Dead Meat

by Joseph M. Monks

After running through the shower, I popped open a Pete’s Wicked Ale, ran my pizza cutter through a three-quarters-cooked A&P special, and toted the whole mess into a spare room I’d converted into an office.

  The Command Center, as Burton likes to call it, is an L-shaped workspace built out of two hideous, day-glo orange Formica countertops I picked up at a garage sale for $5. Three open-faced cabinets knocked together from plywood and two-by-twos support it. On top of a battleship grey file cabinet I rescued from a department purge, I keep a ‘50s era chrome napkin dispenser I salvaged after the Redcoat Diner burned down. Since I frequently eat at my desk, the cabinet doubles as a dinner table. Cop-chic.

  Windows came to life and I flipped on my scanner. Soon, the office was abuzz with the sounds of humming electronics and the munching of discount pizza.

  Scanning the autopsy report was first. Then I opened PhotoShop and captured each image at high-res, so I could blow them up later. When I was done with those, I set about scanning the rest. I created a folder I named WEAVER, popped a CD into the drive and burned a copy for Burton. From this point forward, we would update each other electronically. Being able to access everything from home was important. Burton and I had spent many a night in this office, poring over details on some of our toughest cases.

  When I’d finished, I bundled up the originals and killed the scanner, switching to a pair of printers for the next step. One was an old LED model that had served me well since college, the other, a recently-purchased color laser. The documents, I printed on the LED. The photographs, on the laser, blown up to 8.5 by 11. The whole process took just over an hour. When the last page was printed, I swept up the stack and crossed to the far wall, where I’d put up four large corkboards that I’d snagged when the local grammar school upgraded. Though worn by years of push pins and staples, the corkboards added to the room. Perhaps because they had character. Or perhaps because I’m just nostalgic about some things.

  It was five of ten when I returned from the kitchen with a second Pete’s Wicked and sat down to review the preliminary autopsy report. There wasn’t much Loscalzo hadn’t already told us. Chemical analysis confirmed chloroform. Some type of saw had been used to conduct the dismemberment, but Loscalzo couldn’t identify it. He’d been able to rule out the two most common types, a hacksaw or crosscut. He couldn’t rule out the possibility it was a foreign-manufactured surgical saw, but could say with confidence it didn’t match any surgical saw commonly used in the U.S. or Canada. The Doc had put in his notes that he would be consulting with a forensic anthropologist.

  There was no evidence of vaginal bruising or tearing. No semen found in the vaginal canal, mouth or anus. Weaver had been stalked and butchered, yet despite the intense personal nature of the crime, the killer hadn’t sexually assaulted her. Interesting. At ten thirty, having run around in circles long enough, I dialed Burton.

  “I didn’t know better, I’d say you were tryin’ to interrupt my beauty sleep.”

  “You’d need a coma to achieve any measure of success,” I told him. “What’re you doing?”

  “Not watching the Yankees getting ripped by the Red Sox. Again.”

  “Got a score on the Mets game?”

  “They’re off tonight. Start a three-game series with the Phillies tomorrow. But you didn’t call just because I have ESPN.”

  I flipped through the autopsy photo printouts. Close-up, Naomi Weaver’s left foot, severed just above the ankle. Flip. Close-up, Weaver’s upper right arm, bisected just below the shoulder. The lower arm amputated at an angle six centimeters from the elbow. Flip. Close-up. The abrasions caused by the duct tape used to cover Weaver’s mouth. Red stippling on and around her lips, and that hideous, fixed snarl. A frozen scream.

  “You looking through Loscalzo’s Kodak moments?”

  “Yeah,” I confirmed, thumbing through them again. There was something here, something I was missing. Something of significance that was just beyond my reach.

  “Don’t go getting yourself wound up, pardner,” Burton admonished. “You and me are both operating on too-little sleep. We start forcing pieces together—

  “Synapses fired so violently my head snapped back. I jammed the cordless into the crook of my neck and reached for a different stack of printouts. I rifled through them until I came to the one I was looking for. A wide-angle shot that took in the entire kill spot. Burton was still talking, but I was focused on something he’d said a few moments ago.

  Forcing pieces together... What had Burton said at the scene? Something about the display resembling a ghoulish game of Operation? No...it hadn’t been like the children’s game. It had been exactly the opposite.

  “Jack? What is it?” Ever-observant, Burton had managed to hear something in my silence.

  “Remember what you said to me at Weaver’s apartment? About how it looked like that kid’s anatomy game?” He did. “You know how in the game you have to remove each part, like an arm bone or a leg bone or the funny bone?”

  “I follow.”

  “This isn’t like that at all. Burt, this guy didn’t make a single cut where you’d expect. He went out of his way to avoid the joints. He could’ve gotten the same result, caused the same amount of pain and suffering hitting the easy spots...but he didn’t. Not once.” Burton’s end of the line was deep-space quiet for a long moment. Then, I heard something that sounded an awful lot like a bottle cap being popped. I hadn’t been the only one who’d decided to toss back a few.

  “There’s something else,” I said, my eyes catching a Post-it I’d stuck to a page in the CSU evidence inventory.

  “Always is,” he said. “Lay it on me.”

  “Nolan ran a Luma Light in the bathroom,. The tub came up with a few hot spots, but those are normal. Report says they’re likely caused by Weaver nicking herself while shaving her legs, that sort of thing. There were two Personal Touch razors in her shower caddy. Nolan says nothing they got was inconsistent with a typical bathroom. They checked both drains for hair and blood. Came up empty.”

  “So you’re wondering, where’d butcher-boy clean up?”

  “Exactly. He had to be covered in spatter. He was walking around in a freaking lake of blood, sawing her arms and legs off.”

  “Not to mention the coup de gras,” Burton added. “Doc says she was definitely alive when he decapitated her. Even if he was standing behind her when he started cutting, his whole forearm would have been hit with the arterial spurt.”

  “So how’s a guy soaked in blood get out without leaving so much as a speck on the carpet?”

  “I don’t know,” conceded Burton. “But maybe we’re giving this guy a little too much credit.”

  “Might just be me, partner, but despite his being a shitbag, he hasn’t exactly given us a lot to work with,” I pointed out.

  “True, but look at it this way. He knew he could cover his tracks using the vacuum. He knew about the dumpster. I think he took care of the lights in the alley. Probably knew the neighbor wouldn’t be home. He didn’t use the sink or tub because he knew he could clean up in the apartment and leave without looking like a reject from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Think about it, for a man to know all that—“ The pieces fell into place. Suddenly, I knew what Burton was getting at.

  “He knew too much,” I cut in. “He wasn’t just some guy who’d gotten a peek inside. He’d been in her apartment a bunch of times. He had access.”

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