THAT A DEAD body should be found washed up on the beach was not so unusual. Sandy Hook had had more than its share of floaters over the years. Hog-tied union officials in advanced stages of decomposition, crab-eaten torsos, discarded pets, missing children, drug dealers in oil drums; they came down with the current. Carried out of New York Harbor, down the Jersey coast, they filled with gas and popped to the surface before coming in with the tide.
Dr. Russel Breen, the Sandy Hook medical examiner, called away from his breakfast at the Tips for Tops Luncheonette, took one look at the latest, saw the duct tape around the wrists and ankles, the ligature marks under the chin, the welts indicating blunt force trauma, and the bullet holes in the back of the head, and declared him a city boy.
"No way he's local," he said. Another present from the Big Apple, he thought. He took X rays of the dead man's teeth (what was left of them) and some photographs (front and side view) and faxed them to the city.
He couldn't get any prints. The skin fell away from the fingers en masse. The hair was long gone, and the face, or what was left of it, was distorted beyond hope of recognition. The mans belly, swollen by the gas, had an umbilical hernia; the navel extruded like a turkey thermometer. When Dr. Breen turned his attention to the man's mouth, running a gloved finger around inside the cavity, he wondered at first if somebody had built a fire in there. The tongue was charred, and there were bits of red and brown paper embedded in the palate. Most of the teeth were gone, and the cheeks, blackened and torn, hung in spongy strips over the ears, as if somebody had tried to pull the mans face inside out and failed. Dr. Breen felt a hard object lodged in the throat and went after it with a hemostat.
"Son of a bitch," he said, holding it up to the light, "it's a cherry bomb. Guy got a mouthful a' damn cherry bombs. "
Satisfied that the deceased had been shot, beaten, and garroted, and that an attempt had been made to blow up his head, Dr. Breen had him loaded onto a squeaking gurney and taken off to the cooler. Then he went back to Tips for Tops for the rest of his breakfast. He would wait for the inevitable delegation from New York before going any further. Maybe they could get some prints using chemical solvent to dry the fingertips. Maybe they could make an ID with the few remaining teeth. Someone would be down from New York, of that he was sure. In the meantime, he'd get some breakfast.
What was unusual was the size of the New York contingent that arrived a few hours later. Most times, a floater drew two, maybe three city detectives; once in a great while, there was even a forensics hotshot. This time was different. This was an invasion. They couldn't fit, all of them, in Dr. Breen's tiny office. There were guys in suits from the U.S. Attorney's office, FBI men in dark blue windbreakers, detectives in blue jeans and warm-up jackets, and others in slacks and polo shirts, as if they'd been pulled off the golf course. There was even a sallow-complected trio of pathologists, from Washington, no less, who arrived in a helicopter. It was all very strange.
Usually, the two or three detectives who came down to view the latest dead wise guy would swagger around the coroner's office cracking jokes, trying to shock the locals with their indifference. They'd snicker over the remains, eager to demonstrate how "this ain't nothin, we see this alla time." They'd refer to a floater as "Poppin Fresh" or, if the subject was dismembered, as "Kibbles 'n Bits," or, if found in a drum, "Lunch Meat."
Not this group. They were sullen and humorless; they seemed resentful about something. Instead of the usual good-natured banter, they bickered among themselves; unspoken recriminations seemed to hang in the air, occasionally flaring up into loud, shouted disagreements. Then there was a scuffle out in the hallway: A stocky FBI man took a poke at somebody from the U.S. Attorneys office; a couple of local uniforms had to separate them. An Assistant U.S. Attorney ended up needing stitches; the FBI man was hustled onto the helicopter and sent back to Washington.
After the scuffle, they all stood out in the hall, glaring at each other, the FBI men sneering at the detectives and making rude comments under their breath. A few feet away, the detectives scowled silently back at them. The AUSAs formed their own little group by the water fountain, FBI men and detectives taunting them from their separate corners.
A reporter from the local paper showed up, only to find herself confronted by the whole group, which was suddenly, if momentarily, united in their hostility. One menacing detective snarled something indescribably obscene in her ear, and she retreated in tears.
Once the reporter had gone, they continued with their dark, accusatory looks. They shook their heads. They smoked their cigarettes. They fretted over the perceived repercussions from this latest arrival on Sandy Hook's beach. Clearly, they knew who it was. And they weren't happy about it.
Dr. Breen thought they looked. . . well, guilty.