Blood on the Sun (CSI: NY) by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online Page B

furniture business like Asher. Seems like a nice man.”
    Fifteen minutes later, on the computer in Asher Glick’s office next to the bedroom, Flack found a file of all the jobs Glick had performed for the past five years, including the work he had done, the cost to him in time and material and the money paid for each job. Flack also found a file showing outstanding debts. One of those was for $42,000 owed by Arvin Bloom from the morning minyan. It was almost two months overdue.
    In parentheses under the Bloom entry were the words “Time to face him.”
    Flack went through Glick’s e-mail, focusing on the last two days. There were ads for Viagra, Cialis, Rolex watches, cruises to Alaska. Flack went to the “Saved” file, opened it, scrolled down until he came to a recent one from Glick to Bloom. The message read:
    So you are my old Yeshiva school mate from Chicago. Welcome to New York. I’m sorry you have been ill, but I hope you are better now, at least well enough to see an old friend. Remember Chaver Schloct, how easy it was to get the poor little man flustered? I wonder what happened to him. In any case, I’d like to see you again. It would also be nice if you sent me a check for the money you owe me for the 18th century English dining room table and eight matching chairs your wife purchased from me. Partial payment would be fine for now. This financial transaction however has nothing to do with my desire to see you.
    Asher Glick
    Chad Willingham looked up from the microscope, rubbed his head, making him look even more like Stan Laurel, and grinned at Aiden.
    “Minute, minute, minute please,” he said, moving to the nearby computer and Googling the page he was searching for. “There.”
    He pointed to the web page, which showed what looked like a panel of dark wood at the top.
    “Bloodwood,” he said. “Great name. Grown in Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname.”
    “Rare?” she asked.
    “Think so,” he said. “Durable stuff, used for flooring, cabinets, furniture. Ever tried broiled iguana?”
    “This have something to do with bloodwood?” asked Aiden.
    “Not that I know of,” he said. “There’s just a place in Chinatown that serves it.”
    “You asking me to go to dinner with you to eat an iguana?”
    “No,” he said. “I just thought it was interesting, like seeing a unicorn.”
    “A unicorn,” Aiden said skeptically.
    “You know the James Thurber story?” he asked. “The one in which the man sees a unicorn in his garden and goes inside to tell his wife and she says he’s a booby and she’s putting him in a booby hatch, only she’s the one who winds up in the booby hatch?”
    “Is there a point to this, Chad?”
    “I like finding unicorns,” he said with a grin.
     
    The reasons for supporting the use of virtual autopsy were many, but the primary times Hawkes had used it were on members of the traditional Jewish faith. The procedure involved computer topography and magnetic resonance imaging. The procedure could also accurately determine the time of death using Virtopsy, MRI spectroscopy. When the procedure is used, a 3-D portrait of the corpse appears on a computer screen. The device can measure metabolites in the brain that emerge during post-mortem decomposition.
    The primary reason not to use Virtopsy was that few courts were inclined to accept the results. As a witness, Hawkes had always come to the point in the questioning by the defense attorney where he was asked if he had actually seen the organs. In this case involving an Orthodox Jew, the defense would have to be told that a Virtopsy was performed.
    A decent defense attorney would almost certainly ask if Dr. Hawkes thought the results from Virtopsy were as thorough as those in the far more accepted standard autopsy.
    “It would depend on who performed the procedure,” Hawkes would say.
    Then it would come. The defense attorney would ask: “Do you think this virtual autopsy was as thorough as you would have done in your