The Corpse Wore Stilettos

by MJ O'Neill

  “Maybe that’s where the money came from and not from ratting me out,” I said. I explained to DC about the woman, Henry’s mention of the call, and the big wad of cash I’d seen him with yesterday. “You gave him up awfully quickly,” I said. “Why should we believe you?”

  “I’m looking for a replacement. That’s why I’m here today. Thought you might be interested, given your... issues. That guy’s not quite right. Mark my words, something’s going to happen with him, and then I’ll be out of a body supply.”

  “At least you have your priorities in order,” DC said.

  “Damn straight.” Wiggins pulled at his suit collar as if it were suffocating him.

  “Has he ever told you what the money’s for?” I asked.

  “No. We’re on a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. So, are you gonna give me the body in there, chickie? I pay well.”

  “He’s already spoken for.” I carefully stepped back onto the edge of the linoleum.

  “Bummer. Okay. I gotta go before someone sees me talking to you. But if you want to do some business, give me a call next time.” Wiggins pushed through the morgue doors as he ran a handkerchief over the top of his sweating head.

  “Damn, you’re like a moron crime magnet,” DC said.

  “This has been a whole weird day. When I asked Jaffe about being involved in Joy’s disappearance, he freaked out. And Marshall was falling all over himself to suck up. It wouldn’t surprise me if, despite his agreeing to help me, he’s really the one who called me in to Dr. Hawthorne. And by the way, have you ever seen Dr. Hawthorne so twitchy?”

  “Winston’s the one who scares me. Did you see him with that wrench? And now this thing with Henry. It’s always the baby-faced ones who turn out to be the mass murderers,” he said.

  “Poor Meg. Do you think we should warn her?” I asked.

  “Maybe she’s in on it. You’re a girl. You should try to bond.”

  I let out a sigh. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been able to see my girlfriends. Meg was a little on the strange side, but I thought it might be nice to have some girl gossip time. “Okay. I’ll try to set something up with her, tell her I need her help getting ready for the party. At least things are going according to plan. I’m sure between Burns’s connections and my family’s, we can get the hospital administration to accept the proposal. But I did get a strange visit from Detective Driscol. Any word on Joy’s forensics yet?”

  “Everyone’s being real tight-lipped. I heard there’s some big powwow with the detectives on Monday.”

  “Good. I think I need to see the file on the other dead prostitutes and Gillian Mathers.”

  “Uh-oh. Someone’s caught the Nancy Drew bug.”

  “Driscol has me thinking. I just want to know what I’m dealing with.”

  “You can get the main reports online, but if you want to see the crime scene photos and stuff, you’ll have to go to the Pit.” The Pit was the building that housed Vital Records, affectionately termed the Pit due to its somewhat recessed architecture, kind of like a bunker.

  “I need a reason to go there and get a look.”

  “Hmmm... leave that to me.”

  IF I EVER COMPLAINED about the décor in the morgue, I only needed to come to the Pit to realize we had it good. Old army surplus furniture filled the space, and avocado-green tiles decorated the walls. Once I was in the lobby, the only place to go was forward to the main window. A salt-and-pepper-haired lady with what looked like an excruciatingly tight bun perched on a barstool in the window, rummaging through files.

  “How are we going to get past her?” I whispered.

  “She has a thing for me. She thinks I’m cute.”

  “Kimi okay with you flirting with old ladies?”

  “The things I have to do for the cause, I tell ya. Have you ever noticed that she keeps her hair pulled back in this really tight bun that makes her look like her face is being pulled off? I think it interferes with her brain. If I ask, she won’t question why we need the files.”

  He stepped up to the window. “Sweetheart,” DC said, opening his arms.

  “Daryl! My word, it’s been so long. How come you don’t come see me more often? You aren’t secretly seeing another record keeper on the side, are you?” she asked and then giggled.

  “Oh, honey, you know I could never do that. My poor cats have been having the worst time.”

  “You poor thing.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said, approaching the window. “I just need to grab some copies really quick.” I waved around a copy of the order, hoping she wouldn’t look too closely at it.

  DC pulled out his phone and started showing her pictures of his cat-a-ciser.

  Without looking up from the phone, she said, “No problem,” and buzzed me back. “Take your time. Head toward the right.”

  As I disappeared through the door, the receptionist and DC were deep in conversation about his cat’s woes.

  The warehouse of files reminded me of the stacks in the law library at Harvard, only these were not as well organized. I went toward the right as the receptionist had instructed, but I thought she was messing with me to get more time with DC. After doubling back, I stopped first for the file we needed for Dr. Hawthorne. With that secured, I looked for files on the prostitute and Gillian Mathers.

  I didn’t know what I expected to find. I had read through all the news coverage online. For the prostitutes, it wasn’t much. With the exception of the stories from Gillian, the news outlets didn’t seem to care about the dead girls. Once Gillian was killed, the coverage stopped altogether.

  In Gillian’s case, the police speculated that a simple robbery had gone terribly wrong. The stabbing happened in her home, and the perpetrator had stolen her jewelry. Burns thought otherwise, but maybe guilt clouded his thinking.

  After locating the files, I moved to a reading table at the front of the warehouse. There were four prostitute murders, and Joy would make number five. A few times since Dad’s arrest, I had been made painfully aware of how much our previous privilege had bought us. Reviewing the deaths of these girls, I had the same thoughts. Had they been four socialites from my former neighborhood, their files would have been piled high. Nancy Grace would be leading nonstop news coverage. Instead, the files were as thin as a rail.

  All of the girls had been brutally beaten to death. The ash white of their faces contrasted with the dark red of the blood. No DNA or other forensics had been collected. All the bodies were dumped in dumpsters in the alley of the old warehouse district and not found for days after their deaths. The final police report in the file of the last girl killed speculated that the murders were committed by a “cranky john.” Four women were brutally beaten to death, and the police had decided the killer was someone “cranky.”

  Next I pulled out Gillian’s file. The top page of the report was stamped with the county seal—Office of St. Louis County Medical Examiner—and then it proceeded to her vitals—female, white, twenty-eight. The report continued as expected. Manner of death, homicide. Cause of death, exsanguination due to multiple stab and incised wounds.

  An extensive write-up of the injuries came next. “Overall, most of the incised wounds on the trunk suggest a single-edged, thin blade, although a double-edged blade cannot be excluded. Multiple injuries of the hands and forearms are consistent with defensive injuries.”

  She fought back.

  But the rest of the file was empty. There should have been a whole slew of reports detailing toxicology, X-rays, DNA, and trace evidence. But it was all missing.

  As I scanned the list of clothing and valuables, the fact that a ring and a necklace were left on the body struck me as odd. If this were a robbery, those would have been taken for sure.

  Finally, near the end of the report, I saw the photography line. “Instant print and 35-mm slide identification pictures. Instant-print photos were also taken of the scene and of many of the injuries. See attached.”

  I flipped the page to ex
amine the pictures of the scene. I thought those might have disappeared, too, but there they were. The photos were startling in their depiction of brutality. They also showed items that were at the scene. A flat-screen TV and a Faberge-style crystal egg collection I’d have priced at about three grand. And a gold and crystal clock, things not usually left behind in a robbery. The murder had taken place in her home office. Papers were strewn everywhere.

  Something familiar caught my eye. Sticking out of a corner of a pile of paper on her desk, there it was—the list:

  6587245DCIX 15,22

  3298134BDIS 22, 29

  8735910XTOM 9, 15

  5061992APG...

  I looked closer at the surrounding information. The pile the numbers poked out of detailed research on the prostitute killings—times, dates, and profiles of each girl killed. A notation above the handwritten codes read Mob money. I had seen that exact sequence before—not something similar but that exact sequence of numbers. And then it hit me.

  Grand’s scrapbook!

  My heart beat hard in my chest. My breathing grew faster as I tried to find a reasonable explanation for how something from my grand’s scrapbook about my dad had ended up on a reporter’s desk two months before his arrest, tying him not only to the mob but also to the prostitute killings. This was not happening. I refused to accept that my dad was a criminal and I was actually a mob princess.

  I had to be wrong. I had been under a lot of stress lately. Numerous studies had shown that stress negatively impacted memory. I needed to get to that scrapbook.

  After copying everything, I burst out the door to find DC still yakking with the receptionist. “We have to go.”

  “Right, you have the benefit,” DC said, looking at his watch.

  “Oh God, I have Mom’s benefit!”

  Chapter 10

  “I’m not wearing something that makes me look like a peacock.” Grand was arguing with my mother as I erupted through the door. She wore a blue-and-green paisley gown with feathers sticking out of the collar. She totally looked like a peacock.

  “You don’t look like a peacock,” Mom replied, trying to be reassuring.

  “I’ll be lucky if someone doesn’t try to put me in a zoo.”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic, Mother. Besides, it’s the only gown I could get on loan. There you are, Katherine. You’re late.”

  Maybell waddled up wearing a beautiful blue halter dress and rhinestone collar. Of course, the collar was fake. I’d hocked the real one to cover the retainer for Dad’s lawyer, but Maybell understood. She still looked beautiful. I knelt to give her some affection.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Petting Maybell always made me calm. Given how late I was, it was going to take some finagling to get a look at Grand’s scrapbook before we left.

  “You need to tell Maybell she can’t come. She wouldn’t leave me alone until I got her dressed, which I didn’t mind. She does look lovely in blue, but pigs aren’t allowed at the benefit. And yes, I asked, so don’t start on me.” Mom pulled on the strap of her heel.

  “The world’s so unfair.” I patted Maybell’s head.

  “What’s unfair is looking like this. You owe me one,” Grand said, turning to me. “I did a shopping trip to the old house and scored that green Vera Wang you always look so lovely in. I’d have had my dress, too, if it weren’t for that stupid rent-a-cop.”

  “What rent-a-cop?” I stood up to face her and was attacked by feathers.

  “Someone’s posted a security guard at the house to keep intruders out. Imagine, accusing me of being an intruder in my own house.”

  “You’re lucky you weren’t arrested. Now, can we please stop talking about this unpleasantness and get going?”

  Despite being knocked several rungs down the social ladder because of my dad’s incarceration, my mom still threw a better charity event than anyone in the upper crust of the county. This benefit was her first one since Dad’s arrest, and she was counting on me for support. Otherwise, I would have skipped the whole thing. Especially now. Mom worked to get her earring through the hole.

  “Fine with me. We’ll just keep pretending no one’s in prison like we’re on an episode of Dallas.” Grand blew at the feathers sticking out of her dress. “Ready, Claude?”

  Claude was a short, wiry man, with thick horn-rimmed glasses and a large nose that took up the majority of his face. My family owed Claude more than we could ever repay. Without him, we wouldn’t have had a place to live, and I wouldn’t have a job. It was his contacts that landed me the morgue job. He never took anything in return, and he continued to show up with flowers for Grand. For a man of his age and stature, he looked fabulous in his vintage tux, complete with his signature bow tie.

  “No, we’re not ready!” I said a little too loudly, startling everyone in the room.

  Maybell let out a snort. Claude blinked.

  “I mean, it would be nice, Grand, if you could stay and help me get ready.” I couldn’t go to the benefit with this on my mind. Plus, if the page in her scrapbook matched what I’d found in Gillian’s file, I would need information from Grand.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Katherine. We’re already late,” Mom said.

  I looked at my grand with a pleading expression, trying to signal with my head that I needed her to go to the bedroom.

  “Did you get a neck twitch stealing that body?” Grand asked.

  “Oh, please!” Mom said, throwing her hands up in the air. “Under no circumstances is anyone allowed to talk about the morgue tonight. I don’t have to tell you that tonight is very important for our family. Now, Katherine, get yourself dressed.”

  “I’d get dressed a lot quicker if Grand helped me.” I bit my lip. “Mom, why don’t you ask Claude to take you now and help you get set up,” I said, smiling my best pageant smile, impressed with my brilliant idea not only to get Grand alone but also to seem like a helpful daughter. “We’ll be right behind you, and this way, we’ll have two cars there in case Grand needs to leave early.” With an arm looped through one of Claude’s and one of my mother’s, I led them both to the door.

  “I suppose that is a smart idea, and as you seem allergic to proper decorum these days...” She sighed.

  I knew I had her when she sighed.

  “I guess it makes sense.”

  Claude pulled his arm from mine and turned around. He gave Grand a little wave, then they went out the door.

  “What are you up to?” Grand asked when we were finally alone. This was the tricky part. I needed to get a look at the book and find out what she knew about it without getting her worked into a frenzy.

  “I’ll tell you, but it’s a secret.” We moved to the living room, Maybell following, past the gaudy chair and to the corner with the antique cupboard. The cupboard dated from 1870, and Grand swore it used to be in Mount Vernon. Under the drawer, two ornate cabinet doors opened to a single shelf. This was Grand’s workspace. The inside of the cupboard looked like a Hobby Lobby had thrown up.

  “I’m working on a special case at the morgue, and I think you might have accidentally picked up something related to it when you were researching Dad’s stuff.”

  “I did? Hot damn! I knew I’d make a great detective,” she said, doing a little jump. Maybell danced in a circle.

  “I need your scrapbook.” I rifled the cupboard for it and wondered how she ever found anything in there. Finally I spied it in the back under a collection of new scrapbooking paper.

  The scrapbook was as much a creative endeavor as a chronicle of the events of my dad’s arrest. Grand had collected various scrapbook kits, specialty paper cutouts, paper frames in various shapes, and a host of special stamps and letter sets. I wasn’t sure what paper collection said, “Congratulations, your son’s heading for the slammer.”

  “What are you looking for?” she asked as I pulled the book out to look at it.

  The craftsmanship of the book amazed me. Each page was exceptionally coordinated in color and style, not only with t
he content of the page itself but also with any accompanying pages. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the scrapbook celebrated a great accomplishment or the birth of a child.

  “See this photo from a crime scene? I think there’s something in here that might match.”

  The opening spread was a montage of famous trials where the defendant had prevailed. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” I thumbed through the pages, looking for the match of the crime scene photo. I flipped past the NASA story, and after the series of Fletcher Reid stories chronicling my dad’s early business success, eureka, there it was.

  Attached to a page lined in silver foil, a half-torn sheet of paper with a scrolling list of characters similar to the ones from the crime scene photo peered at me. The headline on the page, spelled out in stickers, read, “U.S. Missile Launch codes.” I scanned the list.

  6587245DCIX

  3298134BDIS

  8735910XTOM

  5061992APG...

  They were all there, and the list contained twelve additional sequences.

  “Grand, do you know what this is?”

  “I titled the page. See”—she pointed at the header—“they’re missile launch codes.”

  “I don’t think these are missile launch codes. Do you remember where you got these?” This was a tough question. Thanks to my grand’s condition, every possibility existed that she wouldn’t remember, and that might cause an episode.

  “How the hell should I remember that? I can’t be expected to remember every connection to the defense department that ever existed!”

  Maybell ran to the other room.

  “It’s okay, Grand. I need to get ready for the event, anyway.” I closed the book and hugged it to my chest.

  “Not so fast, Missy. What does a crime scene photo have to do with your father?”

  Uh-oh, I thought, trying to come up with a story. “I’m sure there’s no connection. Like you said, this is from the defense department. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.” At this point, telling her about the possible mob connection was not an option. “Dad was an important man. The reporter was probably doing a story on him or something, and the papers just got mixed up.”