’t I tell you that before?” He had that ‘smarter than you’ tone to his voice. Maybe I could puke on him, I thought. Two birds, one stone.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t remember. Didn’t care either.

  Siebling looked down at the body and shook his head. “Forty-seven years old, and he had everything going for him. Amazing someone with so much would end it all, compared to someone who was down on his luck.”

  “Maybe he was down on his luck, and we just don’t know it yet,” I said. “Maybe he porked the wrong person.”

  “Yeah, sure he had lawyers for that sort of thing,” Siebling said.

  “Or, it could have just been an accident, or a heart attack. Seen that many times,” I said. I didn’t believe that.

  “I see no evidence of coronary problems, but I’m sure Coltrain will investigate that further.”

  “How soon before you ship him off to the morgue?” I asked.

  “They’re on their way now.”

  We waited for a few minutes, with nothing else to say. Siebling went about preparing the body for the morgue, which basically consisted of putting it in a body bag. I guess a lot of people standing there looking at the dead body of a successful man would think of how fragile life was, and how Death can come knocking on your door at any moment. All I could think about was what I had just eaten, and how I didn’t want to taste it again.

  An unattractive woman in a white lab coat walked in. She was about my age, with dirty blonde hair and had an awful complexion, the type you have to try not to stare at. Her body was more like a man’s than a woman’s—rail thin, with no breasts to speak of.

  “Allison,” Siebling said, “meet the friendly members of the NYPD. Detectives Keegan, and...” Siebling looked awkward, not remembering Rick’s name. I wanted to laugh. That had to hit Rick hard.

  “Calhill,” Rick said, cordially extending his hand. She didn’t take it. I didn’t bother.

  “I have the blood work,” she said, in a tone that had nothing but creepiness in it.

  “I have her on loan from Coltrain,” Siebling said to us, then he grabbed the folder from her hands. She just stood there, as if not knowing what to do. Certainly not someone who was comfortable around people—living ones at least. Siebling scanned the report, then looked up at us.

  “Nothing. No alcohol, no drugs. Not even an antibiotic. His blood is clean.”

  “Was clean,” I corrected him.

  “Right. However you say it, his mind was clear of any chemical influence that we can tell. He was sober.”

  “Then he knew what he was doing,” I said.

  “Or wasn’t trying to kill himself,” Rick said, “I’d have to get pretty wasted to go through with something like this.”

  “Or he got cut off, and was driven into the embankment that way,” I said. I liked to argue with Rick, and our boss Geiger sometimes thought this aided in our investigations. Other times he thought he wanted to drive him to an early grave.

  “Uniforms said eyewitnesses didn’t see anyone but him on the road. Looked like he drove right into it.”

  “Well, I think maybe we should take a look at that again.” Rick’s cell phone rang.

  “Calhill,” he said, “Okay, you’ve got it? Got an address? Great. Thanks.”

  Rick turned to me and gestured toward the door. We walked over, and he whispered, “He called his mother. Talked for about a minute and a half. Long enough for her to know something,
if anything.”

  He looked excited again. I looked at my watch. “It’s almost eleven. Where does she live?” I asked.

  “Long Island. Just past the Queens border. We could get there in about half an hour, tops, if we get moving.”

  “Don’t you think maybe she’s here or on her way?” I asked.

  Rick shook his head. “All attempts at getting her have been met with nothing but an answer machine.”

  “Then she’s not home.”

  “Or maybe she went out, and is on her way home. We might be able to catch her,” Rick said. I knew he stretched because he wanted this so bad.

  “Did you ever think that maybe Mullins got the machine too?”

  “I’m almost hoping for it. And, if that’s the case, I want to hear what’s on the tape.”

  “Could be nothing more than an audio suicide note,” I said.

  “Which would rule out the possibility of this being a random car accident, and put the case under Homicide. We can investigate from there.”

  “I know the procedure; I just don’t want you getting all disappointed when you find out that your ‘big’ case is nothing more than a run of the mill suicide.”

  “I doubt that, John. Really doubt it.”

  I sighed. This was going to be a pain in the ass, dealing with Rick on this case. On top of that, I’d have the entire police department, the mayor, hell, possibly even the President, watching how we handled the case. Mullins had been a popular and well- liked