by M A Comley
They walked through the main entrance of the station and up the flight of stairs that led to the incident room they called their second home. “They miss you. Try and see it from their point of view, hon.”
“I know. It’s hard for all of us. I’ll put my thinking cap on and see if there’s a way I can get them down here to visit me soon.”
“That’s a great idea! You could buy one of those West End packages. They could go see a few shows and stay in a plush hotel.”
Katy snorted. “Steady on there, I ain’t made of money.”
“Oops, yeah I totally forgot what a detective inspector’s wage is. Mind you, it’s a darn sight better than what I’m on.”
“Point taken. How’s Charlie and Tony?”
They stopped at the vending machine to buy two cups of coffee and proceeded into the office. “Fine. They’re on a mission today. We had a sorry-looking boxer arrive yesterday. I made an appointment at the vet for later on this morning. The poor dog has got the worst bout of mange I’ve ever seen. Her owner dumped her. How can people disown a dog like that?”
“Eww…is it really bad? I mean I’ve seen some awful cases with dogs suffering from that on the TV.”
“Yeah, it’s horrendous. Her skin is just one large patch of sores, either red raw or full of crusty skin. At least the pups seem to have escaped it, so far.”
“What? She has pups? That’s terrible, Lorne.”
“Yeah, four of them. I reckon they’re no older than about four weeks old. We got a call from a member of the public about a dog clawing at a black bag. When Tony and I shot down there we found the pups tied up in a black bag.”
Katy gasped. “Poor things. What a shitty start to life they’ve had.”
“I’m hoping we can change that. I sense the vet’s bill being extremely high though.”
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. AJ poked his head into the room and gave Katy one of his special smiles, which didn’t go unnoticed by Lorne. She supressed the urge to giggle and wished the couple would admit they had feelings for each other and get on with having a good time. The flipside of that notion was that if they came out of the closet, so to speak, they would no longer be able to work on the same team whilst both employed by the Met. It just wasn’t appropriate behaviour for serving officers.
“Hi, AJ. What’s up?” Katy asked, her professional etiquette clear to see.
“We’ve got a body, ma’am. Out near the hospital, it was discovered a few hours ago.”
“Okay, male or female? And is the pathologist aware of the discovery?” Katy asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
Lorne did the same as she listened to the conversation. She had a feeling the few sips of coffee she managed to slurp down now would be all they had time for the rest of the morning.
“Male, and yes, the pathologist is on site.”
“Thanks, AJ. We’ll set off shortly.”
AJ left the office and the two women gulped down a few extra sips of coffee before they followed him out.
Katy addressed her team of detectives. “Okay, hopefully Lorne and I won’t be too long. Busy yourselves with finishing up the paperwork for the crimes we completed last week in the meantime, folks. Just in case this victim comes with a lot of baggage that needs solving promptly.”
All four detectives nodded and got back to work.
• • •
Lorne and Katy made their way over to the screened off area, produced their IDs and ducked under the tape. “Hi, Patti. Are you close to finishing up?” Lorne asked.
“Yep, I’m just about done. It’s not as cut and dried as I first thought,” the pathologist replied, studying the body from a few feet away.
“In what way?” asked Katy, glancing sideways at Lorne, as if to say, ‘here we go again.’
“Well, at first I presumed—I know, never presume—the gentleman had simply suffered a heart attack. But upon further inspection, it looks like he received a whack to the neck and head, as well.” Patti crouched and pointed out the specific areas affected then shuffled along the body to the man’s legs. “However, this injury here seems to be the origin of what has actually caused his death. I’ll be able to determine more back at the mortuary, when I have a naked specimen before me. Will you ladies be joining me?”
Katy shrugged. “Why not, we’ve got nothing better to do. Any idea when the PM will be?”
“I’m pretty clear today. If you follow me back I can get started right away.”
“Wow, that’s unheard of for you, Patti. Is crime that much down in the area, at present?” Lorne smiled and raised an expectant eyebrow.
“Hardly, I’ve just been given an associate to work with. He’s pretty keen to lighten my load at the moment while I get on with sorting through my mountain of paperwork. Some of which is almost six months behind.”
“Well, it’s about time the department gave you some extra help. Fit is he?” Katy winked as she asked the question.
“Fit as in physically fit, yes, apparently he works out at the gym at least four times a week, so he says. Fit as in would I give him one? Well, let’s just say if I were twenty years younger I’d have taken him on one of the examination tables on his first day.”
The three women roared with laughter; it wasn’t uncommon to lighten the mood at a scene and crack a joke. If they didn’t they’d all go nuts.
“Patti, you’re a married woman for goodness sake,” Lorne said, taking in the scene once more.
“You forgot the happily married part. Yes, but it doesn’t mean I can’t keep an eye on what’s going on around me, you did with Tony.”
Lorne’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open much to her friend’s amusement. “Excuse me?”
“I remember you telling me that all it took was a quick jaunt to France and bingo bango!” Patti went on, adding to Lorne’s embarrassment.
“Bingo-bango? Good grief, woman. I think you’ve been working in that mortuary too much. You need to get out into the real world more often. And FYI, my marriage to Tom was over long before I started any funny business with Tony, just saying.”
Katy sniggered, and Lorne turned to look at her.
“Stop encouraging her. Now that we’ve dissected my relationship with my husband—or should that be husbands?—can we get back to the case in hand?”
Patti smiled. “Ah avoidance tactics! Yes, okay. I’m finished here, why don’t I get my people to load up the body and we’ll make our way back to the mortuary?”
Lorne sensed the pathologist, her good friend, striking an imaginary finger in the air, marking a win for herself. She would need to come up with an idea of how to get her revenge for that uncalled for ridicule.
CHAPTER TWO
Suited and booted in the appropriate uniform fit for a post mortem, Lorne and Katy walked into the examination room with Patti to find the victim was already in situ, ready awaiting the pathologist’s knife.
Lorne and Katy watched Patti search the man’s naked body, looking for any other external injuries before she cut him open. “Yep, this definitely contributed to his death.”
The detectives leaned over the corpse. “Odd shape. It’s not a knife wound is it?” Lorne asked, glancing sideways at Patti who shook her head.
“Nope, that would be more like a slit in the skin. This is more like a puncture wound.”
Frowning, Lorne asked, “From what?”
Patti retrieved her measure from the movable trolley and placed it on the wound to obtain the length and width of the opening. “Well, if I didn’t know any better I’d say it came from a woman’s shoe, a stiletto to be more precise.”
“Really?” Katy moved in for a closer look. “A stiletto can do that much damage?”
“It only really needed to puncture the skin. It was the accuracy of the blow that caused the real damage—it struck the main artery. An inch to the left or right, and this man probably would have survived. Of course, the heart attack might have ended up killing him
, but he would’ve had a greater chance of survival. The blood at the scene told me he bled out from this wound, which makes sense, considering the heel connected with the artery. The fact that the body lay undiscovered for a good few hours after the attack was also a contributing factor in his death.”
Lorne studied the wound for a second or two. “So, are you saying that the wound was intentional? As in, we should be out there looking for a murderer? Or could this simply have been an unfortunate accident?”
Patti raised an eyebrow. “An unfortunate accident? The person probably had to take her shoe off to cause the wound, Lorne. I’d say that was an intentional act, wouldn’t you?”
“Sorry. That came out like a dumb conclusion. So you’re saying the victim would have been upright when struck, not lying on the floor? What I was thinking was that maybe the perpetrator could have stamped on the man’s leg while he was on the floor.”
“That’s plausible. Hey look, at this point, I’m just giving you the facts. It’s down to you to find out the whys and wherefores.”
Lorne shrugged. “It helps if we have an inkling, Patti. Maybe this was just an accident after all.”
“Hmm…not too keen on that idea, Lorne,” Katy said. “I don’t know about you, but in all my years of wearing high-heels, the thought has never occurred to me to use one of my shoes as a weapon.”
“Extenuating circumstances, possibly? Perhaps the man tried to rape the woman? You’d reach for anything available to try and fend off an attack, wouldn’t you?”
“She has a valid point, Katy. I know if I were in such a perilous situation, I would slip off a shoe and whack the bastard before he even thought about attacking me.” Patti picked up her scalpel and inserted it into the man’s flesh, ready to make the Y-cut that would allow her to peel back the man’s flesh to expose his organs.
Lorne and Katy both turned their heads and walked over to the side of the room.
“We’ll hang around here for another half an hour or so and then get on with the investigation. We have the man’s bank card, we can use that to track down his address as that’s all he seemed to have on him. I’ll get AJ to do a background check too, maybe he’s got a record for sexual assault charges or something along those lines, it’ll be a start anyway,” Katy said, taking charge of the investigation as any detective inspector would.
“Agreed. I don’t think we need to stay around here longer than necessary, Patti has already told us what the cause of death is in her opinion. The quicker we get things started the more chance we have of capturing the culprit. Seems a little unbelievable that a woman’s shoe caused his death though, doesn’t it?”
“Put it this way—nothing surprises me anymore in this game.”
Patti concluded her findings and reiterated her first assumption of how the victim, Don Alder had died. Initial bleeding from the artery had led to a major heart attack, although the heart attack, at least the start of one, might have come first. Lorne and Katy left the mortuary and headed back to the station.
Katy handed AJ the bank card. “AJ, the victim had this in his wallet, nothing else. Track down his address, if you will?”
She and Lorne went through to the office.
“What do you want me to do?” Lorne asked.
“Once AJ has the address, we’ll head out. In the meantime, see what you can dig up about the victim. No—wait a minute. Let AJ do that while we’re out. Can you start filling in the details on the investigation board?”
“Of course, although there won’t be much to fill in, apart from the man’s name and the scene of the crime—oh, and the suspected weapon.”
Katy nodded. “That’ll do, for starters. I’ll be out once I’ve been through the post. If I don’t make a start, you know what it’s like.”
“Yep, definitely one part of the job I don’t envy you having to deal with daily. Oh, can I ring home before I begin, to check on how Tony got on at the vet’s?”
“Go for it. Let me know what the outcome was.”
Lorne rang home once she returned to the incident room. Tony answered after the second ring. “Hi, how did you get on with the vet?”
“You were right in your assessment—she has mange. The good news is that it’s treatable. We can aid her recovery here, the vet said. No need for him to keep her in. The pups had a clean bill of health, which was a relief.”
“That’s fantastic news. Did the vet give her an antibiotic injection?”
“Yep, we’ve got to give her a course of tablets, too. Here’s the funny thing: he also told me to put a T-shirt on her.”
“That’s right, to stop her from scratching. Can you imagine the irritation to her skin? It’s red raw, Tony. Grab one of my old crop tops from the chest of drawers. That should be large enough to cover most of the affected area.”
“Will do. I need to give her a shower first—the vet gave me a special shampoo. It’s warm at the moment. Shall I stick her in that metal tub and use the hose on her?”
Lorne smiled at her husband’s practical side. “Get Charlie to bathe her. Tell her to grab a pair of my latex gloves and use a bucket of tepid water to wash her. Then she can be hosed off. Okay?”
“Yes, boss. How are things at your end?”
“New case just dropped on the table, still in the early stages. It looks like we can call this case death by a stiletto.”
Tony chuckled. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, but it does sound funny. Good luck with that one. Have you identified the victim?”
“Yes. Less concern about my job, hon. You just concentrate on getting that little lady in your care sorted. We need to think up a name for her, too. We’ll let Charlie do that, shall we?”
“Okay, enough nattering. We both have jobs to do. I’ll see you later.”
“Tony, wait. Before you hang up, dare I ask how much the bill was?”
“Umm…I was hoping you wouldn’t ask. We’ll talk about it later, yes?”
“No. We’ll discuss it now. Go on, hit me with it.”
“A little over two hundred,” Tony mumbled.
“What? You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”
“Afraid not, love. I pleaded poverty, and he retorted that we might be running a charity, but he wasn’t.”
“Wow, what a pig. I think we need to start looking around for another vet, pronto. Remind me to ring Sue at the RSPCA later, see if she can recommend one. That’s outrageous.”
“It’s the medication. He was kind enough to waive his consultation fee for me.”
“Big deal. Okay, speak later. Thanks for taking her, Tony.”
“No problem. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Lorne hung up. She shook her head, wondering where on earth she was going to come up with enough money to keep the rescue centre afloat. Maybe she should consider robbing a bank to get her out of the fix.
“Penny for them?” AJ sat on the edge of her desk.
“It’ll cost you more than that to find out what I’m thinking, AJ. Did you get the man’s address?”
“Yep. He lives in a flat about ten minutes from here, 10 Hyde Lane.”
“Brilliant. While Katy and I are out, can you delve into his background, find out the usual? Whether he has any record or previous convictions? It seems odd that this could be considered a random attack.”
“I’ll dig deep, see what I can find. Everything all right? You look a little upset.”
“Yeah, bad news regarding a vet’s bill. I’ll overcome it somehow. I usually do. Thanks for asking.” She leaned forward and whispered, “How are things going with you and Katy?”
Lorne’s partner came out of her office, eyes firing daggers in her direction.
“Er, never mind. Forget I asked.”
“Lorne? Ready are we?”
“We are, ma’am. Thanks for the info, AJ.” She rose from her chair, collected her handbag, and left the incident room after Katy.
“I know what you were up to back there,” her partner called over her shoulder, de
scending the stairs ahead of her.
“Don’t know what you mean. AJ gave me the man’s address and was enquiring how things were at home. That’s all.”
“Yeah, right! I’ve told you before never to underestimate me, Lorne. I had a good teacher, remember?”
“The dog’s going to be fine. Thanks for asking,” she said, changing the subject while making a face behind her friend’s back.
“Glad to hear it. I hope the wind doesn’t get up and set that expression in place, hon.” Katy swiftly turned to look at her, grinning broadly.
Lorne blinked furiously. “Don’t know what you mean. I’m innocent of all charges laid at my door.”
“Hmm…let’s get to this man’s address before I punch your lights out for insubordination.”
“Ooo…big word. I prefer porridge in the mornings. Not keen on swallowing a dictionary first thing.”
“Smartarse.”
Once settled in Katy’s car, Lorne punched the man’s address into the sat nav and waited for the directions to appear. Then they set off and pulled up outside the man’s flat about ten minutes later. The ground-floor flat was part of a terraced house. They got no answer when they tried the victim’s bell, so Lorne buzzed the upstairs flat.
A groggy male voice answered, “Yeah? What do you want? Some of us are trying to get some sleep here.”
“Police, open up, please. We’d like to ask you a few questions about your neighbour.”
The man grumbled as if chatting to someone in the flat with him.
Lorne’s brow furrowed.
Katy pressed the bell again and held the button down until the man shouted at her to stop.
“Cut it out. I’ll get dressed and come down. Give me a sec.”
Katy tutted. “Make it quick. We haven’t got all day, mate.”
Another two minutes passed before a scruffy young man wearing a T-shirt and jeans opened the door.
Katy and Lorne produced their IDs and waved them in his face. He looked either drunk or stoned still from the previous night’s activities.
“Mr. Don Alder, what can you tell us about him?”
“Why? Is he in some kind of bother? I knew he was hiding something, the crafty old git.”
