“I’ve seen it.”
“No,” he insisted. “Come over here.”
I went to the head of the table, eyeing the corpse from all directions, as if lining up a long putt.
“Like my excavation?” the ME asked, like a kid showing off a new toy.
“You’ve—”
“Enhanced it?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
“Sorry about the brain being gone.”
“Me, too,” I lied. The word brain makes me cringe since Carol died.
“I can show it to you later.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s on the baloney slicer. We’re cutting cross sections. That five iron really dug into it.”
“You sure it was a five iron?”
“The blade angle, width, thickness, depth, they all check out. There’s also a mark from the shaft.” The ME pointed to a slight indentation on a shaved section of the scalp.
“This wound is on the left side,” I observed, “along the temple above the left ear.”
“Which means he was hit from behind, by a lefty.”
“But the club was right-handed.”
“And the assailant was over six feet tall.”
“How do you know?” Does political correctness know no bounds? How about calling him a cold-blooded killer instead of an assailant?
“We have tests, measurements, angles, for all heights and weights of assailants with all kinds of weapons. This guy had to be six-three or six-four. We can often calculate it to the centimeter.”
“That’s great,” I said, “but not enough for a conviction.” I know of such tests. They’re often uncannily accurate or hopelessly wrong.
Ignoring my comment, the ME continued, “Think of a baseball swing. Elbows up, as well as the club head, like a Louisville Slugger.”
He showed me his baseball swing. Like a kid playing sandlot, with the corpse as home plate.
“What about the wrist angle?”
“Only a slight variable. You’d be surprised.”
“And the width of the stance?”
“Also slight.”
“How about bending the knees? Some crouch, some stand up straight. If you ask me, the killer could be any height.”
The ME looked at me as if to say, Who asked you?
“Okay,” he admitted. “Maybe we only get it to the inch and not the centimeter.”
“Is that still good?” I said. “I don’t understand the metric system.”
“You and most of this country,” said the ME, off the sand-lot and back on his lectern. “At least you can understand the assailant had to be strong. It takes a lot of force to penetrate the skull so deeply. We use state-of-the-art equipment to measure it exactly.”
“A burly lab technician whacking casaba melons?”
“They do say you’re a wiseass, Kanopka.”
We both had to laugh.
“Could the killer be a woman?” I asked.
“I’ve already considered that,” the ME countered, annoyed at the thought of a flatfoot being one step ahead of science. “I’m sure we both know some very strong women who could whack you for looking sideways at them.”
“Or for peeing into a water hazard? Like our victim?”
“We don’t know that.”
“But his fly was open.” Don’t lab techs open their flies to pee? What’s he wearing under that lab coat?
“So what?”
“Was his bladder empty?”
“Of course. That’s life, when you’re dead.”
“You mean he could have let go after getting whacked?”
After all this time with homicide, I’d forgotten that little fact.
“Involuntary reflex.”
“So when did he die?”
“Midnight, or pretty close.”
“Anything else about the murder weapon?”
“Funny you should ask.” A sudden gleam in the ME’s eye told me he had discovered something important. Something the average flatfoot could never figure out. “We found traces of ash in the wound.”
“Ash?”
“From burned wood. Plus some chlorophyll.”
“From mouthwash, I suppose?”
“From grass.”
“The kind you smoke?”
“You got me, Kanopka. I tried it a time or two in med school, but you’ll never convict me. I never inhaled.”
“Now who’s the wiseass?”
“Okay. It was grass like you find on the golf course, along with some dirt.”
“A club someone played with?”
“What else would you do with it?”
“Kill.” I shrugged, ruling out the shiny new irons from Al Jones’s display rack. “Do any of the clubs we found in the water hazard or out on the course match?”
The ME shook his head.
“How about the footprints?”
“We’re still working on them. There are too many indistincts and partials.”
“Dead end?”
“Maybe not.”
“What else have you got?”
“One good heel print from along the shore.”
“And?”
“One spike’s missing.”
“That could be huge.”
“Let’s hope so. Good footprints often lead to convictions.”
“But there’s one problem,” I considered aloud. “If O’Reilly was murdered long after the course was closed for the evening, why was the killer wearing golf shoes?”
“He played until dark and was looking for a lost ball?”
“’Til midnight?”
“Golf can be obsessive,” the ME said.
“Don’t I know,” I said, wondering if I had time to hit a bucket or two at Eisenhower Park driving range.
Maybe I was going nowhere, despite modern forensics. Which bothered me more than this finicky ME, who couldn’t bust a pricey piece of lab equipment. When his lab work’s done, so is he. But my job’s just beginning. No matter what they say these days, despite DNA and CSI, the leg-work of your average gumshoe far outdistances lab work. After all the evidence is in, someone still needs to catch these creeps. With fast feet and “sizzle in the synapses,” a term Dame Winifred Randall’s prissy little tec is overly fond of using. With both hands tied behind our backs, where the good old wham-bam is concerned, now that the criminal’s rights are more important than the victim’s.
“Anything on the condom and the panties we found in the sand trap?” I asked.
“Semen and pubic hair. In that order. We’re working up the DNA.”
“Maybe it’s O’Reilly’s?”
“You think the killer caught O’Reilly with his wife, or girlfriend, in flagrante delicto?”
“Possibly.”
“Or practicing their sand shots together?”
“With her panties down.”
“I can tell you it wasn’t our corpse’s condom, with no testing whatsoever.”
“How?”
“It’s a magnum.”
“So what? So’s my pistol.”
“Not this guy’s. Perhaps you’re not familiar with a magnum condom.”
“Of course I am. They’re extra-large. I tried one once but split it.”
“Me too,” the ME chuckled. “We’re both big hitters. Long off the tee, and otherwise. But our corpse was carrying a putter in his pants.”
“Really?”
“Take a look.”
I took a sidelong glance at O’Reilly’s pubic region, like you do in men’s locker rooms. His penis was so small it seemed Lorena Bobbitt had attacked him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
O’Reilly had a sprawling house on Dosoris Lane in Lattingtown. Dosoris means widow’s dowry, my wife once told me. It comes from the Latin word for gift. It seems appropriate, since O’Reilly’s wife now owns the house. Usually murder lessens the spirit of giving.
Mrs. O’Reilly could be sitting pretty, unless there’s a whopping mortgage and massive debt, as Randy
Randall supposed. She could be flat-broke homeless. I was still waiting for the credit report. D&Bs can take longer than DNAs. Either way, however, she had a motive for the murder and could have hired the killer or put someone up to it. In absentia is no alibi. Do they mean the same thing? Carol would have known. She also taught Latin, though not to me. I was fearful that dead language, often used to flummox the unsuspecting, when combined with my detective’s devious mind, might turn me into a lawyer.
I noticed that O’Reilly’s driveway had recently been resurfaced, leading me to believe that he may have had some money. I had gotten an estimate for my own driveway, much shorter and narrower, and abandoned the project. It seemed the contractor, who was driving a new Lexus, paved with greenbacks instead of blacktop. He was even the friend of a fellow cop. So much for perks.
O’Reilly’s driveway was lined with impatiens. But flowers are cheap, except for the planting and tending. Unless you do it yourself. Like me, though I don’t tell too many people. Nor do I tell them I do it out of deference to Carol, a real horticulturist who could grow magnificent Maigold roses.
Who tended these beds? I wondered, pulling into O’Reilly’s driveway, parking behind a Mercedes by the front door. Cars are no indication of wealth, however. The richest guy at Broken Oak, I learned from a uniform, as he longingly lampooned the upper crust, owns a food conglomerate and several talk radio stations, conservative of course, but drives a battered old Chevy station wagon.
I had expected to find a few cars here belonging to friends and mourners. The deceased was not well-liked, putting it mildly, so I did not expect a full-blown Irish wake.
I got out of my car, walked to the front door, and pressed the buzzer. Waiting for someone to answer, I noticed the exterior of O’Reilly’s domicile was pretty spiffy. The roof looked new, the gutters seemed in good shape, no paint was peeling. Was O’Reilly in bed with the mob? I had to consider it. Even Tony Soprano plays golf and might prefer a five iron to a firearm when making a hit.
I hit the buzzer several more times. Still no answer. Concluding the house was dead, I decided to look around, hoping there were no guard dogs. I had no mace. And giving guard dogs the good old wham-bam can cost a hand.
I followed a brick-in-sand pathway leading behind the house. The property was big, with plenty of trees and shrubbery. It was also quite private. It looked like O’Reilly had it made until his untimely death. What better way to go, however, than with a fancy address, a gold Rolex, and a belly full of country club booze?
I came to a swimming pool with sparkling sides and shimmering water beyond a gate through a tall privet hedge. The pool reminded me of one in a TV commercial where a guy in a Speedo dives in and the shadow of an airplane glides silently across the water. I did not like flying before 9/11. And I don’t like swimming all that much. But I like the idea of gliding through crystal-clear water better than slogging through the backwaters of crime.
Stepping silently into the gate through the hedge, wary of guard dogs, I peered around a leafy corner. Instead of seeing a guy in a Speedo, I saw a woman bouncing up and down on the diving board. She was also no dog, built like an aerobics instructor, and completely naked. Her ample breasts stayed magically suspended, like twin headlights coming at me, as the rest of her body bounced. And her high beams were definitely on.
She did not see me, however, lurking like a pervert in the privet hedge. She continued bouncing, finally performing a perfect one and a half with no splash on entry. I gave her a ten for everything: dive, tits, overall tan. I would have enjoyed watching a repeat performance but, feeling like a peeper, I stepped back from the hedge and called loudly through the portico, “Anybody home?”
I expected her to shoo me away. Or shout for me to wait while she scrambled for some clothes.
“Come in,” she said calmly, as though I should strip and join her.
I stepped through the gate and found her bobbing in the pool, still naked and unaffected by my presence. I flashed my ID, like a middle-schooler showing off a condom.
“Now I feel safe,” she said, with a wry smile.
I said, “I’m looking for Mrs. O’Reilly.”
“That’s me,” she chirped, still bobbing, her breasts, like twin torpedoes, barely breaking the water’s surface.
“Sorry about your husband,” I said, trying to concentrate on her eyes that were bluer than the water.
“Me too.”
Really? She had some way of showing it. She could also be drunk, on drugs, or trying to drown.
“I have to ask you some questions,” I told her.
“Ask away, Detective.”
“Wouldn’t you like to—”
“Put on some clothes? Who would feel more comfortable? Me or you?”
“Well—”
“I said I’m sorry, but I’m not shattered. Does that make me a suspect?”
She glided toward the diving board, slowly breast-stroking, also exposing her shapely buttocks. I suddenly felt a stirring below my belt, my first erection since my wife died. But now was not the time to regain my sexual prowess.
“Any spouse is a suspect,” I said to a deck chair, trying to ignore my inconvenient tumescence.
She laughed and did a surface dive.
“Were you and your husband separated?” I asked, as she resurfaced.
“Getting divorced,” she said, spitting water. “My husband was a pig, Detective. I don’t mean like a cop. I like cops.”
“I understand.”
“You sound more like a shrink than a cop.”
Wishing that something else would shrink, I sank into a chaise longue with a raging hard-on. If Mrs. O’Reilly continued bobbing or did another surface dive that winked at me, I’d explode and split my pants.
“Who else didn’t get along with your husband?” I tossed out.
“Where should I begin?” she said.
“Wherever you like,” I told her. Just don’t get out and bounce on that diving board again.
“But the list is so long, Detective . . . From bimbos he hustled and dumped through all his business swindles, including everyone at Broken Oak.”
“Dr. Fitch?”
The mere mention of the good doctor’s name caused the pressure to ease in my pants.
“I don’t know him,” she said, performing some underwater aerobics.
“You sure?” I said, wishing I were a carp instead of a cop.
“Or many of the other members,” she added.
What about Al Jones’s member? Do you use the overlapping or the Vardon grip? There must be something going on with all those lessons and never playing a round—of golf, that is.
“When we first joined Broken Oak,” she continued, “I went there a lot. Until I happened to ask some old biddy, just trying to make conversation, why there was no swimming pool. You know the type. She had hair like a blue helmet and sat around all day sipping tea laced with sherry, or whatever, dishing dirt on anyone and everyone. Anyway, she told me that pools were entirely too noisy and attract kids like flies to shit. Of course she didn’t say the s-word, which must be tough for an anal-retentive. She was also letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that I’m not even on the bottom rung of her social ladder. It’s her attitude in general, and that whole club’s, believing that new money stinks on ice and old smells like honeysuckle. And they must hate kids . . .”
She spoke so freely and fast, she could have been on speed. I had to chuckle. When Carol got riled up, she could also go on a roll, spitting venom, swearing like a trucker. But she’d never dance naked on my grave.
“So you quit going?”
“Wouldn’t you, Detective?”
“What about all your golf lessons?”
“Mind turning your back? I’m getting out.”
Why is she suddenly modest? I turned my back, since the only weapons she carried were those torpedo-like tits, and noticed Nelson DeMille’s latest best-seller lying on a deck chair with a cell phone as a bookmark.
; “You see, Detective, and please don’t turn around yet, I only took lessons in the hope of being able to play with my husband. I wanted to please him but couldn’t get the knack.”
He must have been deaf, dumb, and blind.
“Golf is so difficult,” she added. “After my run-in with helmet hair, lessons were the only reason I ever went to Broken Oak. But I never played.”
“Why not?”
“I would only have embarrassed myself. You can turn around now.”
“But you look athletic,” I said, facing her again.
She wore a short terrycloth robe, letting it flap open occasionally.
“I’m a good swimmer and diver,” she told me, “but making solid contact with that little white ball eludes me. Sometimes I miss it by a mile.”
“Maybe Al Jones is a lousy teacher.”
“Oh, no. It’s that silk purse out of a sow’s ear sort of thing.”
“Are you and Al Jones lovers?” I hoped my abruptness would startle her into a confession.
“Why, Detective,” the widow O’Reilly said, sealing her robe shut. “You do get right to the point, don’t you?”
She pulled a pair of mirrored Ray-Bans from a pocket in the robe and put them on.
“Have I touched a nerve?” I asked.
“I wasn’t fucking the golf pro,” she said evenly.
“You can also get to the point.”
“I was also in Florida when my husband was murdered.”
“We know.”
“And I just got back.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to look inside the house.”
“Got a search warrant?”
“Do I need one?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Detective, I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Believe me, I noticed.
“Mind if I call headquarters first?” I asked. “They like me to check in once in a while.”
“You can use my cell phone,” she said. “But don’t lose my place. Ever read Nelson DeMille?”
“Only Byron Nelson.”
“Who?”
“They called him Lord Byron.”
“Sorry. I’ve never heard of detectives liking poetry.”
“I’m sensitive,” I said, trying not to grin like an idiot. Or admit that Byron Nelson was a great golfer, lord of the links, with a swing that’s poetical.
Deadly Divots Page 6
