The Safe Word

by Karen Long

  He nodded.

  “When did you find the body?”

  “’Bout an hour ago,” he said. “And I aint no idea how they got in or why they chose here,” he snapped.

  Eleanor nodded and turned towards the entrance. “Why did you say ‘they’? You think there was more than one person involved.

  “I meant her what’s dead in there and him what took her in there. That makes ‘they’ in my opinion,” he snarled.

  “Hmm,” replied Eleanor. “Any other way they could have gotten in to the building. The man paused, as if thinking about that. “Only if they could fly.”

  “Thank you Mr Heston. I will need to talk to you further.” She caught his sigh as she stepped carefully under the police tape, nodded curtly to the officer who held it aloft for her and made her way slowly to where the tungsten lights had been positioned.

  Once inside, Eleanor didn’t rush because the victim had all the time in the world and she needed to gather her first impressions. She studiously avoided looking at the illuminated creation hanging like a chrysalis from the cross beam and channeled her energies into interpreting the surrounding environment. The first thing she noticed was the intense cold in the building. It seemed at least three degrees colder than the surrounding lakeshore area, which didn’t make sense to her. Although some sections of the building were exposed to the elements, the integrity of the external walls mostly remained. It should, in her opinion be warmer.

  She moved around the periphery of the violence and took in an impression of the space. This section of the building must originally have housed the turbines. The roof, or what remained of it, was at least fifty meters high and the space was the length of a football field. The walls, damp and pocked, sprouted twists of rusted steel and a huge gaping wound where a section of walkway had been removed for scrap. She gazed at the floor, which was littered with fresh raccoon shit and looked for signs of previous human activity. Unusually there were none: no butt ends, no condoms, needles or rags. Why? She caught a glimpse of two white gowned and booted CSIs looking at her impatiently, she would give the sign when she was ready and not until. She inhaled deeply, trying to capture another scent, something other than fur, mould, and the ominous tang of airborne carcinogens but there was nothing. Usually she could detect or believe she detected the pheromones given off by fear. Semen gave off the fishy tang of cadaverine and putrescine but there wasn’t a hint of that here and the metallic stink of blood wouldn’t hit them until the plastic cocoon was opened.

  Why here? She took in a 360º slow turn and tried to capture the sense of the place, what it could mean to the murderer and then she knew. It was a cathedral. The high vaulted ceiling, echoing chambers and implications of power. This was where a sacred act had been performed. Eleanor turned her gaze to the suspended body, wrapped protectively in a transparent plastic liner and moved a little closer. She snatched two bootie covers from the outstretched hand of the CSI and slipped them over her shoes before she walked into the light, taking care not to step on any scuff marks. A raised voice from the darkness indicated that the pathologist had arrived, which allowed her a few more moments before the wheels of crime scene processing began to turn. The woman’s body was partially visible in the plastic liner but a build up of blood and moisture made some areas difficult to make out. From where she stood Eleanor could see that the body was suspended by a single chain, its links about three inches in length, without a hint of rust on them. It would seem unlikely that the chain had been located in the building, but had been brought in for purpose. However, the hook that had been inserted between the cervical vertebrae looked rusty, though it was difficult to get a good look as it was hidden by the woman’s bleached hair, which clung wetly to it. If the hook had been inserted while she was alive it was unlikely that she would have continued breathing for long as the neck had an unnatural kilter to it. The woman’s face was resting lightly against the heavy plastic liner. Her eyes were open, both pupils fixed and dilated. It was difficult to make out her features as her make-up had been smeared into black smudges beneath her eyes, which were beginning to flatten and take on a milky hue. Her mouth was an unnatural red gash, looking more like a clown’s than merely smudged lipstick.

  As Eleanor took in the surroundings, Dr Mira Hounslow, the chief medical officer approached. A petite woman, immaculately dressed, her hair elaborately piled and pinned into a chignon, she spoke in a deceptively quiet and controlled manner but Eleanor and the entire city detective force knew better.

  “What can you see?” asked Dr Hounslow.

  “Planning, lots of planning,” Eleanor replied slowly. Both women stared at the body hanging several feet above the ground.

  The pathologist waited patiently for her to elaborate.

  “Look at the mouth. Her face is bloody but the red around her mouth hasn’t oxidised so it’s not blood. It’s lipstick and it’s been applied by the killer, repeatedly by the look of the build-up.” said Eleanor.

  Dr Hounslow looked and nodded carefully. “Meaning?”

  “That he brought a lipstick with him for that purpose,” said Eleanor.

  “Or?”

  “Or, he had the time to go through her purse find hers and utilise it. Time equals patience and patience…”

  “Equals planning,” finished Dr Hounslow quietly and stared at Eleanor.

  “If he’s organised and plans, then he’ll do it again,” said Eleanor darkly.

  A commotion was taking place in the ring of darkness outside of the arena but Eleanor didn’t need to investigate, Marty Samuelson always brought a halo of chaos wherever he went. Marty had been Eleanor’s boss since she’d graduated ten years ago. He had nurtured her progress through the ranks in a clumsy but caring sort of way. A family man and proud of it, he’d never managed to slough off his disgust at the deeds of men and his desire to make the city a safer, more sanitised place.

  “What the fuck!” Samuelson’s voice trailed off as he gazed at the murder scene. “Are you not still mystified by the actions of mankind Dr Hounslow?” he asked the doctor, leaving his mouth slightly ajar to emphasise his outrage.

  “Beyond shockable, you know that Chief Inspector,” she replied calmly as she took a temperature reading. “It’s colder in here than out.”

  “Are you ready Raven?” asked Samuelson. Eleanor nodded to the CSIs hovering impatiently on the periphery and waited as they began to spread across the scene, each one having had several minutes to coordinate their approach to the collecting.

  “I want her ID’d as soon as possible, understand? You can have Timms, Wadesky and Smith when he’s finished in court.” Eleanor nodded while catching the eye of the patrol officer. “I want constant updates and a debrief by lights out.”

  “Sir,” she responded.

  “Call me when she’s in Autopsy, I’m coming down for that,” he said to Dr Hounslow and with a final shake of his head at the outrageous nature of the crime, made to leave. “One last thing Raven.”

  Eleanor knew what was coming and felt heavy. “Sir?”

  “No more temping with Wadesky.”

  Eleanor frowned at this.

  “For Christ’s sake she’s seven months pregnant. I want her behind a desk, not backing you up.”

  “It’s just till Mo comes back,” she heard the infantile pleading in her voice and felt ashamed.

  “Don’t give me that shit!” hissed her boss. “You’ve had three weeks to make some suggestions as to who you’re going to partner and you’ve not said a thing. Mo isn’t coming back!” This was met with silence from Eleanor. Detective Artie Morris, known to everyone, including his six children as Mo, had been her partner for the past seven years. He was short, ridiculously fat and where Marty Samuelson could see only the corruption of the human spirit, Mo just saw weakness. He seemed to understand with saint-like patience that human beings were meant to fall and keep on falling no matter how many times they were picked up, dusted off and sent on their way. Not that he was an indifferent man
, he had once knocked a man’s teeth clean out of his head for declaring that his twelve-year-old murdered and mutilated daughter, ‘Had it comin’’. This in itself was quite a feat as the man was twice his height and Mo hadn’t swung an arm further than the doughnut counter in fifteen years.

  Eleanor had made the mistake of believing that a man like Mo was somehow above and beyond the commonplace ailments that afflict the rest of humanity and when he keeled over in the canteen with a massive heart attack the only person who hadn’t seen it coming was her. In fact, the most mysterious part of the whole business was how Mo had managed to survive his own death. He’d been clinically dead for at least forty-five minutes before his abused organs rumbled back into action and now, after a heart bypass, and gastric band he was just about capable of staggering from the front door to the porch without the aid of his wife. Eleanor hadn’t really come to terms with the fact that Mo’s days in the force were over but Marty Samuelson was working on it.

  “Detective Whitefoot will be joining you later on this morning.” With that he turned on his heels, gathered his cloud of commotion and disappeared into the darkness. At the risk of making another peevish comment, Eleanor decided that silence said more. She cleared her mind of troubled thoughts and directed it at the crime scene. Dr Hounslow moved away to talk to her assistant, who was directing a minion to point his camera on some minute marks.

  Eleanor began to focus her attention on the obscene chrysalis that held the woman’s body. The victim’s body, from what she could see, was covered in a mass of cuts, bruises and possible burn marks. There was a fair amount of blood, though nothing she saw made her think this had been a quick kill, on the contrary it looked as if it had been staged but where? She looked around her and saw nothing to indicate that a violent crime had taken place here. She looked below the body and saw what looked like the regular furrows caused by a yard broom. “Did he sweep before or after?” Eleanor asked the CSI, who was painstakingly taking samples from the floor and placing dust into a small plastic wallet.

  “Stop!” came the authoritative tones of the unit head Susan Cheung. “Did anyone walk over here, towards me?” Everyone was listening; no one responded. “Sure?” There was a hum of conviction from everyone. “Then our guy wore plastic bootie covers.” Eleanor made her way cautiously over to where Susan was standing.

  “See that?” She pointed at a line of ill-defined footsteps. “The crease marks obscuring the tread have been made by some sort of covering, no visible fibres so I reckon he’s got on our bootie covers,” said Susan.

  “When can you confirm this?” asked Eleanor.

  Susan shrugged, “Depends whether I can get a shoe size or chemical trace of the plastic.” Susan stopped talking and returned to the floor. Eleanor followed the path taken by the killer with her eyes, it seemed to bank round sharply to the left, before heading towards an adjacent wall to where the team entered. She tried to visualise the killer and his movements.

  “Are the footsteps entering or leaving?” asked Eleanor.

  “That’s the weird thing,” said Susan waving her arm to elaborate. “The feet are all facing the victim.” Keeping clear of the footprints, Susan walked parallel to the killer’s trail. “They all face forward but there are two distinct lanes.” She had nearly reached the wall. “The footprints stop here and there is a cross-print as if he’d turned round and then…” Susan looked perplexed.

  “He backed away from his work, looking at the body. He walked backwards because he couldn’t take his eyes off her,” said Eleanor with a note of excitement in her voice. “Can you see any marks that could have been made by a ladder?” Susan’s head dropped as she examined the area around the footprints.

  “Yes,” she said calmly. Her head lifted up and she scanned the wall.

  “Get a light on that wall,” Eleanor called to a CSI standing near a lamp. When the light levelled out, it revealed a window about thirty feet above Susan’s head. There was no obvious way of getting up to it but someone with a ladder could have climbed down. But with a body?

  “I’m not seeing how he could have got through there,” said Susan. “It’s too high, too small. Wait there’s a wooden fascia, maybe there’s a pull down ladder behind it?”

  “I need to get onto that roof,” said Eleanor to an anxious looking patrol cop. He nodded and began to make his way towards the entrance. “No!’ yelled Eleanor, “Go around!” The patrol cop nodded and looked around desperately for a way of getting to the exit without contaminating the scene further.

  Away from the crime scene Patrolman Steph Ellis was notably calmer and more helpful. It was mid-afternoon in Toronto and the cold, grey autumnal day was making it difficult to distinguish the external features of the wall, a great amount being covered in a flourishing bindweed.

  “How would you get up there Ellis?” asked Eleanor catching his nametag.

  “Am I carrying the lady ma’am?” he said eagerly.

  “Let’s say no, for the moment,” replied Eleanor. He took a moment or two to look around the outside of the building and then with the boundless energy of a twenty-something he climbed onto a low wall, walked several paces along it and then pulled himself up to a ledge to his left. He then disappeared behind a leaf-covered parapet, emerging moments later at least ten feet higher and only a couple of paces away from the window.

  “Is there anything there? Footprints, some sign that someone climbed up there?” yelled Eleanor.

  “No ma’am, nothing I can see but… hang on! Yeah these look like partial footprints!”

  “Ellis, watch where you’re putting your feet! Don’t over-tread understand?”

  “Got it,” he shouted back.

  She watched impressed as he took a balletic leap of a least five feet to clear the tread marks and shimmied along the narrow ledge that led to the window. He peered at the window frame, took out his torch and expertly shone it around the casing and then through the window. He let out a low whistle and then shouted down to her. “I think it’s been opened recently.”

  “Why do you think that? And don’t touch it.” Eleanor yelled up.

  “There’s what looks like drag marks, like someone squeezed through. But I’m not sure.” She watched as he pushed gently on the window frame, while trying to keep his balance on the thin parapet. The window swung open easily from a central pivot. “It’s been oiled ma’am,” he yelled down at her. Eleanor smiled to herself as she saw his head disappear out of sight. His torso twisted and then he let out another whistle. “There’s a ladder, one of those pull down jobs. It’s hidden behind a wooden cover, you’d never have known it was here.” He stared down at her, “But I don’t see how he could have carried her up here alive or dead.”

  “Can you see the body from the window?” she called up.

  “Yes. It’s parallel with my line of sight.”

  “Come down,” called Eleanor. She watched him step off the ledge and, uninterested in the rest of his progress, walked back into the building.

  “I need one of your guys to check out a possible means of entry. Patrolman Ellis is outside and will show you,” said Eleanor to Susan Cheung, who nodded. She looked at Dr Hounslow who was standing next to the body and debating with her assistant Matt Gains how they were going to release the body. “Matt’s going to cut through the chain with a bolt cutter and we’re going to lower her.” But before Dr Hounslow could finish, Eleanor had turned quickly on her heel and headed towards the entrance. She saw Patrolman Ellis explaining to a CSI how he accessed the window but her attention was on the lock and chain. “Get me the security guard,” she barked at Ellis.

  Mr Heston’s expression was, in Eleanor’s opinion, considerably more shifty than it had been when she spoke to him earlier about the lock.

  “You’re lying to me and I want only the facts from now on,” she said bluntly.

  “I dunno what you mean,” replied Mr Heston, his voice trembling slightly.

  “The lock and chain were replaced this week am I
right?” said Eleanor firmly.

  “I don’t know nothin’ about that,” he said with a stubbornness that implied that a different tactic was required.

  “You’re ill, correct?” Eleanor watched his lip curl in disgust. “Cancer I’m guessing and you don’t want to lose this job, right?” Mr Heston’s lip was now quivering and a ghostly pallor was beginning to spread across his cheeks.

  “I like this job,” he said tonelessly.

  “But you made a mistake didn’t you?” He stared at her face, unsure of whether to continue. “I need to know Mr Heston but the company doesn’t.” she added more gently. He licked his lips and leaned into her. She could smell the sulfurous compounds on his breath.

  “The lock and chain. My key wouldn’t work and I knew… I thought that someone had changed it. It was the same type as mine but the key just didn’t work.”

  “So you cut it off and replaced it with your own, right?”

  He swallowed hard, “They’ll sack me ’cos I never reported it in. Look I need this job,”

  “When, which day?” Eleanor asked.

  “Saturday. I found it out Saturday morning and replaced it in the afternoon.” She nodded. “She dead because of me?” he choked.

  “Not unless you killed her Mr Heston.” He shook his head violently. “Did you see anything else that might help me out here? Because you are owing me some help at the moment.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “It’s quiet ’ere. I aint seen no cars, no people. I’d…” Eleanor held her breath as he considered something. “The dust,” he seemed embarrassed. “I went in to do my rounds on Saturday and I was surprised at how dusty the air was,” he shrugged.

  “As if someone had swept the floors?” she added.

  “I guess that’d explain it. It just seemed strange that there was so much dust in the air.”

  Eleanor watched as the team, led by Matt, cut through the chain and gently lowered the body onto a gurney. Dr Hounslow, satisfied that she had nothing more to contribute outside of the morgue, gathered her bag and with a final chat to the gurney men, headed for the exit. “Give me till three, I’ve got another call to make before I can get back to the office,” said the pathologist.