Murders at Hollings General ddb-1

by Jerry Labriola

  David rotated in the van like a hawk in a canary cage, and was about to exit when he spied three oxygen cylinders on a shelf behind him. Below, an open bin contained three additional cylinders piled in a pyramid. He turned, yanked open the bin on the opposite side and found three more. Nine green cylinders, each the length of his lower leg and about as wide as his calf.

  He stared at the shelf until he finally understood what had seemed so odd: the top portion of one cylinder had been unscrewed and several rows of threads were visible. He picked it up. In his medical career, he had often requested oxygen for patients but he had never handled a cylinder before. It felt cold against his palm and heavier than he had expected. David unscrewed and removed the top. The cylinder was packed with four-by-four bags similar to those in the silver canisters, so packed that none fell out as he tipped it over.. He ran his finger over a film of white powder that coated the inside rim of the cylinder, but, again, he chose not to taste it. But why beat around the bush? Cocaine. Hurriedly, he checked the other cylinders, and discovered they contained either four-by-fours or "HORNET" heroin bags.

  Six canisters full and nine cylinders full. All in all, a respectable supply for a mid-leveler undoubtedly receiving regular replenishments from Mr. Big. Or Dr. Big. A mid-leveler dealing from a medical emergency vehicle, one that David realized only Victor Spritz drove because all the other ambulances had their own crash carts and cardiac defibrillators. He also realized that way back when-early in private practice, or even early in low-level sleuthing-he could never have predicted that on a Saturday morning in January, he'd be pretzeled in a van once dedicated to restoring hearts to normal beats but now converted to a stage for illegal drug transactions and grisly murder.

  And he reconciled himself to the fact that given the new circumstances, the official investigative team would be expanded to include the Narcotics Task Force.

  David scrambled out to give the exterior surroundings a once-over before making his phone calls. But he returned to retrieve the Minx which he inserted into its shoulder rig, and his attache case which he placed on a step and opened. He removed the Polaroid and took four shots of the van's interior and one of its exterior after he had circled to face it from the exit to the main parking lot. The grey sky conveyed its dullness to the last photo.

  He was about to phone Security and request them to notify Alton Foster before they came to investigate. Then he would call Kathy at his home. It was only eight forty-five. As he raised his cellular, he glanced behind the dividing wall and his attention was drawn to the corner marking the end of the main lot. A red motorcycle stood out against a shallow bed of snow. It was parked obliquely and David estimated two inches of white crust covered its uppermost parts.

  He sauntered over as he drew up a three-day-old image of the motorcycle-off in the distance, fleeing Cannon Cemetery. At the cycle, he copied down the designation CB750 which was part of the Honda logo on the fuel tank. He kicked snow away from the rear tire to measure its accumulation and uncovered a splotch of thick black oil. David made a mental note that the oil was beneath the snow, not mixed with it. Another image: the scene was Spritz's garage. And he thus eliminated the Toyota automobile as the source of the oil spot there.

  He took a rear view Polaroid of the cycle before racing back to the interior of the van to search Spritz's pockets for keys. There were none.

  Within minutes of his calls, hospital security personnel, uniformed police, plainclothes officers and administrative types arrived, followed closely by a contingent from the medical examiner's office. And within minutes of that, the usual Major Crime Scene Unit of Nick, Kathy and Sparky. Foster was the last to arrive and immediately took turns with the others, voicing dismay, proclaiming the curse of Saturday mornings, or getting David's "take" on the killing. By nine-twenty, conversations strained above pandemonium as scores of additional people flooded the area. Screaming news reporters and neighborhood gawkers pressed against yellow cordoning tape. A light snow was turning the grey sky to silver.

  David leaned back against the dividing wall, watching individuals scurrying in and out of Spritz's back room and around and about the van. Flashbulbs flashed, walkie-talkies talked, television cameras televised, and radio reporters reported. Several writers from the Hollings Herald wrote in their notepads, prompting David to ask himself whatever happened to his own note taking? He would catch up later. He doubted that an action movie set of actors, directors and crew looked as confusing as this one.

  Kathy and Sparky entered the van, replacing the medical examiner and his associates who had been inside, David estimated, a mere thirty seconds. Not much difficulty pronouncing Spritz dead. At the wall, he found himself hemmed in by Nick, Foster, a man he recognized from the Narcotics Task Force, and a young woman he had never seen before. She had a plain face, plain clothes and wore a badge on a beige hooded pullover.

  "Why so brutal?" Foster asked. He posed the question as if the brutality mattered more than the death itself, as if he had become hardened to expect murders on hospital grounds.

  "It looks like the perp had more than a simple score to settle," Nick said, not giving David a chance to respond. "Dr. David Brooks," he added, "meet Sally Schmidt. She's assisting in Narcotics for the time being." Sally smiled and nodded.

  "Nice to meet you," David said nonchalantly. He turned to Nick and asked, "Who's heading up the Task Force?"

  "I am," Nick responded.

  David's head jerked back. "You?" he said. "That's some division of labor you've got down there."

  Nick's eyes skimmed over David's. "Well," he said, "when you're shorthanded, you take shortcuts."

  David chuckled internally over the malapropos remark but had to give him credit for trying to be cute. He wondered, though, what Nick knew about narcotics investigations. Or-now-about narcotics in general.

  Nick signaled to his assistants that they should head toward the van, then said to David, "I should ask you what you found in more detail, but I'll check myself. Nothing's been disturbed?"

  "Nothing's been disturbed. Aside from the body, you'll find a horde of drugs in there."

  Nick turned to leave, stopped, and added, "I assume you have all the details down?"

  David didn't like the comment nor the answer he was about to give, but he gave it anyway. "You assume right, as usual."

  Nick stormed away with his two assistants and entered the van just as Kathy emerged. She walked over to David and pulled out a handkerchief from the pocket of her fleece-lined jacket.

  "Not at all pleasant in there," she said. She blew her nose without regard to daintiness.

  David bent over and kissed her on the lips. "Happy birthday," he whispered.

  "What? Oh, that? Isn't this a nice way to spend it?"

  "We still have tonight. Dinner out, okay? Olivio's? Let's not break the string." They had celebrated their birthdays in elegant style for the past five years.

  "Of course, where else? Pick me up at six." She pointed to the EMS entrance. "That's where Spritz hung out, you say?"

  "That's the place."

  "You hanging around or what?"

  "No, I'd better scram before your boss and I tangle out loud. I'll interrogate some people later." He lowered his voice as if he were speaking decisions. "Like Foster … and Bernie … and Robert. Maybe even Dr. Corliss"

  "Corless, the psychiatrist? You suspect the psychiatrist?"

  "At this point, I don't know who to suspect." He rubbed his decision scar. "And even whether Spritz killed the others. And, if you want to know the truth, whether those stupid drugs in there have anything to do with them."

  Kathy appeared disappointed. "Really?" she said. "Let's talk about it tonight."

  "On your birthday!" David said in disgust, not as a question.

  "David, my beloved, if I were you about to phrase this, I'd say, `Bleep my birthday, we've got trouble, big trouble, and I don't mean in River City.'

  Kathy barely enunciated the last word before David shot back, "I d
on't say `bleep.'

  "You know what I mean."

  "I'll still sing you Happy Birthday."

  Kathy teased out a smirk.

  "Incidentally," David said, "what's Nick know about narcotics?"

  "Sparky said he worked in the San Diego Unit for a while."

  "Sparky? How'd he know?"

  "They go back. That's why Sparky recommended him."

  David did little to hold back a scowl. "You never told me that." He gave each word equal emphasis. "And what do you mean `they go back'?"

  "I heard they met at some national law enforcement convention and they've kept in touch."

  David ironed out his face. "I see," he said. "How long ago?"

  "Twenty years. I think that's what I heard." David knew Kathy sensed his bad vibes.

  "What's wrong?" she said. "You worried about something?"

  "No. Curious; that's all."

  After this latest murder-now five in all-David felt like a fledgling engineer on a runaway locomotive. What to do? First, take a shower.

  Before leaving the scene, he had reluctantly approached Nick to inform him of the gloves, tape and wig in the EMS room. Without hesitation, Nick theorized that maybe they had been planted, something David thought strange, yet conceivable. The gloves, the tape? Maybe. But who would know a wig might be important except maybe old man Razbit, the pawnbroker? David would have congratulated anyone else for proposing the theory but, in this case, he ignored it and asked how long it would be before the body could be released for autopsy.

  Nick responded, "Released? I'd say by noon. Autopsy? That's up to what's-his-name. Tanarlde's replacement."

  At 10 Oak Lane, David took a longer shower than usual, shampooing his hair over and over again. Another one of his "things" was that odors had a special affinity for hair, which accounted for nostril hairs perpetuating the sensation of a smell. Both in and out of the shower, he blew his nose nonstop.

  He contacted Dr. Jake Reed at his home and learned the postmortem was scheduled for three p.m.

  At three-ten, David walked into the autopsy room with the single purpose of obtaining the findings in the region of Spritz's neck. Especially the condition of the hyoid bone whose fracture would most likely indicate strangulation. No light filtered through the elevated windows as was the case during Charlie Bugles' autopsy, and the corpse looked less waxy overall. David observed purplish lividity confined to the lower body and the head and neck above its straight-line bruise were dark red.

  Dr. Reed was decked in surgical cap, gown, gloves, but no mask. He greeted David warmly and turned off the power supply to the microphone attached to the gown.

  "Good to have company, David. Lots of bullet wounds here. I counted six-all entries in front, exits in back. And since three slugs were found in the floor either beneath or behind the body, I'd say he was shot after he hit the floor."

  The Acting Director of the Department was considered a superb forensic pathologist in his own right. He appeared in his early thirties and, up on his toes, would rival David in height, but he was as thin as his name. He had the gravelly voice of a smoker and David often asserted he should know better, inquiring of Reed when he would flatten his chest, a reference to the rectangular shaped breast pocket where he kept his Marlboros.

  "Dead about twelve hours, Jake?"

  "Yes, I'd say about that time." Reed was preparing the neck dissection and had not yet gotten to the "Big Y," as David called it.

  "And strangled first?"

  "Strangled first. Not by a cord or anything like that though. The linear bruise there, the satellites? Bare hands. The satellites indicate quite a struggle and I'll wager there's plenty of internal damage. But that's usually the case-they use more force than is necessary to kill the victim." He spread open Spritz's eyelids. "And here are the hemorrhages."

  David informed the pathologist that he would stay only until the neck dissection was completed. During the procedure, Reed pointed to the extensive deep bruising which he had predicted.

  "And here's the hyoid, David. Fractured, see it?" Reed extended the exposure downward in the neck. "And also the thyroid cartilage. Plenty of force-there's the evidence." He cut deeper and ran two fingers up and down the cervical spine. "Feels aligned. It's a wonder he didn't snap the vertebrae apart, though."

  David thanked the pathologist and hurried home to take another shower.

  For four days, David had not uploaded any summaries into his computer; nor had he used his notepad. He had an hour to kill before leaving to pick up Kathy and sat alternately thinking and typing as he brought his entries current:

  Saturday, January 24 MURDERS, continued-

  Victor Spritz-strangled and shot in his own defib. van. Drugs all over the place.

  Wild-goose chase to Recycling Center. Nick there: got same call or did he do the calling?

  Sniper at cemetery.

  Spritz: Spent time at psych. hosp. Has 4+ gun collection. CARCAN and CANCAN.

  House vandalized.

  Botulism vial missing.

  He added some narrative summaries in contrast to past entries, a symptom, he thought, of a brain bathed in shreds of detail and speculation, too fluid to compress.

  He typed one item-"I found Spritz both strangled and shot in his cardiac van. There goes our murderer."-with the frustration of a child who had just lost a coin down a drain.

  This time, he decided to include comments on suspects from the standpoint of motive, opportunity and means, but his inclusions presupposed Spritz had murdered the others before he himself was killed. "Yet," he wrote, "it's entirely possible this was not the case, that we have a single cunning killer on the loose and he set Spritz up, for whatever reason."

  David recorded that every suspect's possible entanglement with the illicit drug trade would satisfy the "motive" criterion, but that only Charlie Bugles and Spritz appeared to have had that connection. And they were both dead. He also believed each had the "means" but made no references to it. That left "opportunity," and he felt grossly remiss in not having considered it for each person, at least as it applied to Spritz's murder. He resolved that, beginning the following morning, he would press each suspect on his whereabouts early the morning before; it was time to pull out all stops in his interrogations.

  Thus he entered Foster, Bernie, Robert, Nick and Dr. Corliss, and he dubbed them "Suspect-5." Then, he made a printout of his last summary and placed it atop a birthday package for Kathy.

  Before preparing to leave for dinner, he scanned his four-page summaries of the murders and the events surrounding them. He double-checked the pages on the computer screen several times, and, arching his back, spoke aloud as if it would ratify what he had discovered: a pattern. Bugles had been killed on a Tuesday. Coughlin on Saturday. Tanarkle on Tuesday. Spritz on Saturday. Tuesday was little more than two days away.

  Chapter 20

  Olivio's was a turn-of-the-century restaurant with elegant atmosphere, elegant meals and elegant prices. Set in the industrial valley near the junction with Center City, it was secreted within a sagging stockade fence overwhelmed by ivy, euonymus and other assorted vines. The building was ash faced and stucco framed, reminiscent of those in ancient Florentine villas, and it was not without design that the restaurant's menu derived from the tastes of Tuscany, even as its name reflected one of the dominant crops of that region.

  The stucco had been continued inside, wrapping around and suffusing into ceilings slung low above Old World furnishings. There, generations of soft and russet candlelight had transformed the grimmest patrons into temporary romantics.

  After helping remove Kathy's overcoat, David escorted her into the basil aroma of Italian cuisine, imagining the ceiling growing two feet lower as he snaked among the tables, grumbling about pricey restaurants unable to pay electric bills. He touched the shoulders of some people he knew and addressed them by name. There were only two empty tables in the main dining room and the maitre d' sat them at the recessed corner one, David's favorite wh
ich he had phoned ahead to reserve. Mellow Sinatra oozed from a speaker directly overhead, clouding the hum of diners in their designer clothes and the chitchat of fawning waiters. It would be the best spot to discuss the summary after dinner.

  Kathy evened out her burnt almond sheath dress before sitting. "And don't tell me I tore my dress in the back," she said.

  "I hadn't noticed," he retorted, sitting alongside her and sliding the birthday package under the table onto the next chair.

  "Why do we hide it," she said, "when this is the ninth gift in a row we've exchanged here?"

  David gazed around the room and said, "What gift?" He unbuttoned his blue blazer and tugged down the only turtleneck he owned. He felt it snap back up.

  "Can I open it now?" she asked, tightening an earring.

  He placed the book-size package before her and said, "Happy birthday. Hope you like it. By the way, where's your gun tonight?"

  "What? What's that got to do with anything?"

  "I don't see any bulges."

  "It's in my purse." She eyed him suspiciously. "Don't tell me you bought another holster. You did that three years ago."

  He remained silent while she admired the red bow up close and put it aside next to her purse before removing the outer wrapper. She separated the tissue inside, frowned, peered up at David and back at the box.

  "This looks magnificent, but why?"

  He leaned over to view a Beretta Cougar F semiautomatic as if he had never seen it before. A card attached to its grip read, ".45 cal. firepower with Cam-Loc System."

  Kathy ran her fingertips along its muzzle and then replaced the tissue. "David, I love you dearly but I hate guns. Plus, I have one already. Thank God, I've never had to use it."

  "But this is state of the art. It puts that ridiculous government issue to shame," he said. "And the `Cam-Loc'? That means there's less recoil."