Coop looks at me with a soulful grin, the kind that says “If they’re talking-then it’s their sorry collective asses in the flames.”

“Who did the autopsy?” I ask.

I don’t have to wait for a reply. The fact that Coop performed it is written in his eyes.

“I just can’t believe he killed himself. He was my friend, Coop, and I want to know what happened.”

There’s a long sigh. “Where are you going with this information?” he asks.

“To my grave. You have my word on it, Coop. Not a soul will hear it from me.” I take my most sacred oath and affix it like a death mask to my expression. I raise my right hand. “I swear, not a word.”

I can see skepticism in his eyes, the disbelief of any who have toiled in the bureaucracy and who have heard such assurances before, from cops and reporters, from shattered families anxious to hear consoling words that their son or daughter did not OD on drugs.

“We’re not finished yet. Still analyzing a lot of it. But if I had to take bets, I wouldn’t book any of my hard-earned cash on suicide.”

At this point there’s a lot of awkward posturing. Coop wrinkles his nose and begins to peel the surgical gloves from his hands, the first sign that our conversation may be extended.

“I want you to understand I can’t discuss the particulars.”

“Agreed.” Concessions are easy when you have nothing to bargain with.

“In hypothetical terms?”

“Hypothetical, absolutely.”

“Do you know anything about postmortem blood distribution?”

I shrug.

“The human body’s got a pretty reliable hydraulic reaction to death. The pump stops, and roughly four quarts of blood settle to the lowest point. In an hour, maybe two, the blood coagulates. Gets trapped in the tissues, the vessels at the lowest point. Gravity takes hold.” He says it matter-of-factly, like the law of physics it is.

“The lividity table,” he says. “You remember, it hasn’t been that long since you prosecuted a case.”

I nod.

I see where he’s taking me. We’re about to play the favorite game of the expert witness. In legal parlance it’s called “opinion”-an exception to the general rule of evidence that witnesses may not speculate, but can testify only about events that they have actually observed, and of which they have firsthand knowledge. The law, like most social institutions, has fashioned special rules for special people. Doctors and other experts are allowed to apply their professional expertise to draw broad conclusions from hypothetical situations. A veteran of a thousand trials, Coop is skilled at this diversion from truth-seeking-he’s a master of the game in the swearing contest among experts.

“A man who dies seated in a chair-unless he’s strapped to a spaceship on the way to the moon-ya gotta expect the body fluids to settle in the lower extremities, at very least in the buttocks and posterior of the upper thighs.” He makes the last word sound like it has a dozen i’s in it. “So …” Coop pauses to strike a match to his pipe. The flame flickers out and he takes another, strikes it, and cups the bowl with his hands. The odor of tobacco, a special aromatic blend, mixes with the smell of formaldehyde.

“So …” He takes several shallow draws on the pipe. “When you find such a body, seated in a desk chair with what’s left of the head tilted back against the headrest, but lividity shows all the fluids have settled evenly along the posterior portion of the upper torso and legs-somethin’s wrong. The man died layin’ down, and from all appearances stayed flat on his back for some time after death.”

“Potter was moved after he died?”

Coop nods, dropping the charade of hypotheticals. “It gets less abstract from here on.”

“Whadda you mean?”

Coop returns to the Bunsen burner and examines the vile black fluid that now produces a froth on the surface as it boils. A sickly white foam leaches from this substance to float on the surface. He lifts the beaker with a long set of tongs, turns toward me. “Coffee?” he asks.

I shake my head, still looking at the stuff. Coop continues with his scenario.

“Whoever did it never heard of forensic science. Either that or they weren’t terribly concerned about details.”

The expression on my face is a neon question mark.

“It wasn’t well planned,” says Coop. “I mean, we walk into this guy’s office and find him reclining in a slick leather executive desk chair with the top of his head gone. There’s a twelve-gauge over-and-under convincingly on the floor by the chair, one round gone.

“There were no prints on the gun,” he says. “Whoever dropped it there wiped it clean-not just their own prints but Potter’s too. I can tell ya, a man who’s about to do himself sweats like hell. Unless he’s the coolest thing since Newman, he’s gonna leave little tracks all over the gun. But not Potter.”

I’ve seen massive head shots before. From Coop’s description I can conjure up the image-what remained of the countenance I had known as Ben Potter.

“Then we find traces of blood-B-negative, same type as Potter’s-in a freight elevator down the hall. Not a lot but enough. Whoever moved him used that elevator.”

“Who owns the piece?”

“Potter. Used it for hunting. Gun’s an Italian make, heavy thing with lots of tooling-and expensive.”

“Where did he keep it, the gun?”

“Wife says it was usually in a locked case in Potter’s study at their house.”

He takes a coffee mug from the shelf, the pipe clinched tightly in his teeth, and pours himself a little of the thick brew. The stuff flows like Arabian crude. He replaces the beaker over the burner and takes the pipe from his mouth-brier in one hand and what passes for coffee in the other.

“So they’re operating on the theory it was a homicide?”

Coop makes a face of indifference, tilts his head back, and expels three perfectly formed smoke rings toward the ceiling. He smiles. The Southern warmth breaches the professional veneer, if only for an instant.

“That’s where the smart money is.” He pauses for an instant and takes a sip from the mug. I wait to see if he has to chew the stuff.

“There is another school-another theory,” he says.

I look at him, waiting for this latest.

“That Potter died in some compromising situation, either by his own hand-maybe an accident, somebody else pulled the trigger? Maybe a little passion, another woman involved-who knows? So you got a prominent lawyer, partner in a powerful law firm. There are reputations to protect. There might be a lot of people who would move quickly to cover that kind of embarrassment.”

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I’d be lookin’ for a killer.” He says it like the second theory is just a big red herring.

“Why?”

“Whoever it was went to a lot of trouble to put him in the law office-took some real chances. Would have been a lot easier, and in the end more plausible, if they’d taken him out into a field somewhere, dressed him in hunting togs and left him there alone on the ground.” He winks. “Victim of a hunting accident. Still wouldn’t of worked, you understand. I’d have sniffed it out.” He smiles. “But it’s gotta be a better cover if all you’re worried about is a little embarrassment. No, whoever put him in that office was tryin’ to cover their own tracks. And”-he pauses for an instant-“maybe start the cops thinkin’ about somebody else, a little misdirection.”

“Have the cops narrowed it to any suspects?”

“They haven’t talked to you yet?” he says. Suddenly there’s a broad grin on his face. Then he chastises. “You know better than to ask that. If they had, I couldn’t tell ya.” He chuckles to himself as he turns and pulls a clean pair of surgical gloves from the drawer behind him.

Coop arches an eyebrow and winks. The pipe again clinched tightly in his teeth, the mug on the shelf behind him, he snaps the glove on his left hand. He turns and walks toward the door. He’s made his last statement on the matter, at least for the moment. But his parting expression conveys volumes, for if I place any confidence in the professional acumen of George Cooper, and I most assuredly do, the last scintilla of doubt has now been purged from my mind. I now know that Ben Potter was murdered.