The Black Ice (hb-2)

worried face in the glass. He could smell her perfume.
    “The important thing about the file is that Moore didn’t keep it in his office or his apartment. It was in a place where someone from IAD or RHD wouldn’t find it. And when the guys on his crew found it, there was the note that said to give it to me. You understand?”
    The confused look in the glass answered for her. She turned and moved into the living room, sitting on the cushioned chair and running her hands through her hair. Harry stayed standing and paced on the wood floor in front of her.
    “Why would he write a note saying give the file to me? It wouldn’t have been a note to himself. He already knew he was putting the file together for me. So, the note was for someone else. And what does that tell us? That he either knew when he wrote it that he was going to kill himself. Or he-”
    “Knew he was going to be killed,” she said.
    Bosch nodded. “Or, at least, he knew he had gotten into something too deep. That he was in trouble. In danger.”
    “Jesus,” she said.
    Harry approached and handed her her wineglass. He bent down close to her face.
    “You have to tell me about the autopsy. Something’s wrong. I heard that bullshit press release they put out. Inconclusive. What is that shit? Since when can’t you tell if a shotgun blast to the face killed somebody or not?
    “So tell me, Teresa. We can figure out what to do.”
    She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, but Harry knew she was going to tell.
    “They told me because I wasn’t a hundred percent-Harry, you can’t reveal where you got this information. You can’t.”
    “It won’t get back to you. If I have to, I will use it to help us, but it won’t get back to you. That’s my promise.”
    “They told me not to discuss it with anyone because I couldn’t be completely sure. The assistant chief, Irving, that arrogant prick knew just where to stick it in. Talking about the County Commission deciding soon about my position. Saying they would be looking for a chief ME who knew discretion. Saying what friends he had on the commission. I’d like to take a scalpel-”
    “Never mind all of that. What was it you weren’t one hundred percent sure about?”
    She drained her wineglass. Then the story came out. She told him that the autopsy had proceeded as routine, other than the fact that in addition to the two case detectives observing it, Sheehan and Chastain from IAD, was assistant police chief Irving. She said a lab technician was also on hand to make the fingerprint comparisons.
    “The decomposition was extensive,” Teresa said. “I had to take the fingertips off and spray them with a chemical hardening agent. Collins, that’s my lab tech, was able to take prints after that. He made the comparison right there because Irving had brought exemplars. It was a match. It was Moore.”
    “What about the teeth?”
    “Dental was tough. There wasn’t much left that hadn’t been fragged. We made a comparison between a partial incisor found in the tub and some dental records Irving came up with. Moore had had a root canal and it was there. That was a match, too.”
    She said she began the autopsy after confirming the identity and immediately concluded the obvious: that damage from the double-barrel-shotgun blast was massive and fatal. Instantly. But it was while examining the material that had separated from the body that she began to question whether she could rule Moore’s death a suicide.
    “The force of the blast resulted in complete cranial displacement,” she said. “And, of course, the autopsy protocol calls for examination of all vital organs, including the brain.
    “Problem was the brain was mostly unmassed due to the wide projectile pattern. I believe I was told the pellets came from a double-barrel, side-by-side configuration. I could see that. The projectile pattern was very wide. Nevertheless, a large portion of the frontal lobe and corresponding skull fragment were left largely intact, though it had been separated.
    “You know what I mean? The diagram said this had been charted in the bathtub. Is this… too much? I know you knew him.”
    “Not that well. Go on.”
    “So I examined this piece, not really expecting anything more than what I was seeing earlier. But I was wrong. There was hemorrhagic demarcation in the lobe along the skull lining.”
    She took a hit off his wineglass and breathed heavily, as if casting out a demon.
    “And so, you see Harry,