HALL OF JUSTICE
APRIL 16, 1906. 10:25 A.M.
While I was busy unpacking and setting up his laboratory instruments in the wine cellar of the Fallon house, Hunter drove through the crowded streets of North Beach. He chained the motorcycle to a telephone pole on Kearny and dashed into the Hall of Justice, avoiding the pack of reporters loitering outside.
He ran down the granite steps to the basement, through the door marked "San Francisco County Coroner," pushing through a second door marked "Official Entry Only—All Others Prohibited" into a dank brick corridor, pungent with the smell of formaldehyde and carbolic acid.
He entered the autopsy room and stopped abruptly at the sight of his father on the table, a white sheet covering all but his very pale feet and head. The overhead light cast a yellowish glow on the bald pate, dusty traces of dried salt glowing faintly on his thick eyebrows and mustache.
On the other side of the table, Christian stared blankly, a sweat magnifying his pallor.
"Where's the coroner, Christian?"
"He left a half-hour ago."
"What did he do, spend all of ten minutes with dad?"
"He drowned. When we turned him over the water came pouring out of him."
"That means he was still breathing when someone cut his life line." Hunter plopped his leather bag onto a small metal table. "Did he photograph the body or take any samples?"
"No."
"Then he didn't do his job."
"It was him and Anthony, remember? Unless somebody just happened to swim by and shove him overboard."
Hunter used a scalpel to probe beneath his father's fingernails, scraping a sticky black substance onto a slide. "You Catholic still, Christian? Come Judgment Day, maybe you can explain how you traded his life for another shot of whiskey."
"Like that story about him sending you on patrol on the Barbary Coast, damn near getting both of us killed? Six years humping little college girls and staring at test tubes while me and Francis and Max are out getting stabbed and shot at every day."
"Good, Christian. Whenever you can't argue the issue, change the subject and trot out the martyr speech. Whatever you did, dad did ten times over without being drunk. Or leaving a good man without covering his back side. Dante says the Ninth Realm of Hell, that's the bottom one, is reserved for the betrayers. Maybe they'll save you a seat."
Christian seethed and Hunter glared across at him, neither brother willing to leap over their father's body to strike the first blow.
"What's the matter, Christian? You think with dad gone there was going to be nobody around to tell you the truth?" After storing the slide, Hunter pressed Byron's rigid fingers onto an inkpad, rolling each one carefully onto a sheet of paper.
"Fingerprinting your own father. You think he killed himself?"
"Process of elimination. I collected bloody fingerprints in the engine room. I'll wager they don't belong to dad or Anthony. Speaking of Anthony."
"You won't get a lot out of him. Chief Donen had Francis and Max take him down to Agnews asylum, out of his head, screaming it wasn't his fault."
"I doubt it was his fault." Hunter placed the fingerprint samples in his bag and produced a long syringe. "Hold his arm steady for me."
Christian used two fingers to gingerly support his father's wrist as the needle slid into a bluish vein. The coagulated blood would not draw. Hunter pushed the tip deeper until a few drops trickled into the syringe.
"What do you think, Christian? Dad just happened to fall off a boat the night before he was going to throw a net over those bastards?"
"What the hell you talking about?"
"You don't know anything about what he was doing, do you?"
"Only thing he ever said was ‘Christian, you drink too much.’"
"I wonder where he got that idea."
Christian's breath came in short, labored bursts. "He drowned. And all your fancy Sherlock Holmes stuff ain't going to change that."
"You believe what you want, Christian. Someone killed him, and I swear on my father, lying in front me, I will find the bastards."
"You find out someone did this, they'll answer to me."
"No. The vigilante days are over. If someone killed him, I'll be there at San Quentin to see them hang for it." Hunter abruptly ripped the sheet off, startling Christian with the sight of the naked corpse.
"Now, help me position him so I can get some photographs." Christian stared, ill at ease over Hunter's tone. The impulsive young man had all but disappeared, replaced by someone frank and unflinching.