“Well, lookee here,” he said. “Jennifer, get me a nice, big close-up right here.” He separated Ethan’s big toe and his second toe. “Jennifer, the photo number?”
She looked at the screen on the back of her digital Nikon. “DSC_0145.jpg.”
He pulled out a pocket recorder. “I see a puncture wound, photo number DSC_0145. It appears to have been made by the needle shaft of a syringe inserted one centimeter medial to decedent’s long toe.” He looked up. “I’ll be damned!” His eyes crinkled above his face mask. “Looks to me like you might have a homicide here, Emma. In my experience, a suicide doesn’t inject something between his toes, like a heroin addict does to hide his tracks, and then hang himself. Just isn’t done. The toxicology lab will tell me what substance was used.”
Emma reeled and not just from the surroundings. A homicide. How would she handle that? Homicides didn’t happen in Hampshire. She couldn’t remember the last one. She wasn’t even sure Archie had ever had one. Overdoses, yes, uncomfortably often. The occasional suicide. Maybe half a dozen fatal car crashes per year. But, homicides? No.
Emma felt her stress level soar.
Mittendorf hefted an oversized scalpel, which glinted in the surgical light like some instrument of torture in a bad spy film. “Okay, Emma, time to get to the real work. Steady yourself.”
Sweat poured down Emma’s sides. Her uniform shirt was soaked. She was glad for the gown.
He made a deep cut from Ethan’s left clavicle to below his xiphoid process at the bottom of his sternum and back up to his right collarbone. The incision was in the shape of a large U.
At the bottom of the U, he sliced straight, except for a slight detour around the cadaver’s navel, to Ethan’s pubic hair. She had the presence of mind to notice that it wasn’t the famous Y cut after all. But that revelation did nothing to steady her.
Mittendorf unpeeled Ethan’s chest and dumped it over his face. She felt herself swaying.
When he used a pair of Fiskars garden shears to sever Ethan’s ribs, she lost it.
“I’m sorry … I have to go.”
Emma didn’t make it to the bathroom.
13
Measure Twice, Cut Once
On Sunday mornings, I wake up at 6 a.m.
Monday through Saturday, I wake up at 5:30 a.m. I have no need for an alarm clock. My body self regulates. Unlike my brain … but that’s another matter altogether.
As I always do, this Sunday I watch “New Day Sunday” with Christi Paul and Victor Blackwell (CNN, out of Atlanta). Christi is pretty and smarter than her co-anchor. At 6:30 a.m., I turn off the show because very little happens in the second half other than recaps and touchy-feely features which bore me. Then I retrieve the Sunday Hampshire Chronicle and the Sunday New York Times from outside my front door. Although I rarely engage with townsfolk (I admit I occasionally patronize Group Therapy), and I almost never attend town functions, I like to know what’s going on.
Before I look at the paper, I make a frittata of spinach, Fontina cheese, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, kimchi, and pesto mixed with the eggs. And eight ounces of orange juice.
I take care of my body.
After breakfast, I open the paper and read every article. Even the one with the headline:
May Is For Dog Tags
And Transfer Station Permits
I predict that tomorrow’s Chronicle is going to be much more interesting.
I open the magazine section of the Times and turn immediately to the puzzle page. I love the puzzle editor, Will Shortz. He’s as smart as I am. Did you know that he’s the only academically-accredited puzzle master in the world (Indiana University)? He’s an enigmatologist, a person who studies puzzles. I guess you would say that I am an enigmatologist, too. Or an arachnophile, a spider-lover.
Oh, Emma, you’re going to love my puzzle-web.
It is now 7 a.m. Time for my workout session. In the basement, I have my own fully-equipped gym. There, I complete my Sunday regimen: dumbbell bench press, hanging leg raise, incline bench pull, barbell squat, and butterfly. Ten sets of ten reps each.
Next to my gym, in a separate temperature-controlled room, I have a Tsunami 300-gallon aquarium, where I keep my collection of exotic fish. It is 96 inches long, 30 inches wide and 24 inches deep. The tank cost $2,204.99. I keep Hawaiian boxfish, lionfish, stonefish, and pufferfish. Every day, after working out, I feed my fish mixtures of salmon, clams, mussels, squid, and unshelled shrimp. That way they don’t eat each other.
After a shower, I drive over to Hickam Street. It’s a fifteen-minute drive, because my house is in an isolated spot outside of town. That’s why I bought it. I park near the country club. I am a member, but I never attend any events. Nor do I play golf or tennis. I prefer to exercise in private.
Then, as I have been doing every day for several weeks, I take a walk along the rough of the golf course, which happens to pass behind my target house. It is raining. As Dolly Parton said, “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”
Triple checking, I pat my pocket, feeling the capped, loaded syringe inside. I pretend to be searching for lost balls, taking care not to annoy the golfers, although there aren’t many. I wear a long raincoat and a floppy hat, and nobody seems to pay any attention to me.
From my position on the edge of the fourth hole, I can see the driveway of the house.
I have planned this carefully, and I don’t mind being patient until the moment is right. I have prepped my target in advance. He expects me to call him … but only when his wife is out.
I hear a car starting on the other side of the house. I grab my binoculars from underneath my coat. A 740e BMW comes into view. At the wheel of the $98,000 behemoth is none other than Mary Jackson.
My rainbow has arrived.
In a New Haven Walmart, I’ve bought a prepaid, no-contract cell phone for $19.88 in cash. It has never been used. If all goes as planned, I will only use the phone this time … and one more time.
I dial Ethan’s home phone number. I store hundreds of phone numbers in my flawless memory.
“Hi, it’s me. I’m sick of waiting. I want you, babe. Let me in the backdoor.”
“I’ll be right there,” he replies. I can tell by his dry, throaty voice that he is one horny bastard. Randy, ripe, and oh-so-ready.
He answers the door. I kiss him right away … before he says a word.
Ten minutes later I kill him.
14
“Do you think he’s still alive?”
Thursday was a fine spring day, much warmer than the rainy, chilly, slushy beginning of the month. Emma had scheduled a lunch date with her best friends from Hampshire High, Deb Barger and Vanessa Mack. She looked forward to seeing them.
She needed good friends.
They decided to go on a picnic. In the Northwood section of Hampshire was a large tract of land owned by a wealthy and generous family. They called it The New Forest. The family dedicated the densely-forested land—full of oak, hickory, white and red pine, elm, ash, sugar maple, yellow birch, and American beech—to forestry research, conservation, and public-access recreation. Since her earliest memory, Emma had hiked the trails with her father. It was he who had taught her about the forest and its creatures.
As she drove to the trailhead, she thought about Dr. Mittendorf. She had his toxicology report to look forward to. The mark on Ethan’s ankle still itched like a deerfly bite. Unfortunately, on that front, Dr. Mittendorf hadn’t had a better theory than she had: he’d had no theory at all.
In spite of her lackluster performance at the postmortem, Emma felt a new sense of empowerment.
A homicide.
A Hampshire anomaly, which she was in a position to solve.
She would make Archie proud.
Deb brought sandwiches and paper cups of iced tea from Group Therapy. Vanessa brought a blanket and sunscreen. They met at the trail head of Walcott Trail and hiked uphill to Lost Pond. During the climb, Pepper came
upon a waddling porcupine. Emma called a warning, “No, Sergeant Pepper!” But her caution was unnecessary. Pepper was too wise to give a porcupine more than a disdainful sniff. Further along, Emma spotted a lonely trillium erectum. It’s distinctive three-petaled flower poked through a bed of winter-brown dead leaves. Its leaves were the color of a fine burgundy wine. “Look, guys,” she pointed. “Look at that gorgeous trillium.”
“Wow,” Deb said, “the flower of spring. It’s beautiful.”
Emma said, “It’s common name, wake-robin, comes from the robin redbreast, the bird that truly heralds spring.”
“How do you know that?” Vanessa said.
“Dad.”
Pepper, running ahead, suddenly applied the brakes. She’d found some coyote pooh, over which she engaged in some concentrated, up-close sniffing.
Deb said, “Fuck. Gross.”
Emma said, “Dog’s don’t know the meaning of the word gross. Anyway, that’s what Will used to say.”
Before rejoining them, Pepper squatted and covered the pooh with pee.
“Is it true your dad named Pepper for the Beatles’ album?” Vanessa asked.
“I wish! Actually, Dad named her for Sergeant Pepper Anderson, the Angie Dickinson character in the ’70s cop show, ‘Police Woman.’ I can’t tell you how many re-runs we watched together … so embarrassing.”
“No way,” Deb said. “My mom and I loved that show.”
On the southern shore of Lost Pond, the threesome spread the picnic blanket. Nearby, spring peepers sang their sleigh-bell chorus, and the air had that heavenly mixture of the smells that spell spring.
It felt so good to be with friends she could trust.
Deb hadn’t changed much since high school. She still wore her dark hair loose and long. Heavy make-up and high heels, which she usually wore, belied her steadfast feminism. Her figure remained buff and stunning, but Emma thought, not meaning to be unkind, most of Deb’s beauty remained inner. Vanessa had changed a lot. Today, despite picnicking, she wore a Vineyard Vines seersucker dress straight from her job as the branch manager of Hampshire Trust. She styled her hair in a preppy do, complete with hairband. Pearl studs nailed the look. Vanessa was the Gwyneth Paltrow to Deb’s Lena Dunham.
“Such a damn shame about Ethan Jackson,” Deb began, sipping tea through a straw. “With only way-back-when to go on, I never would have thought he would take his own life. I don’t know why I should know, though. I haven’t seen him since high school.”
Vanessa unwrapped her sandwich, which gave Emma a good opportunity to change the subject. She knew they would get to Will soon enough.
“The grapevine says you’ve got a new boyfriend, Deb,” Emma said.
“So true! His name is Ernest, but he’s not. Anything but. Since I split up with you-know-who, I’ve never met a funnier man. He makes me laugh so much I pee my pants. Swear to God.”
“Lucky you. You deserve it. What about you, Vanessa? How’s Dave?”
Dave was Vanessa’s stolid husband. “Same-same,” she answered. “Isn’t it lovely here?”
“Yes, it sure is,” said Emma.
Deb took a moment, looking pointedly at Emma. “Promise you’ll tell me to shut up … if you don’t want to talk about it … but how’re you handling the Will situation? And, God, poor Archie, too? Two totally unfair blows almost at once.”
“Emma doesn’t want to talk about Will. Or about her dad,” Vanessa said. “Jesus, it’s only been—what?—a month since Will went missing.”
“Actually, I do.” Emma glanced across Lost Pond. In the distance, Mount Kaibab shimmered in the warm sun. She inhaled Kaibab’s beauty before continuing. “The truth is, I think about him every single moment. Dad, too. I’m so alone. You know what really sucks? I don’t even have the company of kids.”
“I feel for you, babe. I really do.” Vanessa said. Of the three, only she had kids.
It was classic Deb, though, when she cut the chase, “Do you think he’s still alive?”
Vanessa said, “Deb!”
“No, it’s okay,” Emma said. “I would do anything to know. For now, all I can do is believe he is. On the other hand, I can’t imagine Will just splitting. So unlike him. He could never help himself from being brutally honest. If he’d found someone else, he’d have just come right out and told me. You know, I despise the word closure, but guess what I need? I’ve never said this to anyone, but, one way or another, I need to get on with my life. It makes me feel incredibly guilty.”
“I think that’s a step in the right direction.” Deb said. She added quickly, “Don’t yell at me, Vanessa!”
“Anyway, you don’t have to be alone,” Vanessa said. “I don’t mean now. It’s way too early. But in the future. Look at you. You’re smart, sexy, and you’re the effing chief of police!”
“Yeah, but really look at me.” Emma indicated her polyester uniform blouse and her navy-blue polyester trousers.
Deb said, “Hey, it’s a well-known fact, real men love a woman in uniform.”
Emma laughed. “Thanks. I doubt you’re right, but thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“The other problem is my new uniform and my new job are stressing the hell out of me.” She couldn’t tell them yet that Ethan had been murdered.
“How come? Gender resentment?” asked Deb.
“No, it’s not that. I just feel like a damn rookie. Talk about on-the-job-training. I went to Ethan’s autopsy the other day, and I puked.”
“Jesus, who wouldn’t? Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Vanessa said.
“Dad wouldn’t have. Speaking of which, most everyone on the force agrees I shouldn’t have the job. Remember Stella Weeks? She’d just as soon see me dead—”
“That sucks.”
“Speaking of Archie,” Deb said, “what are you going to do with his house?”
“I am so not dealing with that yet,” she replied. “I haven’t even been over there since Dad died. His old cleaning lady checks on it once a week—”
Vanessa said, “Maybe you should move in there. It’s such a lovely place.”
Emma’s cell phone rang. “Damn!” She almost pushed End without answering, but habit made her glance at Caller ID.
Office of The Chief Medical Examiner.
“I’m so sorry, guys, but this is super-important. I’ve got to take this.”
“Hello, Emma,” Dr. Mittendorf said, “I have important news. How soon can you get here?”
“I’ll be there fast as I can.”
Her hand shook. Excitement or dread? She wasn’t sure.
“I hope I didn’t upset you, asking about Will,” Deb said.
Emma called over her shoulder, “No, don’t worry, you didn’t upset me. But I’ve got to run. There may be a break in my case!”
15
Discouraging Words
At the Walcott trailhead, Emma sprayed pebbles driving out of the parking lot. Ignoring state law, she turned on her concealed emergency lights and fired up the siren. Weaving through traffic, she reached Mittendorf’s in thirty-one minutes, nine less than the usual forty.
Emma was out of breath when she arrived.
“That was quick,” he said.
“What’s the verdict?”
“Looks like your case is now officially a homicide. Have you ever investigated one before? No, never mind, of course you haven’t.”
She shook her head anyway.
“What have you found?”
“Your Mr. Jackson was poisoned by a neurotoxin found in certain marine creatures, like tropical fish, called tetrodotoxin. Imagine a single crystal of salt. A dose that small, injected, can kill a man Ethan Jackson’s size within a minute. And Jackson’s dose was significantly larger. It works fast. Almost instantly, tetrodotoxin increases heart rate, decreases blood pressure—both of which accelerate the poison’s distribution—and paralyzes the body. Breathing stops and so does the heart. I’m rather pleased to have picked this up. It’s not somethi
ng a pathologist sees every day.”
Dr. Mittendorf smiled.
“Moreover,” he continued, “there is no chance that someone could self-inject tetrodotoxin and proceed to climb a ladder and hang himself. Thus, the proximate cause of death is murder by poisoning. Q.E.D., as you might say.”
All Emma could say was, “Wow.”
“There was no mention of a suicide note in the police report,” he said. “As you can probably guess, suicide notes can be, and often are, faked. But no suicide note, right?” Before she could answer, he continued. “Most people don’t know this, but nationwide only about twenty-five to thirty percent of suicides leave notes behind.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well, in Ethan’s case it’s moot. There’s one more datum that I should have picked up on. The ligature marks on his neck are not consistent with a pre-mortem hanging.”
“What about the mark on his ankle?”
“Sorry. Not a clue. I may be good, but I am not clairvoyant.”
Emma asked, “Is there anything else I should know?”
“Indeed, there is, my young investigator. I’ve saved the best for last. I found a dried substance, comprised of fructose, proteolytic enzymes, citric acid, acid phosphatase, and lipids, in and about Mr. Jackson’s anus. Dun-dun, as they say on ‘Law & Order!’ ”
“Huh?”
“Those would be the ingredients of all-natural semen. Without being crude, it’s a bit tricky to get your own semen into your own anus. In other words, Ethan Jackson had sex with a man, likely on Sunday morning.”
“And that means he wasn’t having sex with soccer mom but with someone else. Hmm, maybe Mary and Julian caught Ethan in flagrante delicto and killed him right there? But how could they be ready with the neurotoxin? And what happened to the lover? Where’s he? Is he dead, too?”
“All good questions. By the way, I love a police chief who knows her Latin—”
“Just trying to keep up with you.”
Ever So Silent Page 8
