City of the Dead

»8«

Alembics. Beakers. Flasks. Bubbling distillers. Cardboard tubs of brain and liver, kidney and stomach. Plastic bags of blood and urine; jars of feces, vomitus, gastric remains. Envelopes of hair, fingernails, mucosa, nail scrapings. The high whir of electric blenders liquefying brains and livers soon to pass through boiling alembics and gas chromatographs, the distillates then to be analyzed for traces of alcohol, morphia, barbiturates, hypnotics, amphetamines, hydrocyanic acid gases, potassium cyanide, ethyl chloride, phosgene, cyclopropane, ethylene, Avertin; all the common phenol derivative acids—nitric, muriatic, sulfuric, oxalic, carbolic; the metallic poisons—arsenicals, lead arsenate, calcium arsenate, acetoarsenite of copper, arsensic trioxide, known as ratsbane. Bichloride of mercury. Lead. Antimony. Phosphorus. Bismuth. Thallium. Strychnine. Nicotine. The belladonnas, or the “three dream sisters”—atropine, scopolamine, hyoscine. The opium derivatives—morphine, heroin, codeine, papaverine, paregoric, laudanum. The hypnotics—chloral hydrate and paraldehyde, and the barbituric acid group—barbital, Nembutal, Amytal, Ipral, phenobarbital, Seconal. The “flying drugs”—speed, Benzedrine, Dexedrine, caffeine. The hallucinatory, lysergic acid. Then marijuana (hashish), the alkaloid, cocaine—and most deadly of all, aconite, known also as monkshood or wolfsbane.

Konig sits opposite Dr. Ozokawa, the Chief Toxicologist, in a miasmic fog of uric acid fumes wafting fitfully out of the chromatography laboratory next door, where several hundred beakers of the urine of expired people boil through various stages of analysis. The ammoniacal level in the air is so high that it causes tearing of the eyes and a burning sensation in the nostrils.

Hunched over, in shirt sleeves, Konig and Ozokawa sit in this poisonous air corroborating toxicological data with autopsy findings. They sit like old friends trading bits of gossip-—Ozokawa’s strychnine for Konig’s convulsions; Ozokawa’s hyoscine for Konig’s dilated pupils; Ozokawa’s cyanide for Konig’s mouth froth; Ozokawa’s arsensic for Konig’s ulceration of the small intestine; Ozokawa’s barbiturates for Konig’s cyanosis and respiratory arrest.

They chat easily of the facial discolorations found in strychnine, aniline, and nitrobenzene poisonings; of the cherry-red flush of carbon monoxide and cyanide poisoning; of the dilated pupils of scopolamine, the pinpoint pupils of heroin, the emaciation of metal poisonings, the ghastly burns of corrosive acids, the peach-pit odor of cyanide, the garlic odor of oxalic acid.

Ozokawa’s voice drones on through the dying afternoon, his clipped, percussive pronunciation struggling for clarity. “Evans, Rebecca. Age nineteen. DOA. Morphine, two milligrams in blood, urine, brain, and vomitus. Whittaker, Otis. Age thirteen. DOA. Morphine, three milligrams in urine, brain, and feces. Perriguex, Willi. Age fourteen months. Lead—” Ozokawa glances up from the small white 6″ x 9″ file card, sun flashing through his lenses. “You find no external signs of abuse on the child?”

“None.” Konig shakes his head. “Straight lead poisoning.”

Ozokawa nods his great glabrous dome of a head, then continues. “Peruda, Miguel. Age twenty-three. Dexedrine, Benzedrine, I suspect also lysergic acid, though it was not detectable.”

Konig makes note of that on his pad. “Must have been on the ceiling most of the time.”

Ozokawa’s head nods sleepily.

“Kowalski, Peter. Age eighteen. DOA. Alcohol in blood and urine, .3 percent. Amytal, seven grams. Cooper, Margaret. Age forty-one. Lysol infusion—self-administered.” Ozokawa grimaces and makes a queasy face. The noise of horns and traffic drift up from below. “Campbell, Eugene. Age twenty-nine. Oh, here’s an interesting one. At first it looked like acute alcoholic poisoning. Nearly .5 percent ethyl alcohol in the blood and urine—phenomenal. Then we came up with acetoarsenite of copper.”

“Paris green—pretty fancy.”

“Caught it in the kidneys and bone tissue.”

“Hair and nails?”

“All over.”

“Thought something was funny about those ileocecal ulcerations.”

“Soon as I read your report I tested for arsenic. Somebody slipped him something.”

Konig grunts and makes a notation on his pad to call Flynn. “Go on.”

“Oh, yes. Let me see now…” Ozokawa’s drowsy eyes move up and down his list. “The chap whose car rolled over the embankment and exploded—”

“Oh—Doblicki.”

“Yes, your human torch.”

“Not too much left to work with there, I’m afraid.”

“Serology was able to get us a blood sample. About four cubic centimeters. Levels of .4 percent of ethyl alcohol—”

“Surprised he was able to get behind the wheel and drive, little less get the goddamned car over the embankment. What were the CO levels?”

“None.”

There is a pause in which the Chiefs eyes rise slowly to Ozokawa’s. “None?”

Baffled, Ozokawa looks down at the card again. “Troopers’ report says they found liquor bottles in the wreck. Tests show the man was certainly drunk.”

“I know he was drunk, and I don’t care what the goddamned troopers say.” Konig’s voice rises. “But you can’t die in a fire without having CO levels in the blood appreciably elevated. Unless, of course—”

Ozokawa’s bilish eyes seem perplexed.

“—you weren’t breathing at the time.”

“I’m almost certain, but I can go back and check. There was no appreciable CO in the blood.”

“There wasn’t any soot or cinders in the larynx or trachea either.” Konig’s on his feet now, nearly shouting, barging from the room.

Baffled, Ozokawa rises, trailing after him. “Where are you going?”

“To try and get that body back.”

“Where is it?”

“New Jersey. Someone out there claimed it. I’ve got to see it again.” Suddenly he laughs harshly. “The bastards nearly got away with it. That guy Doblicki was dead before he ever got into the goddamned car.”