Cause of Death

by Patrick Logan

  “Those are them,” he replied. “All five, in the same order as the test—in the order that they died.”

  Suzan nodded and walked over to the first gurney, running her finger along the silver edge, tilting her head pensively.

  It occurred to him then that these were probably the first, or one of the first, dead bodies that she had ever seen. She was so mature, so far ahead of even he had been at her age, that Beckett had a hard time accepting that she was only a first-year medical student.

  Well, he thought, remembering the day when he had been exposed to his first corpse, better now with me than in front of classmates.

  He took a deep breath.

  “Suze, if it’s too much…” he let his sentence trail off.

  She shook her head.

  “No, it’s fine. I want to help.”

  “Did you find anything on the Internet about the images? Anything at all?”

  Suzan turned then, and Beckett was surprised by the fire in her eyes. When he had seen his first body he had been anxious, nervous, and a little queasy. Suzan, on the other hand, seemed… determined.

  “I found something… there’s a bulletin board on a medical resource site, and a couple of months back someone started asking questions about Moorfield’s forensic pathology course. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but then…” she shrugged and let her sentence trail off.

  “Then what?”

  She looked away.

  “Nothing. It’s just the timing seemed too coincidental, is all.”

  Beckett instantly knew that she was lying; the steel had gone out of her eyes.

  The question was, why?

  Beckett stared at her for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. He felt the knot in his gut again, but this time the message was clear: you shouldn’t get her involved. She’s too young, too naive.

  “You okay?”

  Beckett shook the thoughts from his head and smiled.

  Just a new set of eyes, a new perspective. That’s all. Then she can go back to her normal life.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Now look, I don’t want you to be embarrassed if you get sick around the bodies. And if you at all feel uncomfortable, we can just shut this down, alright?”

  Suzan stared at him strangely, and he quickly realized that the reason for the look was his out of character response.

  “Of course, you can always be an engineer, instead of a doctor. I mean, you’d probably look good in a tall striped hat.”

  Suzan smirked, then turned and without hesitation, pulled the sheet off of Trevor Gobbets’s body.

  Chapter 41

  It amazed Drake how easily he slipped back into detective mode and how comfortable he felt in doing so.

  Do you miss it?

  Maybe…

  His first stop was the location of Dr. Edison Larringer’s death. He was the key—unlike the others who had been selected based on the fact that no one would question their suicides, Eddie had been murdered because of the photographs he had stolen from Beckett’s desk. That much was obvious, but the real question was, why were the photographs placed on Beckett’s desk in the first place?

  To answer that question, Drake needed to learn a little more about the black sheep of the five victims.

  Although Drake was no longer a police officer, and could no longer flash the detective shield—like that did him much good in the past, anyway—Screech had made up some fancy Private Investigator business cards that he hoped were sufficient to get him in the door.

  529 3rd Ave was a run-down apartment building not far from NYU Medical Center. Drake took a deep breath and walked up to the cracked concrete steps to the door, and then rapped his knuckles briskly off the painted surface.

  As he waited for someone to answer, he leaned away from the house, looking upward, noting that there was a window roughly twelve feet up. He was imagining what it would take for someone to scale the brick wall and pry that window open, when the door swung wide.

  A young girl in her early twenties sporting a gray tracksuit stood in the doorway. Her eyes were red and her cheeks chaffed from tears.

  “Hello?” she asked with a sniff.

  Drake cleared his throat and then reached into his pocket and withdrew a business card.

  “My name is Damien Drake,” he said, holding the card out to her. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she took the card without hesitation. “I have a few questions I wanted to ask you about someone who lived here.”

  “Eddie,” she said softly, her eyes still locked on the card. “You’re here about Eddie.”

  Drake nodded.

  “Yes. Did you know him?”

  Her eyes shot up.

  “Of course I knew him,” she snapped. “I lived with him.”

  “I’m very sorry for—”

  “Save it,” she said. “If one more person says I’m sorry for your loss, I’m going to scream.”

  The woman, apparently having finished reading the card, held it out to him.

  Drake frowned, thinking that this was going to be a bust.

  “Keep it, and if you—”

  “Do you think Eddie committed suicide?” she asked suddenly.

  Drake opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a male voice coming from somewhere within the apartment complex.

  “Steff? You okay? Who’s at the door?”

  The girl in the track suit turned her head toward a door off to the right.

  “I’m fine. I got it!”

  When she turned back, her expression had hardened.

  “Well, do you?”

  Drake shook his head.

  “No, I don’t. Which is why I’m here.”

  She stared at him for several uncomfortable seconds, clearly sizing him up.

  “Ok,” she said at last, stepping off to one side. “Then come in.”

  ***

  “He wouldn’t commit suicide. No matter how bad things got, he wouldn’t do that. There’s just no way,” the woman, who had introduced herself as Stephanie—Steff—Morgan said. She placed a cup of hot coffee down in front of Drake and then took a seat across from him, cradling her own mug in both hands.

  “I hate to be insensitive, but how do you know? I mean, I get that you lived together, but were you close?”

  Steff looked away for a moment, and then lowered her voice.

  “We were close,” she said, her eyes returning to him.

  Drake knew better than to push for a deeper explanation; he could read between the lines.

  “And how—”

  The sound of a person approaching from behind drew his attention. A man with a shaved head, wearing an NYU sweatshirt entered the kitchen. He had a scar on his lip and another above his left eye, and Drake noted several tattoos peeking out from the wrists of the sweatshirt.

  “Who are you?” the man asked suspiciously.

  Drake stood and offered his hand.

  “Damien Drake. I’m a private investigator.”

  The man looked at his hand with something akin to disgust on his face. He didn’t shake it.

  “A private investigator? What do you want?”

  Drake lowered his hand.

  “I just wanted to ask Steff, and maybe you, about Eddie. I just have a few questions, is all.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed, which made the scar above his eye jut out.

  “Why? The police have already been here… what? Five times? Six? Eddie offed himself, plain and simple.”

  “No, it wasn’t, Jake. It wasn’t a suicide,” Steff interrupted.

  “No? And how would you know that, Steff? You fucking clairvoyant now?”

  She lowered her eyes.

  “I just do,” she answered softly.

  The man that Steff had called Jake walked by them and went to the fridge, where he pulled out a carton of milk. He unscrewed the top and took a swig.

  “Yeah right, the dude hung himself. The police say it’s suicide, so why can’t you just accept it? You an expert? Know more than they
do?”

  Steff said nothing.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

  Drake observed this scene in silence. It was one that he was unfortunately familiar with.

  Jake and Steff were dating, and if he didn’t hit her yet, he would start soon. Drake just wasn’t sure how Eddie fit into this mix.

  Jake took another gulp of milk before putting the container back in the fridge.

  “I just… I just know he wouldn’t,” Steff answered at last.

  Jake laughed.

  “Dude, he was flunking out. You saw him, he was losing it. Some people just can’t handle the pressure, you know? Darwin ‘n all that. Survival of the fittest.”

  This seemed to strike a nerve with Steff.

  “Oh, and you know pressure, Jake? Now you’re the expert? You haven’t had to work a day in your life… mommy and daddy just pay for everything. Paid to get you into school, pay to get you out of trouble. You know nothing about pressure. Eddie was a good man, and he worked hard. Sure he was nervous about his exams, but who isn’t? I’ll say it again, there’s no way he committed suicide.”

  Jake took a step forward.

  “You watch your mouth,” he threatened through clenched teeth.

  And that’s enough of that.

  Drake got to his feet and moved between them.

  “Why don’t you calm down, Jake. I can see—”

  Jake’s eyes turned on him.

  “I got an idea: why don’t you mind your fucking business, rent-a-cop? What the fuck you doing here, anyway?” the man took a step toward him when he said this, but Drake didn’t back down.

  “I told you, I’m just here to ask a few questions, that’s all. I don’t want any trouble.”

  Jake took another step forward, and in his periphery, Drake saw his the man’s hands ball into fists.

  “Question period is over, dumb ass. Take a hike.”

  Drake felt his blood pressure rise.

  Do it, punk. Throw a punch. I dare you.

  Jake must have seen something in his face, as although he must have had three inches and at least ten pounds on Drake, he was the one who backed away.

  “We don’t want to talk to you,” he said.

  Drake turned back to Steff. All of a sudden her cup of coffee was incredibly interesting to her.

  “Please, just go,” she said in a quiet voice.

  Drake nodded, gave one more searing glance at Jake then made his way to the door.

  “If you can think of anything that might help, please give me a call,” he said over his shoulder.

  He grabbed the door and pulled it wide.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Jake yelled after him. “Or maybe you should hold your breath, you fucking asshole. Or better yet, get a rope and off yourself like Eddie did.”

  Chapter 42

  “Ashes,” Suzan said. At first, Beckett thought that she was speaking to herself. But when she repeated the word, he took notice.

  “Ashes? What do you mean, ashes?”

  Beckett moved beside her as she inspected Gerald Leblanc, the male escort who had been shot in the face. It took him a moment to realize that she wasn’t staring at his mangled head. Instead, she was staring at the hollow of his throat.

  “Look? See there?” she pointed at a gray smudge. “When I was younger my dad used to take me to church, and on Good Friday, the priest would wipe this soot on my forehead. It looked like this—obviously, this isn’t in the shape of a cross, but it sure looks the same.”

  Beckett frowned.

  “Where?” He leaned closer to the body to get a better look. There did appear to be a smudge where she had indicated, but had Suzan not said anything, he would have passed it off as dirt, or a mark that one of the CSU boys had left behind when they had removed the body from the scene. “Just looks like dirt to me.”

  Suzan acknowledged his comment and then moved to the body of Martin Dean, the man who had apparently slit his wrists in the bathtub.

  “Except it’s on every single one of them,” she said with a hint of pride in her voice.

  “Seriously?”

  Suzan moved up to Trevor’s body next.

  “See? There’s another one on his left shoulder.”

  Beckett squinted.

  It was there, just as she said. Another quarter-sized gray smudge.

  “I also found one on the, uh, the doctor. Nothing on the drowned woman, but she was submerged, so…”

  Beckett was flabbergasted.

  How the hell did I miss this?

  “Gimme one sec,” he said, and without another word, he left the room. A minute later he returned with a bespectacled CSU tech in tow.

  “Jeff, I want you to take some samples from all of the marks that Suzan shows you. I want a complete analysis, fingerprints, DNA, mass spec, etc. Can you do that?”

  Jeff looked at Beckett as if he had three heads.

  “These are… what are these bodies doing here? Aren’t these the sui—”

  Beckett gently guided him toward the first body.

  “Just take the samples, okay? And I want the results today. The sooner, the better,” he instructed. “Okay, Jeff?”

  The man’s thin lips pressed together.

  “My name is Seb.”

  Beckett nodded.

  “Good. That’s a yes then.”

  Chapter 43

  “No, no, no,” Officer Steve Dunbar said when Chase opened the door to the dimly lit room tucked into the basement of 62nd precinct.

  Just one look at her, and it was clear that he had his mind made up.

  “Good afternoon to you too, Dunbar,” Chase said, stepping inside. She looked around quickly and noted that aside from the myriad of computer equipment, the place was empty. On one desk was a coffee mug, but the other desk, the one with the leather-backed ergonomic chair tucked beneath, was completely bare.

  Dunbar swiped a lock of blond hair from his forehead.

  “Detective Adams, it’s great to see you, but I’m on vacation.”

  Chase’s eyes narrowed.

  “Vacation? What do you mean, vacation?” she stepped deeper into the room—officially marked as Records, even though every officer knew it as the unofficial computer hub for the entire precinct—the smell of hot metal filled her nostrils.

  Officer Dunbar looked around nervously, then reached for her. Confused, Chase allowed herself to be pulled behind a metal shelf filled with black binders.

  “Adams, I can’t even be seen talking to you.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Rhodes came down here earlier, told me that under no circumstances was I to help you out with any cold cases. I’m supposed to inform him if you ask me to do anything, even if it’s related to the home invasion on forty-third street. He came right after you asked me to look up the med students. Shit, you so much as cough in my direction and I’m supposed to call him on his cell phone. You should have seen his face…”

  In her mind, she saw Rhodes’s face turning red, his eyes wide behind his glasses, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

  It was frightening how vivid the image was.

  “Dunbar,” she said softly, “I need your help.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I can’t. Shit, the last time… with the Butterfly Killer? I almost lost my job, Chase,” he held his finger and thumb less than an inch apart. “Seriously, I was this close.”

  Chase tried not to let the surprise show on her face. She knew that Drake had gone to great lengths to protect her, but she hadn’t thought about the implications for others.

  Like Officer Dunbar, who had been instrumental in them getting the information they needed to connect the murders, and to lead them to Dr. Mark Kruk.

  “I didn’t know,” she said simply. If I had known, was on the tip of her tongue, but she resisted the urge to say it.

  If she had known… then what? Would she have protected Dunbar when she was promoted to Detective First Grade, if that would mean going against Rhodes? Would she do that?<
br />
  Chase wanted to think that she would, but wasn’t positive. And, besides, she hadn’t known, so there was no point losing sleep over what she might have done.

  Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to you, Dunbar. But that doesn’t change anything. I need your help, again.”

  Dunbar looked at her with round eyes.

  Please, his expression said, don’t ask me to do this.

  But with all due respect to Officer Dunbar, finding the ruthless killer who had already murdered five people and was destined to kill at least three more before he was done, was more important than his job.

  Than any of their jobs, hers included.

  “Dunbar, please. There’s a murderer out there, and he’s not going to stop until we catch him.”

  Officer Dunbar closed his eyes and he mumbled something that she didn’t pick up. With a heavy sigh, he looked at her again.

  “Fine… tell me exactly what you need, and make it quick.”

  Chapter 44

  Suzan Cuthbert rubbed her eyes and yawned.

  How long has it been since I’ve slept? She thought. Twenty-four hours? Thirty-six?

  She had fallen asleep at Beckett’s computer last night while searching for information on the images from the forensic pathology course, but she couldn’t have been out for more than a half hour.

  Forty minutes, tops.

  What had started as simply auditing Beckett’s course, had quickly ballooned into something bigger, something more important. Something so important that it meant more to her than going to class, which was exactly where she should be right now.

  Except she wasn’t in class. Suzan had left the morgue with a strange lightheartedness, something that she tried desperately to convince herself was a result of inhaling formalin in the morgue rather than the sight of five dead bodies. Instead of class, she headed back to Beckett’s office, using the key that he had loaned her, knowing that he would be teaching for the next hour or so. And now she sat, exhausted, hungry, and determined, hunched over Beckett’s computer, logging in with the man’s NYU credentials, which he had also provided her.