The Demands of the Dead by Justin Podur Read Free Book Online

seemed the examiner was more skilled and sophisticated than most of those I’d worked with back in the US. Dr. Mesa wore thick glasses, a thin beard peppered with white hairs, and a confident, forty-something, mid-career, unassuming manner.
    He had orderlies pull the bodies out of the freezer for us to examine.
    “I’ll show you Gonzalez first, as I am told he was the first victim,” Dr. Mesa said in perfect English.
    “How do you know?” I asked.
    Chavez answered my question. “From the configuration of the bodies, the angles of the bullets. Gonzalez never fired his weapon, but Diaz did, and remember also that Diaz was shot many, many more times than Gonzalez was. All of this suggests that Gonzalez was surprised and killed first.”
    It was obvious that Pablo Gonzalez had died fit and healthy. He was tall, handsome, and built like an athlete who worked himself hard. Maybe he was on the same soccer team as Chavez was, their builds were so similar. A tattoo of an eagle with a snake in its talons - Mexico’s national symbol – spread across his chest.
    “The eagle?” I asked.
    “Some of the boys get them—it has to do with his graduating class at police school.” Chavez replied in Spanish, obviously shaken. He knew the victims , I thought.
    “The bullet that killed Gonzalez hit him in the forehead, here,” Dr. Mesa continued. There were also holes in his legs and in his left arm. “He was hit in the legs first. The shot in the head would have killed him instantly.”
    Gonzalez’s expression retained the pain of someone who had known death was coming, but there were no wrinkles on his young face. His expression was wrong. It looked closer to despair than fear or battle-rage. The instinct of a soldier, of a fighter, isn't despair – tell that to Mr. Manley – so something was wrong here.
    “One of the interesting things about the wounds in his legs are the angles of entry and exit. The first bullet entered from the back of his leg. The next two entered from the front, as did the last shot in the chest. He was ambushed, but he died facing his killer.”
    Mesa took us over to the body of the second victim. Diaz was less of a physical specimen—smaller, softer, carrying more fat. The cadaver was marred with a lot more bullet holes than Gonzalez’s, including one in the neck. He had several tattoos—dragons on his chest, a Chinese character on his back, a scorpion on his shoulder.
    “Are there photos of the tattoos?”
    “They should be in the report,” Chavez said quietly and evenly his mood more detached, more professional, from one body to the next.
    “Yes, they are all in my report. The Chinese character means ‘Happiness’, I’m told. This one died in a fire-fight,” Mesa said. “He was lying down and firing his weapon when he was hit. It was the bullet in the neck that killed him, but as you can see there are other wounds in the shoulders and chest.”
    The reports said Diaz was 24 and Gonzalez 25, but Diaz looked older. Even his hands looked like they had done more . Both are younger than Shawn was. Seen even less of the world. I remembered suddenly that Walter was alive. But such thoughts were not for this moment.
    “Can I keep a copy of your report, Dr. Mesa, if it's ready?” I asked.
    Mesa went to an office and returned with two copies. We took them and left the morgue, Pablo Gonzalez, and Hernan Diaz,where they lay.
    As he drove us to the base, Chavez was completely silent. I didn’t know him well enough to read that silence, but I did know that between the two victims, Gonzalez was a friend of his, and Diaz was not.
     
    The Seguridad Publica base in Tuxtla presented a barbed wire fence to the world. Behind it were four buildings: quarters, a mess hall, and two office buildings, all new, simple white shells of red brick and concrete with small windows. There were two officers on duty at the entrance and two dozen walking around inside. Chavez escorted me straight to my quarters, left,