by Mike Markel
“We’ll get her—whoever she is. Or he. But you have to let the case develop at its own speed. You have to let it unfold—”
“If you say ‘like a flower,’ I swear you’re off the case.” I put the blinker on and headed back into traffic.
“Like a delicate flower.”
Chapter 14
“I think you might find this interesting, Karen.” Harold Breen lumbered toward me as Ryan and I walked into his lab. Robin, the Evidence Tech, was on the other side of the lab, studying a folder.
“What’s that, Harold?” I kept my distance. Not from Harold. From Austin Sulenka, resting in peace on the steel table.
“Asphyxia was one of the first therapies suggested for erectile dysfunction.”
“You strangle yourself to get wood?”
“Executioners noticed that a lot of guys who were hanged got an erection, and some of them even orgasmed. Further study showed that this type of orgasm wasn’t exactly what asphyxiophiles are looking for—”
“What did you just say?”
“An asphyxiophile is someone who likes to get strangled to achieve greater sexual pleasure. As I was saying, when guys orgasmed when they were hanged, it was due to a complete muscle relaxation, which is not what happens with the sex games, but that’s when scientists first made the connection between asphyxia and sexual pleasure.”
I wish people would stop trying to educate me. “So how did Austin Sulenka die?”
“Austin died of hypoxia. Too little oxygen. The carotid arteries, on either side of the neck, were constricted, reducing the blood flow to the brain. The brain died, which made the rest of him die.”
“Is there any doubt about the medical cause of death?”
Harold shook his head. “No, it was clear.” He thought for a moment. “Let me say that better. The proximate cause was hypoxia, the loss of oxygen to the brain. This was caused probably by a combination of two ultimate causes: asphyxia and ischemia. When he was strangled, he was asphyxiated. No air into his lungs. But he also suffered ischemia, the loss of blood flow to the brain. I don’t know if it’s possible to determine the causality, in terms of whether the blood wasn’t carrying enough oxygen when it got to the brain or whether the blood was sufficiently oxygenated but couldn’t get to the brain.”
“But in terms of what killed him?”
“In terms of what killed him, he died because his brain didn’t get enough oxygen because someone strangled him.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“One-hundred percent.” He walked over to the body on the table. He pulled back the sheet covering Austin’s body and pointed to his neck. “These little red marks around his neck, the petechiae, are burst capillaries caused by physical pressure. When I open up his neck, I’m going to see bruising and trauma to the neck. Probably damage to the voicebox, too, and the hyoid bone.”
“Is this murder, suicide, or an accident?” I said.
“I’m just telling you the mechanism of death. Robin can talk about the manner.”
“It’s homicide,” she said.
I stood there, waiting for her to say more. “I appreciate your conciseness.”
“You want more?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“Every year in the U.S., about five-hundred people, maybe as many as a thousand, mostly guys, die from accidental strangulation. They’re jerking off, they’ve got ropes or cords, or they put plastic bags on their heads, or they suck chemicals from a spray can. The loss of oxygen and the build-up of carbon dioxide in the brain cause a semi-hallucinogenic state that increases the intensity of the orgasm. Guys who are really into it say it’s as good as cocaine, and just as addictive.”
“So it could’ve been an accident. You said it was homicide.” I was getting a little impatient.
“Absolutely. Even though guys set up all kinds of escape mechanisms, the fact that they’re flying solo means that sometimes they lose consciousness and can’t activate them.”
“But you didn’t find any bags or cords or spray cans, right?”
“True, but one of the things that happens a lot is that the scene is disturbed post-mortem. Someone comes in, sees the corpse, and removes the paraphernalia. That’s possible here.”
“All right. Let’s go through this. Could it be suicide?”
“Intentional? Very unlikely. Guys who do this are trying to feel pleasure. They’re not trying to kill themselves. If he wanted to kill himself, he’d drive his car into a tree or take a handful of pills.”
“But with Austin, if it was an accident, someone came by later and removed the evidence.”
“Yeah,” Robin said. “And trashed the living room.”
“That’s why you like homicide.”
“Not really,” Robin said. “I don’t know who trashed the living room or why, but I like homicide because of the vaginal fluids on the sheets and on his dick and on the dildo.”
“He wasn’t alone when he died.”
“That’s my guess. It’s possible he drilled a couple girls earlier that evening, then decided he needed to get his rocks off again, which he did with autoasphyxia, killing himself by mistake, then someone came by later and removed the plastic bag and any fetish outfits he was wearing.”
“What?”
“Gaspers don’t put a produce bag over their heads and jerk off into a couple of tissues. They make a whole evening out of it, complete with role playing and costumes. They’re Nazi storm troopers with riding crops or Princess Leia or Batman. You know, they get into it.”
“Actually, I don’t know, but I appreciate the information. Okay, so someone could’ve cleaned up the bedroom and removed his Catholic schoolgirl uniform. And then decided to trash the living room, for good measure,” I said.
“Sure, just to give you something else to figure out.” She smiled. “The reason I think Austin was murdered is that his dick was covered in vaginal fluid. Plus the sticky dildo. I know he was a young guy and all, so he could have teed it up probably four or five times a night, but if he was nailing one or more women, I don’t see him yanking it himself afterwards. With that face and body—and that package—if he was yanking it, he was one sick dude. My bet: someone else—or several someone elses—wanted him dead. He was already in bed or they got him into bed, then they strangled him.”
“Okay, Robin, thanks very much for all that,” I said. “What do the forensics say?”
She looked down at the clipboard in her hands. “I’ve got two sets of forensics: prints and DNA. I collected and ran forty-two sets of prints—”
“Forty-two?”
“Yeah, well, he wasn’t exactly a neat freak, and he had a lot of people over,” Robin said. “There were eleven different sets of prints—full and partial—on various wine glasses and dishes. Plus prints all over the kitchen and on the bathroom counter and toilet handle. Total: twenty-seven different people left their prints in that place.”
“Please tell me you got Brian Hawser.”
She shook her head. “I’ll tell you that if you want, but either he was never in that apartment or he was wearing gloves.”
“Shit,” I said.
“One semi-interesting thing: there were no prints at all on the doorknob, on the inside or the outside.”
“No usable prints?” I said.
“No, it was wiped clean, with a cloth or something. The last person who left the place didn’t want us to read her prints.”
“Or wanted us to think we could identify her prints,” I said.
Robin just shrugged. The gesture said “whatever.”
“So,” I said, “with forty-two sets of prints, twenty-seven different people, you don’t have anything for us?”
“You say it like that, makes me feel you don’t respect my work.” She put on a pouty face. “You understand I ran all twenty-seven through every database I’ve got. It’s not really my fault Austin Sulenka wasn’t screwing someone in the database.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “And the DNA?”
“Females?”
“He screwed at least two different women on his last night on Earth.”
“What do you mean ‘at least two’?”
“I got two sets of epithelial cells off his dick. Two women. But I think there were others he might’ve showered off.”
“Can you give me any names?”
“No, I can’t. No match in any of the databases for either of the samples.”
“Why do you think there were others?”
“Austin had two sets of sheets: one on the bed, one in a closet near the bathroom. The sheets on his bed had markers for four different females. One of them was a real squirter.”
I sighed. “Should I ask?”
“I was kind of hoping.” Robin gave me a big smile. “A small number of women, maybe ten percent, tops, ejaculate when they orgasm. We think the fluid is produced by the Skene’s gland, which is an itty-bitty thing near where the urethra enters the vagina.”
“Can you tell me who the real squirter is?” I said.
Robin shook her head. “Sorry. The female ejaculate is mostly acid and water. It doesn’t have any DNA in it.”
“Robin.” I was trying to be as patient as possible. “Why are you telling me about the squirter, then?”
“Well, I thought if you found out that one of your suspects was a real squirter, chances are she was the squirter at Austin’s.”
“How would I find that out, Robin?”
“That could be a number of ways. It can scare the shit out of the woman or the guy she’s with. So maybe it came up in one of your interviews. Or you could see it when you’re doing an interview.”
“It’s visible on the sheets?”
“It sure is, although it’s easier to see under UV light.”
“Well, that’s very helpful—”
“But mostly I just wanted you to know about it because it’s cool.” She gave me a big smile. “It’s called she-jaculation.”
“All right, Robin,” I said. “This has been very educational. To summarize, we are now certain that Austin Sulenka was present in his own apartment.” I turned to Ryan. “Let’s go.” I turned to the Medical Examiner. “Thanks, Harold.”
Ryan and I started walking out of Harold’s lab.
“Kathy Caravelli,” Robin said.
I stopped and turned. “Excuse me.”
“I said ‘Kathy Caravelli.’”
I walked over to her and touched her upper arm. “Robin, why did you say Kathy Caravelli?”
“She’s the one who likes the black dildo.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s an artist. Downtown. She used to be in the Air Force. Airman First Class, Retired.”
“She left some DNA on the dildo?”
“She was shedding epithelial cells like crazy that night. And a couple of pubes.”
“Can you tell me how she spells her name?”
Robin handed me a sheet of paper.
“Just to be sure I’ve got this, Kathy wasn’t one of the women riding his dick?”
“I can’t say, but I didn’t find her DNA on his dick.”
“But you can’t rule her out,” I said.
“There were condoms all over the apartment. You can’t rule out anyone. I’m fairly sure it wasn’t me.” She cocked her head and raised an eyebrow, like I should think hard about where I was Sunday night.
“As always, Robin, a pleasure to talk with you.”
She offered me her big white smile. “You’re welcome, Karen.”
Chapter 15
I phoned the Air Force Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, which is the information center for discharged Air Force personnel. After spending twelve minutes falling off quite a few branches on their phone tree, being shuttled from one wrong office to another and hearing many, many Air Force recruitment jingles that didn’t make me want to enlist, not even a little bit, I was pleased when a female human got on the line.
I explained why sending a written request for Kathy Caravelli’s service records had its disadvantages when you’re trying to work a murder case. The woman listened, thought about it some, and settled for taking my contact information and the name of my police department so she could look it up and see if I exist. We ended the call, me thanking her profusely three times for her willingness to do something she obviously wasn’t required to do. Thirty seconds later I got an e-mail from her, with a copy of Kathleen Caravelli’s service records attached.
Kathy Caravelli did her training in helicopter maintenance and repair at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. She served two tours in Iraq, one in maintenance and one in standby search-and-rescue. In February 2010, she received a Purple Heart for injuries sustained while participating in a rescue mission near Tikrit in which her helicopter was hit by enemy fire. She was separated from the United States Air Force in 2010 with the rank of Airman First Class.
“Listen to this, Ryan,” I said. “‘The Sikorsky Pave Hawk helicopter was hit by an aerial improvised explosive device, which showered the helicopter with metal shards. The rear rotor disabled, the helicopter was forced into a hard landing, killing two wounded soldiers who had just been evacuated from a forward operating base, and injuring AFC Caravelli and two other Air Force airmen.’”
“Does it say how badly she was injured?”
I scanned the report. “She broke her back. Airlifted to Germany, then to the U.S., where she did three months of rehab. She received two service decorations.”
“Pretty impressive,” Ryan said.
“What do you have on her?”
“She is the proprietor of Caravelli Fine Arts Studio, which is located out on Amberson. Her personal Facebook account shows she’s in a relationship with May Eberlein.”
“Whoa. Our May?”
“That’s what it says,” Ryan said. “Let me see if May’s page shows her in that same relationship.” He clicked around some. “May’s got her information shielded from everyone but her friends.”
“What exactly does ‘being in a relationship’ mean, anyway?”
“I guess it can mean whatever you want it to,” he said, “but I thought it meant a romantic relationship.”
“Wanna take a drive out to Amberson?”
“Sometimes you ask such silly questions, Karen.” He grabbed his suit jacket off the back of his chair and slid it on, picked up his cane, and off we went.
Amberson Parkway is a four-lane, mixed commercial and residential, although these days it’s a lot more commercial than residential. It’s full of businesses that couldn’t afford the rent downtown. There were a mom-and-pop pawn shop, a small tailor shop, and a couple of payday-loan joints, as well as businesses that need a little space, like RV places and a small used-car dealer whose selling point is “no credit no problem.”
Nestled among these ragtag businesses was Caravelli Fine Arts Studio. We pulled into the lot, which was really just a dirt driveway partially covered with pea gravel in front of a fifty-year-old two-story clapboard house that could’ve used a coat of paint. Off to the side was an unattached two-car garage with the Caravelli Fine Arts Studio sign above the garage door. The garage was ringed with scruffy shrubs and scraggly plains grasses. The garage door, including the row of windows near the top and the handle someone once used to raise and lower it, was painted grey, like the rest of the garage. Next to the big grey door was an entry door with a hand-painted “Come In” sign on it. A little bell jangled as we opened the door.
The floor was plywood, almost completely covered in dried paint drips. The walls were lined with cheap do-it-yourself shelving of all different makes and materials, attached to the studs in the garage. The shelves sagg
ed under the stacked paint cans, piles of wood stripping, rolls of canvas, and assorted crapola: hubcaps, busted bird feeders, wheels from wheel barrows or tricycles, all kinds of plastic, metal, wood, and concrete junk. I couldn’t tell if Kathy was a hopeless packrat or she was going to use this stuff in her art projects.
Ryan and I followed a jagged path through tables overflowing with painting materials, jars of brushes, and plastic bins filled with putty knives, spray cans, squeegies, plastic bottles, rollers, and busted picture frames. We made it into the center of the garage floor, which was illuminated by a couple of big skylights. The plywood sheeting on the uninsulated garage roof was stained by watermarks leading down from the corners of the skylights. In the middle of the floor was a large easel, holding a painting maybe four feet by three. Kathy Caravelli looked up as she heard us walking toward her.
She was about thirty-five, with short-cropped brown hair with a patch of grey right in the middle, above her broad forehead. She wore silver-rimmed round eyeglasses that looked military issue. Her purple tee shirt and blue denim overalls were baggy and paint-covered. She brushed at her face with the back of her hand, smearing some blue paint on her cheek in the process. “Hey,” she said. No smile.
“Are you Kathy Caravelli?” I said. She nodded. “I’m Detective Karen Seagate, Rawlings Police Department. My partner, Detective Ryan Miner.”
She looked at Ryan, then back at me. She nodded. “I guess this is about Austin?” She put down a thick brush on a table next to her easel and faced us, hands on her hips.
I glanced at the painting she was working on. It was full of dark blues and black and red, with big, broad strokes. It was definitely a painting of a horse. Or maybe a building or a bowl of fruit. Whatever it was, it was pissed.
“Yeah, we’re investigating the murder of Austin Sulenka,” I said. “We were hoping you could help us with his relationship with his girlfriend, May Eberlein.” The way her mouth turned down at the edges told me she wasn’t thrilled by my choice of topics. “Can you tell us how well you know May?” I’d decided not to ask her directly about her Facebook thing about being in a relationship with her. In general, it’s best to come off as dumb and unprepared. Gives them a little more room to start lying to us.
