Over My Dead Body

by Dave Warner

  ‘You want to come down for TOD? Like I say, I got a free hand for now.’

  ‘I’m there. Can Percy come?’

  ‘Yeah, it’ll make it easier to punch him in the face.’

  ‘See you soon, then.’

  She told Holmes.

  ‘He knows what we’ve been doing and he is threatening violence.’

  ‘He has every right,’ said Holmes.

  Now she wanted to punch him. ‘Oh stop it! I’m thirty years old …’

  ‘Thirty-three.’

  Boy, did she want to punch him.

  ‘Pedant,’ she snapped. ‘There are young women dying and if I can make a difference, I am going to. And you are not my father.’

  ‘No, I am considerably his senior.’

  ‘Get ready. We’re heading to the crime scene. If you want to risk it.’

  Just under twenty minutes later, Harry met them at the perimeter of the crime tape. The skies were leaden, a greasy sleet descending like waste from a leaky sewage pipe, and Harry fit the scene in a thick overcoat with a longshoreman woolen cap on his head.

  ‘I am definitely too old for this. First day back, I’m fishing out a body almost the same spot as twenty years ago. What goes around, comes around.’ He directed that last remark right at Holmes. ‘Georgi, why don’t you go to the body? Percy and I need a chat.’ She didn’t budge. ‘Go, on,’ Harry pointed. Holmes nodded. She understood it might be more humiliating for him if she were to remain, so she moved over to the scene.

  As it was a staging post, not the scene of the crime itself, she only needed to make sure she did not contaminate the body. Though he wasn’t a homicide detective, Harry was the most senior cop in the precinct by years and it was his job to run the crime scene till the homicide detectives were assigned. She slipped into a crime suit, thought again about how easy it was to wrangle her non-descript hair and how difficult it would have been for the news anchor. And was still envious. Simone got the hair, she got the legs. But then Simone got the bust and curves as well and they were in fashion. Georgette stepped into the tent. Lights were on high. Kelvin was shooting the victim. The moment he saw Georgette, he called out, ‘Could we have those lights off for a moment?’

  Georgette nodded appreciatively.

  The lights were doused. It was dark inside now. With the pale skin of an Irish ancestor, Harry’s partner Zac Feeney was twenty years Harry’s junior. Georgette greeted him, asked how Lara and the kids were doing. Zac replied they were all good. It was an odd discourse when you were looking at the body of a young woman. She clicked on her powerful penlight, played it over the corpse. One glance and you knew this wasn’t Noah’s work. No slashed throat, clothing intact but bruising already showing on the neck. Crime of passion maybe, boyfriend or husband.

  ‘The ME has been?’

  ‘Just missed her,’ said Feeney. The medical examiner would have drawn her own quick conclusions before a full autopsy. Georgette wasn’t here to determine cause of death, just TOD, but the eyes and the neck bruising told her it was likely strangulation, maybe drowning. She knelt down close. There was no saving this young woman, even though she’d been in icy water. Her skin was grey but there was no sign of decay. Recent.

  Harry’s voice came from somewhere behind. ‘We got a call and the water guys were onto it quick.’ She couldn’t help looking around, saw Holmes standing at the back near the tent entrance. His nose didn’t appear to be broken.

  Harry started up again. ‘By the look of her she wasn’t in there that long. She had a business card on her, Rebecca Chaney, address in Jersey. All I need is your best guess time of death, then we get out of here.’ It would be the junior patrolmen who would then have to freeze their butts off. Aware of his daughter’s preferences, her father clicked on his more powerful flashlight and shone it over the body. Late thirties, early forties, she was thinking now. She held Rebecca’s arm. As one would expect, it was like an ice block. Nails manicured, nice clothes, maybe her best, they looked hardly worn. No shoes. Georgette checked the nose, mouth, ears, then her chest and stomach. No bruising here. An expensive bra, her skin the same grey but her back was more purple. No sign that her underwear had been removed at any time.

  ‘She’d been in the water about four hours before you pulled her out but she’s been dead longer. My guess, kept in a freezer on her back.’

  ‘How do you estimate that?’ Feeney seemed genuinely impressed.

  ‘Experience,’ Georgette said. ‘She was probably killed the night before last. She’s had her nails done, and I’d be guessing, hair too. She’s wearing three hundred bucks worth of new underwear. You’re not wearing that to work, even for a lunch date. And she wasn’t held captive for any length of time because her nails are perfect. She’s in too good condition for it to have been any longer.’

  ‘Okay, thanks for that,’ said Harry. ‘Feeney and me have to head to Brooklyn and secure the apartment for Crime Scene.’

  ‘Brooklyn aren’t doing that?’

  ‘It’s officially listed as Benson’s case, hence Queens, till he assigns somebody else. We have to meet and greet Crime Scene and whichever Homicide Ds they send. My guess, it will wind up being Brooklyn, all ours are busy with the serial killer. Come on, Seamus,’ said Harry to Feeney. With that he turned on his heel and left. She hurried past Holmes as if he were a spear carrier in a vast opera, back into the grey air, pulling free her latex gloves. Feeney had the good sense to hang back.

  ‘Stop.’ Her words flew back at her, carried on the lashing breeze.

  Harry turned, faced her, grouchy.

  ‘You can’t blame Percy.’

  ‘Why not? He’s the one got you involved in chasing a serial killer.’

  ‘I’m the one got me involved.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have had a clue about the book.’

  ‘He didn’t put a gun to my head.’

  ‘No, but somebody else might have. You know what I went through when I thought you were dead?’ Before she could answer, Harry jabbed a finger. ‘And the worst thing is, I told him that. Last night, I told him what it was like to think you’d lost your child.’

  ‘Percy wanted to keep me out of it, I refused.’

  ‘So he just rolled over?’

  ‘What was he going to do, slap me down? Look, everything we uncovered, we turned over to Benson.’

  At least Harry was silent now. An improvement.

  She pushed on. ‘We tried Benson and he wasn’t available. And neither were you.’

  That was underhand, she knew, but she’d kept the dagger just in case. Now she went for her coup de grâce.

  ‘You just said how terrible it was to think you’d lost me. The parents of three young women right now know exactly how you felt. We were trying to stop it being four. You’re worried I might get hurt, great. How do you think Simone and I felt year after year when you went off to work?’

  He went to speak, but thought better of it.

  ‘Percy is a brilliant detective. Why don’t you let him help?’

  ‘With this? It’s not up to me.’

  ‘It is for now.’

  She stared him down. He relented.

  ‘After Crime Scene are done and until we know who’s running the case.’

  It was a nice apartment, Georgette thought, a kind of Hawaiian theme, bamboo, cane furniture, a vintage valve-radio. A corkboard in the kitchen area showed the dead woman in photo snaps with various groups of people. She knew Holmes’ heart wasn’t in it, knew he was still wrapped up in thoughts of Noah but she felt that if she could keep Holmes occupied on another case, the chances of him trespassing on Benson’s turf would be so much less. He was gowned up, carefully studying the photos.

  ‘Most of these are old,’ he said pointing at the faded color. Rebecca Chaney looked younger in them but then, she hadn’t been viewed in the most flattering of circumstances.

  ‘These days people hardly ever get hard copies of photos done. Everything is stored in the cloud or on a USB.’ As sh
e said it, she had a pang, realising that the disappearance of all things familiar must be a constant for Holmes. There were three more recent snaps taken by the looks of it in the same session against the mantlepiece. They showed Rebecca Chaney and two girlfriends dressed up, ready for a night out.

  ‘Those are polaroids. People take those for fun. They develop pretty well instantly.’

  Holmes studied the images like he was straining their world through gauze. Crime scene techs were still processing the bedroom but had finished here. Holmes moved to the centre of the living room. Two empty wine glasses sat on a low cane and glass coffee table. So far Harry and Holmes had kept a wide berth, Harry knocking on neighbors’ doors and scaring up the super. Holmes walked down to the bedroom, stood there a long moment, taking it in. Feeney drifted through.

  ‘Rebecca Chaney, thirty-eight, divorced six years ago, no priors, works as a realtor. Looks like you were right about time of death. Just spoke to her boss. She never turned up for work yesterday, which was unusual. They rang her cell but nobody answered.’

  ‘Of course she was right,’ said Harry gruffly, from out in the hallway as he put on a crime suit. Eerie flashes of irregular light from the bedroom betrayed Kelvin’s presence. ‘My daughter is never wrong.’ That with a lot of needle.

  He finally entered the apartment and took a quick look around, not getting too invested.

  ‘Carter and Gomez are on their way,’ he told Feeney. Georgette knew them to be Homicide detectives from Queens. ‘They’re going take a look just in case then hand it over to Brooklyn.’ Holmes re-joined them.

  Feeney said, ‘A bottle of wine had been left in the freezer and exploded.’

  ‘She was expecting somebody.’ Georgette caught a whiff of her own loneliness.

  ‘How it looks,’ said Feeney. ‘Table set for two, candles, wine glasses.’

  Harry and Holmes said nothing, more interested in one another.

  ‘Had she cooked anything?’ asked Georgette, looking in the fridge.

  ‘Nothing in the oven,’ said Feeney.

  ‘Maybe they were having take-out,’ speculated Harry as he checked the dishwasher, and found large mixing bowls freshly washed. ‘No baking dish in here.’

  Holmes broke his silence to ask what had been in the ‘rubbish bin’.

  ‘Garbage got collected yesterday morning,’ Harry informed them.

  Georgette was forming an image now. Rebecca Chaney had met somebody she wanted to impress. You couldn’t be certain it was a man but chances were. She’d had her hair and nails done. If she did cook dinner, she’d cleared out the trash in the apartment and washed up prior to the arrival of her guest. Holmes checked the oven and then the drawers.

  ‘There appears to be no baking dish anywhere,’ he said.

  ‘So they were having take-out?’ Georgette was surprised. Something about this place, what she’d learned of Rebecca, suggested she would have been wanting to impress with a homemade meal. Harry was already ahead of her with Holmes.

  ‘If she did cook, the perp took dinner with him, baking pan and all.’

  ‘Charming. You kill the cook and then make off with the food,’ said Feeney.

  Nothing about human behavior surprised Harry anymore. The building super had said Rebecca Chaney was a nice young woman who lived alone.

  ‘Social but not a party hound,’ was how he had described her.

  Georgette noted Holmes carefully studying the mantlepiece on which were a few nick-knacks picked up from pawn shops or perhaps kept from childhood; a figurine of a sprawled dog, a delicate ice skater, scented candles heavy enough to crack a skull. God, this could almost be her place. But that wasn’t what he was looking at. What he was looking at was the first thing you noticed when you entered the apartment. Above the mantlepiece was a lovely old mirror. Scrawled across it in some kind of white marker were the words ‘Save Me’.

  ‘I don’t like that, not one bit,’ said Harry, coming to stand next to Holmes. ‘Nothing worse than a psycho who murders and then wants you to save them. Like they’re planning their defense before they are even caught.’

  ‘You think she was killed here?’ asked Holmes.

  ‘I think so. Unless the killer came back later and wrote that.’

  ‘Apart from the rug here,’ Holmes indicated the rug where it was rumpled, ‘there seems hardly any sign of a struggle.’

  ‘You’re right. Looks like the killer dragged her to the middle of the room and choked her there,’ said Feeney.

  ‘Security cameras?’ asked Georgette.

  ‘We wish.’ Harry was rueful as a Red Sox fan recalling Bill Buckner’s error of 1986.

  ‘Why not leave her here?’ asked Holmes as much to himself as either of them.

  Feeney spoke. ‘Maybe somebody knows he, or she, was going to meet Rebecca here and he or she wanted to make it look like she left of her own accord.’

  ‘But then, why leave the message?’ said Holmes, standing in front of the mirror and looking up at those words just above his forehead as if it might be a clue from God.

  ‘Maybe it’s the ex trying to make it seem like a psycho,’ suggested Harry.

  Georgette thought that made sense. Perhaps whoever it was who killed her wasn’t whoever was supposed to be coming for dinner. Maybe the jealous ex killed her and the date turned up, thought he’d been stood up and left? She could imagine a jealous ex taking the dinner as his right.

  ‘I’d speak to her hairdresser and manicurist,’ said Georgette. ‘This was a big deal for her. I doubt she would have sat on that. Even if she didn’t tell her co-workers or best friend, she was sitting there for a long time. I think it had been a while between drinks.’

  Holmes looked at her with a question rising to his lips.

  ‘Experience,’ she said, anticipating.

  Harry said he would pass that observation on to Homicide.

  ‘You have any amazing insights, Percy?’ Harry’s tone wasn’t sarcastic but it wasn’t quite genuine either.

  ‘I am afraid not. The killer struck from behind, he used both hands and he was taller than her. But then she was a petite woman. He was careful. He almost certainly wore gloves. If he moved the body in a vehicle, which seems likely, then your best chance would appear to be him or his vehicle being identified as he disposed of the body, first here and then in the water.’

  Harry’s radio buzzed. It was one of the patrolmen stationed outside. He’d asked him to let him know the moment Carter and Gomez turned up and had warned Georgette and Holmes in advance.

  ‘They’re here,’ came the distorted voice.

  Holmes turned to Georgette and said, ‘I think we should leave the professionals to it.’

  In the cab on the way back, Holmes’ mood was still of a dark hue. His facility to go from a human being to an automaton was disconcerting. You thought you were getting to know him, thought there was even something … special, about your relationship, but it was in your mind. He was like a trout you saw every day in a stream. It gave you the illusion there was a connection but then it just swam off into parts unknown, down among weeds and cold currents and left you gazing at the water’s unbroken skin with a wicker basket on your arm and too many sandwiches for one.

  ‘You think Dad might be right? The message could be a deliberate distraction.’

  Holmes came back from wherever his mind had wandered. ‘Quite possibly. It is pointless speculating however, until their science has run its course. That is how you trap a killer, Watson. Noah on the other hand …’ he allowed silence to bury the end of the sentence while he studied the drifting snow.

  Her phone rang, and this time it was Benson to tell her that they had traced the other two people at the discussion group and ruled them out.

  ‘They weren’t anywhere near New York,’ he said. ‘We asked them if they told anybody else about the Picture Book Killer, both said no, they hadn’t even thought about it since. So far no indication that any of our persons of interest were in contact with any o
f the victims.’

  She wanted to tackle him on why he spilled to her father but she supposed it was going to come up sooner or later. She hadn’t asked him to keep it from Harry.

  ‘I gotta go, catch you later,’ said Benson and ended the call. She relayed the news, or absence of it to Holmes, who received it with a grunt.

  ‘I should go to my lab,’ she said. ‘Do you want to join me?’

  ‘Of course, Watson. A little scientific education can do no harm.’

  Zoe’s condition had deteriorated and Vernon’s had not improved but the others seemed unchanged.

  ‘I think it might be a virus,’ she explained as she checked them. ‘These two were in adjacent cages.’

  Holmes was intrigued by the process of revival.

  ‘The remarkable thing is that John Watson was absolutely on the right track with you. He simply didn’t have the hardware to continually configure the gaseous mix.’ As she was talking him through it, she was thinking that it would be best to test each of the hamsters individually to see if any of their cognitive or physical functions were showing deterioration. This involved creating a series of mazes or obstacles which the hamsters had been trained to negotiate in order to be rewarded with food. Holmes assisted her, raising no objection at being treated like a lab assistant. By the time they had tested all the remaining hamsters it was early evening. She began running a comparative analysis of each hamster against their previous performance. Esther and Jonas were showing signs of cognitive impairment too. Darn. They were in cages three and four and had been right next to Zoe and Vernon. And now she thought about it, closest to the air-conditioning ducts. Could there be some kind of bacterial infection spread via that? That would be potentially much more worrying.

  She looked up to find Holmes studying her.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I am impressed by how solicitous you are, and how concerned for each of these animals. It is a fine quality.’

  She felt self-conscious and looked for a diversion.

  ‘You want something to eat?’ she said. ‘There’s a dispenser up near the foyer. The soup is actually reasonable. Though I guess that’s drinking not eating.’ She was babbling now.